Spring weather

Bulgaria is terrible beautiful right now. Under the grey and brown deadwood from last autumn green shots visible, making the soft hills an the Donau plain shine in colours varying with the december sun's position. Last week's snow fills up creeks with water, and wherever you go you hear the subtle sound of dripping rooftops and miniscule rivers running down the streets.

The sun is shining with 15, degrees and when there is no wind it is truly wonderful. I love this kind of mellow weather, so perfect for long walks. The only worrysome thing is that I am not writing this in March or April, but in December. What will March 2010 look like? Will there be any snow left to melt by then?

And what about the animals and plants, how are their cycles of reproduction interefered by spring temperatures between christmas and new year? And what about the people? I guess the first reaction will be positive - most likely the heating bills this winter will be relatively small which will be good news for many people. And still, if asked "- If you get 50% off on your heating expenses, would you be prepared to abstain from winters?", I doubt that anyone would answer yes.

I really have no idea what kind of effects a winter like this might have, or even how this will continue. New data confirms my ad hoc oservations - temperatures are continuing to rise, and the world is now a warmer place than in the 90's.

Meanwhile, in the UK more snow is expected, so maybe the winter is coming back even here. Should we hope for that? I don't know... it was all so much easier when you had four proper seasons.

This text has been cross posted at Th!nk About It!

Christmas in Bulgaria

After christmas gifts, traditional TV shows and lots and lots of food, it seems like Christmas if finally over, and so are my good excuses for not blogging. After all, on does not want to be online when Santa Claus is coming to town, right?

By the way, it seems like Teheran is burning, again. I guess that is what everyone should be blogging about these days (or maybe democracy in China), but others have done it better than I ever will, so I advice you to read them in stead. My thoughts are with the young and old in Iran who risk their lives for freedoms that we take for granted. One day they will win, let'shope it will be soon.

Around here, nothing is burning, not even the stove. I have restricted my activity to eating, not cooking, and two times I get surprised when the food simply appears on the table, not really understanding when and how it was prepared.

Altough christmas traditions in general are quite similar between Bulgarian and Sweden these days, the christmas food is not. No ham, not 14 different sweet salads made of cabbage, neither meatballs nor herring. Here you have a traditional meal which is purely vegetarian, since the lent that comes before any holiday in Christianity is broken at midnight between 24th and 25th. If you like, there is a mass to go to at midnight, but it is nothing I have so far been involved in. We'll see in the future... I do have a soft spot for religious awakening ;)

The most important part of the vegetarian christmas table is probably the pitka, a round, decorated wheat bread. The oldest man in the household breaks it, one part for Jesus, and one part or each family member. Somewhere in this pitka a coin is hidden, and on the one who gets the sun will shine for the year to come. Guess who got it this year! Maladets!

Actually Christmas in Bulgaria doesn't really start before the 25th of December which means that yo have to stay up until midnight on christmas eve, nothing that I am used to from Sweden. First then you can say "Happy Christmas", something I had difficult to get used to my first year here. Interestingly I think I heard "happy christmas" several times before christmas this year... have this become less important in three yeas?

To make you sit up until midnight the Bulgarian TV provides some feel-good christmas films, of course. This year it was Love actually, which it was also in 2007. Could this be the birth of a tradition like Donald Duck on a Swedish Christmas eve?

And so the days go, in a quite predictable manner, including family dinners, café meetings with friends, and visits at relatives. I have found it perfectly relaxing to celebrate with a family that is not your own.The same warmth, but a little less complicated relationships... you somehow get to pick the cherries from the cake, to eat the cake and to keep it. But that's exactly how lucky you get when you find the coin in the pitka.

The last two days I have been walking around in Sofia, and travelled to Pleven where I am right now, awaiting christmas. In Sofia I visited one of the many malls, where I eventually bought myself a Bulgarian novel for 4 EUR, and a good meal for a similar price.

A mall in Sofia but not Mall of Sofia. It is called Sofia City Center and is located right outside the city center...

During my first summer in Bulgaria (2007), a Swedish journalist was here, to file an article about the new EU capital. he was quite as disappointed as he expected to be I think. Also he mentioned the then newly built Mall of Sofia, that he profoundly misunderstood. He saw the luxury inside, remarkable when compared with the misery that can easily be found outside, and from the fact that most people in the streets looked poor to theis Swedish observer, he draw the conclusion that only the mega rich Bulgarians visit the malls. Which is not true.

There are some mega rich Bulgarians, but their numbers have fallen drastically due to the financial crisis. There are also worrying many people who describe themselves as very poor - 13% in a survey I saw in the socialist newspaper Sega. Also their numbers have increased due to the crisis. But the great majority of Bulgarians,around 40% in the same survey, are neither very rich or very poor. In terms of income they are probably poorer than most Swedes, but in terms of living standards the differences are much smaller than one would imagine from official numbers, in which Sweden's GDP is about ten times that of Bulgarias. (2007)

Malls is a major phenomenon in Bulgarian city architecture today, even in smaller cities like Pleven. Prices inside the malls are generally not higher than in shops in the streets - as a matter of facts most of the shops are the same. The visitors are exaclty this group of quite well off middle class people, who have a little extra money to spend, and make it an all day event. It is exactly the place you might expect to meet someone you know, if you work in an office for 500 EUR a month.

One of Pleven's two malls.


Another place where you might meet them, of course is the train or bus station, where everyone living in Sofia is more or less often. For some reason I find myself travelling all the time while in Bulgaria.

Whereas the traffic in Sofia has been horrible for days, and it can not only be the snows fault, the bus trip to Pleven went very smooth. Sure enough media has reported about delayed busses and trains due to the snowy weather, but in fact the problems have been very small in Bulgaria compared to continental Europe. I think Bulgarian media sometimes exaggerate the negative news, and they are quick to use words like "chaos" and "a little hell", about a situation that is awkward but normal anywhere.

Today's videoclip is from central Sofia, where some young lads were snow boarding. Idyllic... Yes, my new years resolution for 2010 will be to learn to shoot better films ;)

Winter in Sofia.

Europe is a funny thing - the eastern and western part are like two siblings, constantly competing, thinking they know all abut each other, and bot feeling utterly misunderstood. Noone can misunderstand you like your own family. The prejudices run deep, and years of experience don't seemt to change much. Most Bulgarians think that Sweden is always very cold, and that everyone take their own life, which is not true. Swedish people think that Bulgarians drive Ladas, and that it is as warm as Spain. This is also not true. Sofia is currently covered in beautiful white snow, that adds an extra factor to the chaotic traffic.

There are other problems than traffic jams, of course. In any crowded bus here, there are always at least two old ladies (why always women?) who start arguing with each other. Initially about something very concrete, like whose seat it is, but the discussion quickly escalates to be about the new political leadership, the old political leadership, corruption, "taja durjava" (this state), the influence of communism and why not the 500 years of turkish occupation. Yes, there are actually quite a lot of people here who think that nothing has been right since beore the turks came in the middle ages, I saw some of the nationalist organisations dealing out flyers on a square today.

It is possible that this Bulgarian national sport of complaining, and blame whoever rules the country has been aggravated by the financial crisis, which is definitely elt as much here as elsewhere in Europe. Yesterday in a shopping mall a little boy passsed me by asking his dad what crisis everyone was talking about. "The FINANCIAL crisis" the dad answered in a strained but pedagogical voice.

In a way it is silly to speak about a crisis here. What is going on now is nothing at all like the dismemberment of society in the wake of the fall of communism, in -93 and -97. That was a real crisis, where peoples existance was at stake. In many ways Bulgaria have just recently got up after those blows.

This one is of course much smaller, and just like in Sweden it has the caracteristics of hard times under capitalism. What is an existential crisis for those who ose their job, is not even a problem for those who can keep theirs. Many Bulgarians have as much money as ever, and the streets are as clean as ever. For others it is really tough now.

If this was the whole story, the Swedish and West European picture of one of Europes poorest countries (an attitude that is not much different whatever country in South Eastern Europe we are talking about) would make sense. But the problem with a prejudice is not that it is wrong the problem is that it leaves out vital parts of reality.

In Sofia today you can for example see Picasso, Dalí, