A Classic Bulgarian Misunderstanding

Cases of classic misunderstandings Bulgarians has caused all sorts of problems over the years and it still happens. There was one prime classic misunderstanding that wasn't realised until this week and reminded me that these misunderstandings will probably never end here in Bulgaria.

Just to give some background here, the previous owners of Skalitsa farmhouse and smallholding off where an elderly couple called Marina and Mitko. They moved in with their son to the town of Stara Zagora. Marina couldn’t wait for town life, but Mitko didn’t want to move, he loved village life and was in tears when we signed the contract. This is the case for many couple here, women want the town and the men want the country life.

Last year we were at the Skalitsa Farmhouse sitting out in the garden. We heard the iron garden gate creak as it always does to warn us of visitors. We waited a moment for the visitors to walk a short distance and peer around the corner as we all watched. It turned out that the visitors was Marina, the woman who used to live here with here son. They were in Skalitsa and though they’d pay us a visit out of courtesy as they were here.

And so the talking started. I wondered where Mitko her husband was and naturally asked. The answer given was that, ‘He is above us’ with a finger pointing to the sky. I was quite shocked with the though that he had passed away and gave my condolences.

The message that Mitko had died so much was passed on to my nearest neighbour the next day with mention that it must have been the heartbreak of having to move away from the village life he loved. No more was thought about it at the time.

A year on and my neighbour Sacho told me that he was sure he had seen a ghost a couple of days before. It was evening and he was putting his goats in for the night and he saw Mitko wondering around his old home. There are many ghost stories in the village and this was another one that he though he saw. He told his wife Rosa what he had seen and again, they put it down to Mitko paying a ghostly visit to his old loved smallholding.

Sacho went on to say that Rosa went to work in the school the next day and told others of the story of Mitko’s ghostly figure wandering around the previous evening. She was duly informed that there was no ghost of Mitko around, but Mitko in real life who had come this year to see old friends in the village and went to see his old home!

Sacho said that he spoke to Mitko yesterday and he was very much alive. He then asked me who said that he had died. I explained that his son said that he was above us and pointed his finger to the sky. Sacho then burst out laughing saying that Mitko was up above us in the apartment block he was living in Stara Zagora. He didn’t come to Skalitsa last year but stayed at home – That’s where he was!

Well the misunderstanding lasted a year and I’m glad Mitko is still alive and kicking albeit still not very happy with town life. As for ghosts, well no recent additions recently, but lot so stories from neighbours of existing ones to be told on a cold and still winter night – That’s a long way off right now.

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!