Christmas and New Year Celebrations in Bulgaria - Phew!

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It was a relative short lead up to Christmas  in Bulgaria which really started at the beginning of December. Albeit foreign and global based companies tried desperately to influence and gate crash with advertising in November. Bulgaria has ignored and fended them off for now, but for how long? So, it was quite refreshing to have a Christmas that was in your face so to speak at Christmas time.

Decorations went up in the first week of December, modest but make a statement of modern time Christmas spirit. Some people, myself included know that traditional Christmas's are a legacy from Victorian bygone age and the Father Christmas as we know him a Coca Cola designed invention as recent as 1931. Well far be it for me to dilute the celebratory atmosphere with facts of Christmas history, we proceed under the disguise of the media vision.

A Vegetarian Start to Christmas Eve

We were suddenly made aware that on Christmas Eve we were to be the hosts to Galia's son, his wife and child. With this it was three days of preparation of traditional food to be laid out on the table for that evening. In case you were not aware, Christmas Eve evening is the main time for gathering of families in Bulgaria to celebrate Christmas. The evening is spent wining and dining a non meat diet up until midnight when the meat is paraded in and tucked into. It is also at this time when presents are exchanged. When we celebrated Christmas in the village with neighbour we also had traditional party games such as the trying to bite hanging apple from the ceiling. Not this year though, just wine, dine, music and talk.

Bulgarian Music Next Year

Galia's Son, partner and Grandson

Table laid and family guests arrive, after a couple of hours, the cover was off the piano and an attempt to get everyone to singalong with Christmas carols failed totally. Apart from the melody from Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas tree, not of the carols were known. So I resorted to some Beatles hits such as 'Yesterday', 'Hey Jude' and 'Yellow Submarine', but everyone except me w were passively tongue tied with their lack of lyrical repertoire in English. BIG learning curve for next year where I will try and get Bulgarian Songs ready from performing with hopefully a more proactive audience.

Food gradually diminished as the evening progressed, then midnight struck and the rabbit made a grand entrance. a local village bred rabbit, a not a supermarket frozen job that could put you off for life. The meat was sweet and tender and well worth the trouble and wait, Stuffed with rice that had absorbed the rabbit's juices it was real Christmas treat. After small presents exchanged and a few more drink the guest left leaving Galia's Grandson with us, which meant I was sleeping in the living room by the Christmas Tree on the sofa this Christmas night.

All done and dusted for another year the next day was traditionally a day of rest and recovery from the night before. It was a trip to the City Park to see a fantastic display and sound of Bulgarian traditional dance an music respectively. Transfixed on the event for over two hours amongst literally thousands of locals. However there was a annoyance from locals I spoke to about Christmas and New Year celebrations. It was more than noticeable that Gypsies attended these Christmas celebrations in many areas of the town they far outnumbered the Bulgarian. They do not have Christmas in their religious calendar coming from their Islam faith so why do they all gather in a Christian celebrations. Well the answer I got in the main was for money. Asking and begging for money is more fruitful at Christmas with Christians being charitable. There is also a lot of pickpocketing and other sneaky criminal elements that are practiced to a mainly unsuspecting public. I was warned not to attend the New Year City Centre event as even more Gypsies were looking for opportunities to steal. I had other plans for New Year anyway, but took note on the advice seriously. All said and done, I loved the music and dance a true heart warming Bulgarian event.

In between Xmas and New Year we entertain a long term friend who used to be my good neighbour in Skalitsa. It's funny how many times coincidence hits home. She is now my neighbour in Yambol in fact living even closer to use than before unbeknown until we moved over here again. We entertained her playing board games and talking about old times in the village. 

A few days later we were at her apartment seeing her son who had now married with a son. I hadn't seen him for many years since he moved to Burgas many years ago. It was a wonderful treat to rekindle our friendship that was cemented in Skalitsa and now plan to see him in the Summer in Burgas.

So, just the New Year to get through now and the plan was made to play host our closest neighbours. We had recently been guests in their home so it was quite fitting to invite them. The food definitely wasn't vegetarian as I had barbecued kebapche, kufta, pork steaks and a few Bulgarian sausages beforehand.

