The lines to follow are not an essay for its own sake. We think a foreign investor should have an idea of the soul of his Bulgarian employees- what they enjoy and suffer. A local employee or a local partner are not race horses in business whose only features are how much they eat and how fast they run. A foreign investor in Bulgaria should go further than the grotesque exchange with his staff “How are you today ? – Fine, thanks and you ?” if he is to make them give that personal and secret “more” which helps the edge cut. He should throw a glance at the twilight beyond the happy-end smile which is often fueled by “smiling pills”.
November 10th
Last Station of the Journey to the Promised Land
- On November 10th 1989 forty five years of Bulgarian communist rule were brought to an abrupt end turning that date into the symbol of a new era. The obscure political mechanics of this event only added to the irrational ecstasy of millions towards a miracle they never thought they would live to see. The nation’s mood reminded of Jewish people having just crossed the sea by miracle and starting their journey to the promised land of democracy, market economy and decent life. When hundreds of thousands of ordinary Bulgarians rushed to the streets of the 1990s to bury communism they had a simple and understandable dream. Carrying the huge sign “A red gang is raping Mother Bulgaria” and seeking for someone to confront them those Bulgarians imagined US/European integrity in their domestic daily life within the country. Instead they got abstract, meaningless and familiar foreign policy “triumphs”. They have the feeling that the cherished US/European domestic daily integrity was traded for and substituted by such foreign policy triumphs. Bulgarians have little if any respect for an elite which behaves like a pet looking for a new master and that is why many of them will not vote in next year’s elections. As one joked : “We got color-blind. We can no longer tell the gang’s color”.
- Today 15 years later the journey of transition seems to be over- a sense of an end station with no further tracks. The ticket was expensive and one-way. Ordinary Bulgarians can only claim back the ecstasy, hope and trust with which they started the journey and lock them deep for the predictable future. Till the next wake up call of history when they realize that the road to Promised Land is a fight with casualties and not a sightseeing trip. In the meantime we may be back to November 9th when the chance of survival depended on the art to pretend.
November 2004
Braykov’s Legal Office