Pomorie Mud Lark

This weekend we decided to go the the Black Sea. We didn't decide on this plan of action until just after midday on Friday. We arrived at our newly booked apartment in a place called Pomorie by 16:00.

No time wasted as we made our way to find the site which has the therapeutic mud. Once found we went through the process of smothering ourselves with the rich black mud, letting it dry in the warm sunshine, then rinse it off in the sea. a messy process but the results are great.

Not too sure about the compounds involved in the mud, rumour has it that it was created by some volcanic activity unearthing unique minerals in the harboured area. I do know some physics though which explains why our skin felt refreshed and younger. As the mud is applied it is full of water, as the mud drys the water evaporates and the mud contracts. This contraction of mud is sealed to the skin as it drys the mud pulls on the skin giving a kind of slow motion massage. Once the mud is washed off the skin returned to it's original state now unpulled. The result? Skin that has had thousands of minute massages and of course two stages of hydration form the wet mud and the washing afterwards.

After this we lie on the beach and sunbath our aches and pains away with an occasional dip in the sea to cool down. All this with a cold Bulgarian beer at hand. What more could you ask for?

I might add, that this is something we are not accustomed to and as with all things that are held back or you are starved from becomes even more special!

We don't go to restaurants here or pay through the nose at beach shops. Everything we do is on a self catering basis which means the cost is the same as it would be back in Yambol. the only additional overheads are the petrol and the cost of the small studio apartment, but we got that dirt cheap with a last minute deal on Friday online.

We planned to return to Yambol our home on Monday, but we are enjoying ourselves so much we are looking to extend out stay for another night, but only if the price is right of course......

A Bulgarian Present - An Apartment

It is traditional in Bulgaria for the parents to provide their children with a home of their own this is normal. This is the main reason why mortgages are rare in Bulgaria the homes are passed down to the siblings without any need for them.

Today was such a day where this happened and the thoughts and emotions of the day were quite profound from everyone who was party to it.

Galia has two sons and two homes in Yambol, one home is the family home in Yambol where here mother and son who will end up with this home. The other is an apartment on the other side of Yambol which where many years ago she worked hard to pay for this over most of her working life, solely to provide for her other son. This is even more of an achievement being a single mother in Bulgaria.

How sensible that this tradition takes place and how unfortunate that the tradition is on the point of collapse, as the housing market prices have rocketed due to tourism, EU admission and greed, not necessarily in that order. The purchase of a new home in Bulgaria for Bulgarian children is beyond the reach of most people here without now the aid of the Banks who are laughing in the face of tradition here with their incessant need to control people and breed credit just for profit. No wonder there are so many banks in Yambol now, many Bulgarian need them to achieve their goal of finding homes of their children and can’t without them.

The tragedy is that the land and credit they can get from banks isn’t enough for property now as the price of an apartment is now longer commensurate to securing a loan based on wages here. Modern Bulgarian families now face the prospect of children who will become homeless when adults with their own families, will this lead to families sharing homes or finding work elsewhere and extended families fragmenting the very foundation of traditional family values in Bulgaria?

The other fact about Bulgarian families is that sensibly only have one or two children, this is purely practical in view of the responsibility that comes with parents. If you can’t afford to have the children and provide and set them up into adulthood with a home then don’t. How many other people in other countries look at this value when considering a family?

Back to the apartment that is now going to be handed over to Galia’s elder son, he has his girlfriend with him this evening. They called at the house at 8:30 it was dark and we all went see the apartment, which is now empty from the previous rent paying residents being ousted for this moment.

We arrived to be greeted by all the neighbours who were sitting out in the street talking. The smell of barbecued peppers and Rakia was strong but I couldn’t quite see where it was coming from, perhaps on of the many balconies that hung out of the small apartment blocks. It made my mouth water, even though we had had barbecued peppers to eat earlier that evening. It was a full 20 minutes before the talking stopped and we went inside the block.

Everyone is excited, Anton and Koyna for this was the first time they were to see the apartment. Galia as she was proud that all her lifetime efforts were now seeing a result in her son having his own home. Not least me as this was a totally new concept for me to see, a parent providing security for here son with the knowledge that she will be giving everything she has away. No need for wills to be made promising inheritance; this is all based on family trust and custom here. She will be looked after in the family house with her other son and future partner until she dies, he has the bigger share and therefore the responsibility of looking after his mother, just like Galia is looking after her mother in the family home presently. The idea of living in a home that you don’t own is something I find very hard to accept. The degree of family trust and a total materialistic stand off are the reasons that this happens here.

In the ground floor entrance was a series of brown painted metal post boxes as Anton checked his with number 8 written on it. He joked when he saw nothing in there saying that it will be full of bill for the apartment soon.

The basement of the block was explored, each apartment has a basement room for storage and we saw there were stacked metal shelves with lots of glass jars full of preserved tomatoes and peppers and old Russian Christmas decorations and a big wooden barrel that had some ancient wine in. On the top shelf was a new plastic covered single bed, something the previous resident had either forgot to take or will come back for as it is far too good to leave.

We finally got up to the first floor where the apartment was, before we entered Galia gave Anton the key and that was the formal acceptance of the apartment as a gift. He gingerly opened the secure front door amidst three other very individual doors in the hallway with hand made mats and slipper placed on them.

