Balkan Bureaucracy
by Katerina Bozhilova
Being in a multi-cultural setting has enlightened me about my own origin `but it has also blurred the line between where cultural identity ends and authentic personality begins.
When people say “So, what can you tell me about Bulgaria?”, I ask them “Which Bulgaria? The historic state, the artistic dimension, the current affairs of importance?” I can tell you about the poetry, the polarizing change, the day-to-day different struggles. I can go on and on about the unjust Bulgaria, the creative Bulgaria, the soothing Bulgaria, the land that feels like home even to foreigners.
This story is not about me. It is an outsider perspective on living in Bulgaria, because more or less descending from somewhere makes you oblivious of its uniqueness. I want to share what Jaroslav, a Czech I met a few years back in Sofia, shared with me,. According to him, he fell in love with the welcoming warmth of his colleagues, the huge parks, the proximity of the mountains, and the collective concern for just about anything. He took on the intimidating task of learning the Bulgarian language and frankly that alone is something to admire. I insist everyone understands that hearing your own language spoken with a foreign accent is one of the best feelings that exist out there.
Another version of the story gets into details about Balkan bureaucracy, its lack of logic and subordination of the past. It is the narrative of my tattoo artist, Valentina, who moved from Ukraine with her family and started a business here. Her grand grandfather was Bulgarian, and so she had a special document proving her heritage which gave her an easier passage through the system of endless documents, for citizenship. When I visited her studio one time, she had just come back from Ukraine and told me about how on the way back, at the airport, they thought her origin statement was counterfeit, and due to the pandemic, they would not let her in the country. She had been taken aback, and with her still broken Bulgarian language, she tried to explain that her family was waiting for her. After being detained for a few hours, the customs officer made her sing the national anthem, and recite a poem, and say a few tongue twisters. Why? I do not know. But apparently, these are the necessary qualifications (according to some) for one to qualify as a local.
A similar story was told to me by a Macedonian Team Leader I once met on an Erasmus+ project. Since he had been continuously travelling over the summer, a friend of his asked him a favor: to load his car trunk with sixty jars of honey and transport them to Bulgaria, to their storage facility. On the border, however, when he was stopped and searched, the custom’s guards would not let him through. What was wrong? They would not explain. “You can’t pass with that much honey”, is what they kept saying. After three agonisingly long hours, he tried a new approach – a typically Balkan one. He suggested, “if you and your colleague get to keep two each for yourselves, would that be enough to pass?”; “Make it three and be on your way”, is the only thing he heard. It is such a silly event that I laughed when I heard it, but I do not think everyone would have reacted the way I did. It is inherently Bulgarian to make fun of the predictability of the previous generation being stuck in their ways.
I wanted to illuminate these not-so-flattering incidents, because they happen, and they happen all the time. Most importantly, they are an annoying reminder that culture is not only composed of good things. It is sometimes also challenging, unexplainable, and frustrating – even when it is your own one. The main takeaways from this exposé should be as follows: fascinate the locals with your language skills, learn the hymn(just in case), and always, always hide the honey in different places.