PRI's The World » Bulgaria

The Fall of Communism in Bulgaria

The World — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:00:27 +0000

Many in Bulgaria yearn for a bygone era.

In her new book, Kristen Ghodsee tells the stories of ordinary lives upended by Bulgaria’s move from communism to capitalism in the late 1980s and 90s.

The book is called “Lost in Transition.”

Ghodsee describes a woman who was devastated as she watched a helicopter remove the large red star atop the former Communist Party headquarters.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: Farther north to Bulgaria now where many people yearn for a bygone era. In her new book, Kris Ghodsee tells the stories of ordinary lives upended by Bulgaria’s move from communism to capitalism in the late 1980s and ’90s. The book is called Lost in Transition. Ghodsee writes about a woman who was devastated as she watched a helicopter remove a large red star from a top the former Communist Party headquarters.

Kristen Ghodsee: The analogy I give in the book is what it would be like for an American to see a big helicopter take the Statue of Liberty away and fly away, you know, the end of the United States, the end of country. And that’s what we’re dealing with when we think about the end of communism. And we’ve talked about it politically, we’ve talked about it economically, but what we haven’t done is really go down to the individual level and hear the way that individual men and women experience this massive social upheaval in their lives.

Mullins: And in the big picture we’re talking here not only about a lifestyle and a livelihood, but a personal outlook, a personal set of beliefs that then disappeared.

Ghodsee: That’s right. Communism had a justifying narrative of itself, which is you know, we’re doing everything so that our society will be more equitable. And you know, there were people who believed that. It’s really important to remember that in Bulgaria the people who became communists, many of them fought against the Nazis in WWII. They thought they were on the right side of history and then they were preparing themselves for a life where material things weren’t as important, where you know, yes, there were certain political freedoms that people didn’t have. There was this oppressive state apparatus. There was the same leader in power for the better part of 35 years, but there was this social security and that was a tradeoff they believed was a good one.

Mullins: What about now, 20-something years on?

Ghodsee: Well, now it’s really fascinating. I mean what the demographic information shows is that there are young people who were born after ’89 that are nostalgic. I don’t know if you could call it nostalgia in that case, but who are dreaming of a world that’s different, very different than the one they have today.

Mullins: Are they not hearing the stories that their parents and grandparents could tell them?

Ghodsee: They are hearing those stories about how bad it was, about how you know, how you couldn’t get jeans, and you couldn’t get perfume, and you couldn’t get western cigarettes, and how you couldn’t travel if you wanted to, but at the same time a lot of people can’t travel right now because they don’t have the money. And there are a lot of things that people want that they can’t afford, so it’s a different set of constraints. So, I think that they’re going back and they’re confused and they’re frustrated. The economic crisis has hit many of these countries really hard. And I think that unlike western countries where you know, we never even considered an alternative to our economic system and in fact, the alternative was the ultimate embodiment of evil as far as many people are concerned, the people in these countries are sort of going back and saying well, wait a minute, we used to have heat and we used to have electricity, and we used to have these things, so why couldn’t we save some of that? Why couldn’t we have political freedoms and elections and some social security? Why did it have to be either or?

Mullins: What are they not remembering about communism itself though?

Ghodsee: There is a selective memory in terms of the lack of choice that people had about where they could live, about whether they could travel, a very repressive state apparatus existed. They tend to idealize that repressive state apparatus ironically because things are so chaotic in terms of crime and corruption. So there is some selective memory, but I would say that a lot of people actually remember the bad parts of communism — the shortages, the ubiquitous presence of the secret police. But at the same time there was a survey done I think in 2007 in eastern Germany, which you know, the Stasi, the secret police in Germany, was much more oppressive than the state security services in Bulgaria, 73% of East Germans said that socialism was a good idea in principle, it just wasn’t implemented very well. And I think those are the kinds of sentiments that you hear in Bulgaria — yeah, it was a good idea, we just did it badly.

Mullins: Kristen Ghodsee teaches gender and women’s studies at Bowdoin College. Her latest book is Lost in Transition, Ethnographies of Everyday Life after Communism. It’s a good read. Thank you, Kristen.