On entering the place was swarming with insects and a stale smell greeted us, but we were all beyond that as we explored the kitchen living room, bedroom and wet room (bathroom). There was a box room next to the kitchen and a sealed balcony with interconnections with the living room and bedroom overlooking the street.

For us all the place was a home but needed a lot of work all the tile were falling apart in the kitchen area and the rest was just in need of a total stripping and redecoration, the place has never been modernised since it was built some 30 years ago. We of course will all work together as a family to get it into shape. Money was offered to help with this as the gifting goes on. But I feel that Anton was overjoyed as for the first time he has now a place he can call his own home, but of course this will be passed down to his children in around 25 years time. No need to die to give.

We locked up and reflected on the moment of handing over and what work was still to be done and ended up in a local bar where the owner is a Bulgarian television celebrity. Ivo Anton brother had just finished work and was invited there as well as we all finally sat drinking a beer or two in celebration of the day in which Anton was given an apartment as his home. A lovely end to a day of giving.

ADD: I just noticed the Christmas tree on the post in the middle of the lower picture, this is there all year round, not early for this coming Christmas!

A Yambol Ghost

It was a single room in the centre of Yambol with an alley kitchen and wet room, it was damp but furnished with not just old furniture but cheap in a league well below MFI standards.

The bed was a well-worn sofa and fractured metal protruding like a badly made bed of nails. It was a good job that cardboard box wasn’t used back home as a fire starter as it was handy as a mattress. No cooker or no fridge, it was very basic living but it was winter so the wet room could pass quite easily as my fridge for a few months. The cooking on my camping gas system brought over from the UK came into its own. It was somewhere to base myself and not have to worry about travelling to work and back in the car, time and petrol\gas cost were behind me now.

Well the place was cheap and convenient but somehow it felt strange there on the first visit and the wonder as to why someone else hadn’t snapped it up for its position in the dead centre of town and a rent of about £7 a week!

It was when I moved in that things started to happen and my thought turned to the reasons I’m here and no one else! Entering the three-door passageway on reaching the top of the stairs a chill fell over me A sudden tingly spine and a slight apprehension about going onto the apartment. Trying to ignore this was difficult but it was my home during the week now and this was where I intended to stay for the foreseeable future.

Even with a few of my personal possessions in the apartment now it still felt as if this wasn’t my place. In the first evening this feeling that I was being watched increased to a point that by the time I lay on my bed of nails I was positively scared.

That first night was horrendous, there were no curtains in the one room and I could see the lamp lit tree in the street motionless so I knew there was no wind. So why were the windows in the kitchen door rattling? Other rattles and knocks and scratching from different parts of the room started, it was a night of commotion and activity in the apartment in contrast to the calm street Yambol High Street outside.

This went on all night and my mind working overtime trying to work out a sensible reasoning behind this happening. At one point I felt something that just seemed to lean on my feet, jumping up, there was nothing there but a shadow moved as this happened. I was at my tether’s end and had the light on for the rest of the night!

The morning couldn’t come too soon and it didn’t end there on my white sheet there was a blood stain that travelled through the foam mattress underneath, through the cardboard box and a drip on the floor underneath the bed. This was where I felt the presence near my feet. I check my body for signs of it there but couldn’t see anything from me. I was beside myself fearing another night here

I knew for a fact this place had a guest, I knew for a fact this apartment had history and I knew for a fact that in my own mind now that this apartment was haunted!

My conclusion was backed up every night thereon. The rattling door continued some night but other things happen every night, usually at around 2-3 o’clock. Shadows moving, the display cabinet glass door suddenly would rattle even though it was magnetically shut and secure. One night I actually saw a vase slightly shift on the windowsill. Knocking on wood and scratching sounds were common and then there was the heavy footsteps in the corridor and a knock on the adjoining wall, even though all the three doors were locked with no access the to anyone else but me!

At this stage I was petrified and on the point of moving out of the apartment; I just couldn’t cope with the sleepless nights and fear of being in the apartment alone, even during the day. I had nowhere else to go so a strong constitution was instilled as I decided to accept the goings on there. In my mind the thought that this guest hadn’t actually done me any harm, all I had to do was come to terms with it in my head.

As the days went by I talked to the moving shadows and asked the rattling door to ‘keep it down’ as I was trying to sleep. The footsteps outside and the bloodstains didn’t happen again but I knew when this character was around. I knew for sure the every night at around 2-3 in the morning the room would suddenly drop in temperature to become chilly and then things would begin to happen. At these times I just automatically wake up like an alarm clock had gone off. Now awake I would just tell the Bulgarian ghost to, ‘Shut up!’ or ‘Stigger (stop)!’ and usually the goings on would also cease or at least calm down a bit.

I had been living there for three months now alongside this Bulgarian ghost; we have an understanding now. He can stay around as long as he’s not too noisy. No footsteps outside, no vases moving and no more bloodstains on the bed! I had threatened him with a priest to perform exorcise on an occasion, this must have turned the fear table on the ghost as this seemed to frighten him away for a few nights. But he did return and I end up apologising not to get on the bad side and give reason for him to seek revenge.

We got on fine, in fact we ended up pretty good friends with our time together, when we left the apartment it was quite a shame we had to leave the ghost!

And Galia, she doesn’t believe a word of it, although I do believe that she didn’t want to believe any of it. She after all was witness to so many of these instances herself!

Well all Bulgarians are indeed very friendly, including their ghosts!