All prepared and ready to receive our guests and they duly turned up and we had a ball with music and dance all evening. Some 5 year old homemade rakia was brought as a gift and naturally led to talk of rakia making with tips and wrinkles which went on for ages.

New Year Guests

The evening went far too quickly with midnight rushing towards us. Our plan was to venture outside and celebrate the twelve chimes into the New Year with other locals. this didn't go to plan as directly the New Year arrived it was like Beirut outside with bombs being set of at random, being thrown out of tall apartment block buildings and rockets being fired sidewards in the street. It was darn dangerous out there so we watched and celebrated with some sparkling wine in the relatively safe confines of our balcony. I have to admit that this was the noisiest New Year celebration I have every experienced anywhere. Unforgettable in terms of inhibition of actions going against all advised regulations ensuring safety of fireworks. The local hospital must be on red alert on such occasions with casualties from burns.

The evening went on with more dancing, more food and drink and a special banitsa made with fortunes to be told in each piece taken. Mine was 'Marriage' and Galia's 'Good Health'. Of course I don't believe a word of it, but good fun.

Yambol's Cemetery

The next day was a trip to the cemetery to pay our respects to Galia's mother who died on 1st January five years ago. So quite s sobering start to the New Year. I was a glorious sunny and warm day and refreshing to see so many shops closed as there is no such thing as New Year Sales in Yambol.

The party goes on with name day celebrations and party invites from other neighbours coming up the following weekend. As always in Bulgaria, any excuse to party and socialise. Since coming back home to Bulgaria it feels like I have been freed from what felt like a jail sentence in the UK with all work and no play.

A Heated Debate About Bloggers As Journalists

What season that has now come to a close. Relaxing and partying on was the name of the game. Funny, but the harder you work the more you tend to enjoy the breaks. 2009 was indeed a very hard year of work, hardly any holiday time – I think we had four days this year - So this Christmas and New Year was especially appreciated for getting out of work mode and into the swing of celebration on both religious and secular fronts.

I have to say with all that went on there was just one thing that has stuck in my mind during this period. It was a heated debate with a professional Bulgarian journalist who I met. He was a friend of a friend and we were acquainted a few days after Christmas. He is now middle aged and has been a journalist since he was 18 years old straight from college. He works for a local newspaper writing about Yambol topics including a fair range of subject from sport to current affair and even recipes. Apart from a few words of English he was from the old school of Bulgarians who dabbled in a bit of Russian for a second language.

It all began when this tall well built, unshaven looking Bulgarian asked what I do in Bulgaria, he was under the assumption like most that I had a hefty pension and was here to party on till death. It was a bit of a shock when I said that I work for a living here. He was even more shocked when I told him that for a living here I work in a boiler factory during the day and have many blogs writing in the evening and at weekends to make ends meet.

Most Bulgarians I meet are cold to start with and warm up only after a few minutes of talking, it was the other way around with this chap. It seemed that once he had found that I write about Yambol and Bulgaria and publish the work I write, including my book that was published just over a year ago, he looked at me as competition and started putting bloggers down. He considered bloggers an untalented group of people who give journalists a bad name as they consider themselves as journalists many without any writing background, training or experience. I explained that in the main blogger write for a hobby and to pick up a little earning if they can to cover their costs and there was nothing wrong in that. He begged to differ saying that blogging as a hobby isn’t wrong, but the reams of junk they write shouldn’t be allowed to be published as 99% of it is substandard!

He was getting really uptight about it and the conversation took a turn to arguing about the freedom to express yourself in writing no matter what level you are at. My best for of defence here was to attack and not try and justify nothing wrong with my writing being published even if it isn’t up to professional standards, (whatever that means!) I started asking the questions now. Having already known he left school at 18, he only had the normal diploma of serving his time in school, something equivalent of a couple of ‘A’ levels. A asked what journalist training he had since leaving school. He avoided the question by saying that he had been writing for newspapers for 30 years now and was a maestro of his trade. I attacked again by saying “So you haven’t had any formal training or any qualification as a journalist!” Again he changed the subject moving on to mention the stories he had covered over the years including an interview with the President a few years ago.