Ghodsee: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Audio extra: Author Kristen Ghodsee reads from “Lost in Transition”

Thracian Tinkers Keep Bride-Buying Tradition Alive

Matthew Brunwasser — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:50:59 +0000

The Trakiiski Kalaidzhii – or the Tinsmiths of Thrace – are one of Europe’s most enduring cultures. They still have a semi-nomadic lifestyle, fixing cauldrons and pans as they travel along their traditional routes. In Bulgaria, they are probably most famous for their so-called bride market.

Kalaidzhis don’t marry outside the group. And boys and girls aren’t allowed to date without adults around. So this festival for the feast of St. Todor is one of the few chances they have to meet potential mates, and dance the horo, or ring dance.

The scene in the open field outside town is a strange mixture of modern and old fashioned. The Kalaidzhii women wear their hair in braids, long velvet skirts and brightly colored headscarves and lots of gold jewelry. Their daughters dress just like modern Bulgarian women, in tight, flashy clothes and heavy makeup.

There’s beer, grilled meat and lots of socializing. But even if a couple gets to know each other at one of these events and decides they want to marry, the suitor needs permission from the bride’s father. And most importantly, they need to agree on a price. Vasilka Todorova says the tradition keeps the Kalaidzhi backward.

“The Kalaidzhis go to the market to sell their daughters like horses,” says Todorova. “They are treated like animals. The only thing that’s missing are signs which say how much they cost? I don’t like it at all.”

But while money is a big part of the matchmaking, it’s not like husbands are “buying” a bride says Velcho Krustev, a Bulgarian anthropologist. The bride price, known as “blood for the father,” is essentially payment for his personal guarantee that his daughter is really a virgin. Kalaidzhis see this as the only way to know for sure that the babies she’ll have are her husbands.

“The boy buys the honor of the girl and not the bride herself,” Krustev says. “And the husband’s family is buying the right to include the women’s future children in their family line.”

Deals aren’t completed on the spot. Negotiations take months, dragged out over many similar social events. Krustev says the money is not really a “payment” since it’s generally returned through gifts and financial help for the young family. So the high asking “price” is a kind of proof for the bride’s father that his new son in law will be able to provide for his family.

But for young Kalaidzhi bachelors like Petko Kolev, the price is way too high. He’s been looking for a bride for a long time.

“Maybe 10 years,” Kolev says.

Kolev says the global economic crisis has hurt Bulgaria, but hasn’t affected the expectations of Kalaidzhi fathers.

“It’s making more people poor, but they wants the money,” he says. “The price is not going down.”

A normal price is about $7,000 — more than a year’s wage for the average Bulgarian. Young men here say it can go up to $20,000 if the hoped for bride is really beautiful.

“I don’t like this tradition, it’s very bad, this is a crazy tradition,” Kolev says.

Kolev could elope or marry a Bulgarian woman, but breaking with the tradition he hates could mean breaking with his family. So Kolev says he has to go along.

“Because this is a very old tradition and I have to listen my family,” Kolev says. “I don’t want to be angry with my family, they have taken care of me since I was baby. It wouldn’t be good to do this.”

Kolev says he’s constantly thwarted – even though he’s not even looking for the prettiest girl. He just wants a nice one. “I don’t want her to be beautiful you know, just to have a good heart,” he says. “I want her to be beautiful inside, you understand, to have a good soul.”

Krustev the anthropologist says the Kalaidzhii – of all Roma groups – have preserved the tradition the most. But there are some changes underway.

“They have already started picking their own marriage partners,” Krustev says. “Sometimes they even elope. The older generation doesn’t choose the spouses as often as they used to. The children can choose their spouse, if their parents agree. That’s the big change. The bride price is becoming more symbolic.”

Most younger Kalaidzhis more or less agree that this tradition, like others, will disappear soon, along with the older generation. They’re having fewer children, connecting to the wider world through the Internet and cell phones and mixing more with outsiders. But the end of the traditions, the older generation fears, will mean the end of the Kalaidzhis themselves.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the Tinsmiths of Thrace as Tinkerers. They are referred to as Tinkers. We regret the error.

Global Political Cartoons: March 12 – 18, 2011

Carol Hills — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:00:41 +0000

The Land of the Rising Sun has become for some The Land of Rising Radiation Levels. The aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami has cartoonists morphing the red disc in Japan’s flag into everything from a radiation hazard symbol to a skull.

Global Political Cartoons: March 5 – 11, 2011

Carol Hills — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:00:27 +0000

The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan spawn multiple images of a famous Japanese woodblock print. The tangled role of oil in the world’s response to Libya, and the space shuttle Discovery retires into the arms of another beached phenom.

Egypt through the eyes of other cartoonists

Carol Hills — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 05:07:52 +0000

Cartoonists outside the Middle East are commenting on events in Egypt just as much as those in the region. A few more references to the imagined back and forth between Hosni Mubarak and Barack Obama but just as many pyramids, dominoes and pharaohs. Take a look.

Gypsy brass band Karandila Junior

The World — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:05:42 +0000

By Matthew Brunwasser

Trumpet player Angel Tichaliev remembers hearing a lot of brass bands back in the old days. But they’re long gone. The older masters started dying; popular tastes changed.

In the Balkans, music has been dominated by Roma or Gypsies for centuries. Since the end of communism, the coming of the free market has meant that much traditional Roma music has been squeezed out by more profitable genres.

Hoping to resurrect the tradition, Tichaliev founded the Karandila Orchestra. But that wasn’t enough. So he built a music room in his house for local children. And he created another ensemble – for kids – to pass on the musical traditions.

“Karandila Junior” was born.

“I hope to God they will go to the conservatory and educate themselves later on, so this tradition can continue,” Tichaliev said. “That’s why I’m doing this, because it hurts me to see this type of music dying.”

The band is made up of young gypsy musicians from Sliven, the gypsy capital of Bulgaria. The gypsy ghetto where the kids live is called “Nadejda,” Bulgarian for “hope.”

Karandila Junior is already winning fans around Europe. The band recently wrapped up their first album.

Tichaliev said their repertoire is made of modernized old songs from their great grandfathers. “We don’t play them like we did 20 or 30 years ago,” he said, “we put in jazz elements and change the harmony. A traditional song, for example, is changed by about 50-60 percent.”

Karandila Junior has 17 members aged ten through eighteen. Through rigorous practice and Tichaliev’s leadership, they get something young Roma rarely find anywhere else in Bulgarian society: Discipline and high expectations.

Nikolai Yordanov is sixteen and plays tenor saxophone. He said he can’t imagine doing anything besides playing music. And, Yordanov loves to perform on stage.

“I pick up the mood of the audience too,” he said. “It feels great, for the people to applaud when you are on stage. They ask for an encore. Then you bow in front of them and play another song. That’s the coolest part for me.”

The song “Yurush” was recorded last year at the Ost Club in Vienna, Austria. And Yordanov said there are other jazz clubs where he’d like to perform. “I want to play in New York in some famous jazz club,” he said, “that’s my dream, because I love jazz and want to be a great jazz musician.”

When Angel Tichaliev was in school, there were few educational opportunities for Roma musicians. But today’s youth have options. And he hopes to inspire the members of Karandila Junior to continue their education in a musical high school, conservatory or university. Only then, he said, would the Gypsy neighborhood called “hope” really live up to its name.

Karandila Junior’s album “Ghetto Hope” is scheduled for release on December 9th.
Download MP3

Chinese cars for Europe

The World — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:10:39 +0000

By Matthew Brunwasser

Geely CD at the IAA in Frankfurt

In this promotional corporate video, Great Wall Motor Company leaves no room for doubt about its ambitions.

CORPORATE VIDEO: “Great wall motors has been accelerating its pace on the way of internationalization with magnificent strategy and competitive strength. In this era of opportunity and challenge, great wall motor will keep the future in view and adopt various advanced experiences from home and abroad.”

For Great Wall, the long march to Europe starts in an unlikely place: Bahovitsa, Bulgaria. Not long ago this was an idyllic cow pasture.

A worker joins steel beams together, helping build the enormous skeleton of the future assembly plant for Great Wall, the first Chinese car brand to be produced in the European Union. Production manager Plamen Likyov shows me around.

Likyov: “At the beginning, the first two halls will be built. A final assembly hall and a logistics facility. Then in the middle of next year, they will start to build the other two halls: a painting plant and a facility for welding.”

This plant will produce 50,000 cars per year of three Great Wall models: a pickup, an SUV and a sedan. Great Wall Motors started producing trucks in 1991 and sold its first sedan in 2008. Today their Hover SUV is the second best selling vehicle in China. The company focuses mainly on the Chinese market and the developing world but now they’re branching out.

Ilia Terziev is executive director of Litex Motors, Great Wall’s Bulgarian partner. Litex works in sugar, fruit juice, real estate and tourism among other things. The company was founded by a Bulgarian wrestler who got very rich very fast in the 1990s and now wants to produce cars in his home town. Litex put up 90% of the money for the factory.

Terziev says Litex came up with this idea after considering different factors: the company wanted to produce cars in Bulgaria and they wanted to find cheaper cars to sell locally, since the Balkan market can only afford cheap cars. The Bulgaria project was said to cost 130 million dollars, small potatoes compared to other moves by Chinese car companies.

Geely bought Volvo in March for $ 1.8 billion. It was the first big global auto brand purchased by a Chinese company. The once bankrupt British car maker MG was also bought by a Chinese company and could restart production by the end of the year. Andy Liu from the European department of Great Wall says the company is pretty happy with the EU partnership.

Liu: “The location is very convenient for us because Bulgaria is part of the EU, and it would be very convenient for us to expand our sales in European markets.”

The EU common market means that anything produced within its borders can be sold freely without quotas between all 27 EU member countries. David Sedgewick is an editor with Automotive News China. He says that cheaply made cars may do well in the Balkans, but they’ll have limited appeal in wealthier countries.

Sedgewick: “In the short run, the Chinese automakers aren’t going to pose any significant threat to European auto makers in western Europe or North America or Japan over the next 5 years. That’s just not very likely. They are not ready for that.”

Sedgewick says the Bulgarian factory is little more than a screwdriver plant, with little automation or sophistication. But still it’s a big step to produce cars in the EU – the world’s biggest market.

Sedgewick: “You start at the bottom and work your way up, that’s what the japanese automakers did 50 years ago. its what Hyundai did in the 1980s, that’s the way you start, at the low end and work your way up gradually into the premium segments. I think that’s what the chinese will do.”

VIDEO: “…and with persistent pursuit, stable operation and exquisite products, great wall motors together with china auto industry will strive for the global market..”

While Great Wall stresses the company’s readiness to conquer foreign markets… it still has many miles to go.
Download MP3

Geely acquires Volvo from Ford
Global Economy podcast

Life for Roma back home

The World — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:50:14 +0000

Download MP3
This week the European Commission will decide if it will take action against France over its expulsion of Roma migrants. Correspondent Matthew Brunwasser reports on how the Bulgarian government is setting up social programs to help the Roma integrate back into Bulgarian society.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Ethnic Roma, or gypsies, have never been treated well in Europe. France in particular has made a policy of its antagonism toward the group. The government has deported more than 8,000 Roma migrants back to Bulgaria and Romania this year alone. The expulsions have been popular in France. But some European Union officials accuse France of violating European laws that guarantee free movement and ban racial discrimination. Matthew Brunwasser tells us how Roma are integrating, or failing to integrate, in Sliven, Bulgaria. That’s the city with the highest proportion of Roma in the country.

MATTHEW BRUNWASSER: Roma culture resists integration in mainstream society. Roma tend to mistrust state institutions. So Bulgarian cities train health mediators like Margaritsa Hristova to improve Roma’s access to care.

MARGARITSA HRISTOVA: We are visiting one of our patients. I’m working as a health mediator and I have to check if everything is alright with my patients.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

BRUNWASSER: Hristova’s chatting with a young Roma mother name Maya Alekova. Hristova asks Alekova if she’s kept up her twelve dollar monthly state health insurance payments. Alekova says no, money’s tight these days.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

BRUNWASSER: Alekova says she appreciates the health mediator’s concern, but in general, she says, Bulgarian care givers treat her and other gypsies like second class human beings. For example, when she goes to the hospital.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

MAYA ALEKOVA: I always make sure I’m very well dressed and the child too, or else they’ll throw us out. Especially if the child is a little dirty, that would be the end of us. When we are waiting in line and if some Bulgarian comes up from behind, the doctor tells us “Hey you guys, hold on.”

BRUNWASSER: And Alekova says she has nowhere to turn to object.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

ALEKOVA: Where can I go to complain? I don’t know. Me, a gypsy woman, complain? Who would listen to me? I’m a no one to them.

BRUNWASSER: Part of the problem is communication. Many Gypsies speak Roma as their first language. Sometimes their Bulgarian is poor. Then there is another problem. Romas traditionally place little emphasis on health awareness. Margarita Hristova, the health mediator, says gypsies often not only can’t explain what’s ailing them, they don’t know.

HRISTOVA: They don’t know the part of the bodies. They don’t know the organs. What organs, where is, what is the function of this organ. So I’m trying to explain the problem.

BRUNWASSER: Most Roma here in Sliven live in the Nadezhda ghetto. It has its own parallel state and city institutions, such as a medical clinic, a post office and social services. The idea is to give Roma less reason to leave. But more isolation means less integration. This school is on the other side of town. It was one of the first schools in Bulgaria to participate in a national desegregation campaign. Nikolai Stefanov is a coordinator of the Roma youth organization in Sliven. He says the United States was the model for the desegregation program in Bulgaria.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

NIKOLAI STEFANOV: Americans have accepted African Americans in the same way that Bulgarians are learning to accept us Roma. In the same way you now have President Barack Obama, who has dark skin. It’s a very long process. It has to start from somewhere.

BRUNWASSER: First grade teacher Dora Ivanova has had Roma in her classroom for the past ten years. She says, like it or not, Bulgarians and Roma will have to live together. Ivanova says she has noticed improvements among the Roma children. She says the Roma in her class last year learned to read, write from dictation and do math.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

DORA IVANOVA: 15 or 20 years ago there was none of this. They were massively illiterate, without any elementary habits of hygiene or social behavior. At moments, I felt desperate. At moments, I felt like I’ve reached the end. At moments, I’ve even hated them.

BRUNWASSER: It’s true that some of the Roma bussed in, from the poorest part of the ghetto, have never seen soap, a sink or a decent toilet before. School Director Diana Kuneva says desegregation is a big job, and integrating Roma into Bulgarian life can be one-step forward, two steps back.

SPEAKING BULGARIAN

DIANA KUNEVA: What we’ve succeeded in building here, even for a little while, becomes very fragile when they return to their home environment and some things are lost. We have to start over from the beginning when they come back here. That’s why it takes a lot of time. Desegregation is not only a problem for the schools. It needs to be a process for the whole society.

BRUNWASSER: But some elements of Bulgarian society actively oppose desegregation. For example, the far-right Ataka political party has won seats in parliament by keeping ethnic tensions high. Few in Sliven expect things to get better before they get worse. For The World, I’m Matthew Brunwasser, Sliven, Bulgaria.

Black Sea Hotel

The World — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:19:48 +0000

Black Sea Hotel is made up of four young professional American women in Brooklyn.

Download MP3
For most Americans, Bulgarian folk singing means one thing — and one group: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. The world-famous choir features about 20 women, singing intricate arrangements of traditional folk melodies. Well, in Brooklyn, New York, The World’s Alex Gallafent met a different choir doing it their way. (Photos: Alex Gallafent)

Each singer contributes arrangements and compositions.