We continued to debate fiercely the question on whether blogger could call themselves ‘journalists’. I argued the case that with an Honours Degree and a couple of Post Graduate Qualifications as well as many years experience teaching student of all ages as well as having my book published (and many having been sold) I was actually far more qualified to be a journalist than he was. (You could tell that chap was getting up my nose a bit). Bulgarians don’t like it up them you know (From Mr Jones in Dad’s Army if you were wondering). His loudness suddenly became subdued at this point and perhaps a degree of respect come out once he had found that working in a boiler factory was in no way commensurate to my educational background.

Our talking was back to talking rather than shouting (although shouting is still a normal way of talking here in debate). We agreed to differ substantially over the question: ‘Should bloggers should be allowed to call themselves journalists?’ He wouldn't even consider the tag ‘amateur journalists. In fact I recall him saying that all blogger should be shot with the bad writing they come out with and publish. It was just as well I didn't mention that I was dyslexic as I'm sure that this would have brewed up another heated debate on whether dyslexics should be allowed to write - And I would have ended up punching the guy!

Well, the evening was quite memorable and like I said sticks in my mind more than any thing else that went on over the last two weeks. I think that this ‘journalist’ has a closed mind and from what I gathered about his opinions I don’t think I would be tempted to read his presumably ‘closed minded’ articles, unless it is a recipe perhaps.

What do you think? Do you feel that bloggers are journalists? I for one read many blogs everyday and in the main it is journalism. By definition a journalist is a person who either is “someone whose occupation is journalism,” which accounts for the Bulgarian newspaper journalist I met, or, “someone who keeps a journal” and this of course meets the vast majority of blogger vocations.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Tampons - An Inventive Bulgarian Alternative

I know smoking is bad for you but here in Bulgaria it is considered normal to smoke and unusual not to. This will change as the EU grips Bulgaria by the throat and forces the people there not to smoke by raising the cost of cigarettes tenfold.

The cost of cigarettes has double in the last couple of years and is due to increase by another 43% in the New Year, so Bulgarians being Bulgarians find a practical way of dealing with this. The answer they have now is to roll their own cigarettes, which works out at around half the cost of factory made smokes. My partner uses filters in her rolled versions and this is where the tip comes in.

This weekend she ran out of filters so being a practical women she looks for something that could replace it as we were in the village with no shops that sold roll up cigarette accessories. It was that time of the month when potential baby producing women bleeds and she had some tampons in here handbag that dealt with it. Sunday morning I woke up and found one of these tampons cut into pieces. She had used her tampon as cigarette filters!

Well this is how it is in Bulgaria, such a practical people as ever with no scruples about dealing with a problem in whatever way works that lay in front of them. I must add that the tampon in question was unused! (In case you were wondering.)

It worked so well that my partner has decided to use tampons instead of conventional filters as it actually works out cheaper and works just as well. My advice of course is to give up smoking all together which would be a bigger saving, but this is Bulgaria and the smoking goes on.

Image via Wikipedia

New Year's Resolutions for 2009

It seems to me that the New Years celebrations are the same all around the world. It is just a simply a countdown to midnight with lots of friends around and climaxing with fireworks. For many the 1st January a day of recovery from the night before. How many New Year resolutions will be made and how many broken before January comes to an end. Quite a few I fear, but at least people are trying.

To me, New Year is always a reflection as to how this can improve on the year before. It is like turning a new leaf and starting again which I suppose is where the 'New Year's Resolution' factor comes in.

I don't make any resolutions anymore; in fact I haven't since coming to Bulgaria. The philosophy behind that is, why put oneself under this kind of pressure? New Year’s resolutions certainly aren’t a Bulgarian thing to do, but that isn't the reason why I don't do it, it just doesn't feel right nowadays for me to compete against myself. 15 years ago was my last resolution; that was to give up smoking. I have succeeded until now, but of course the competition of this particular resolution is not complete until you die. So in view of that this is a continuing resolution that remains with me until such a point.

So whatever your resolution, I hope it goes well and you achieve whatever you have resolved to do.

In the meantime, it remains for me to wish everyone a
Happy New Year and a
Peaceful and Productive 2009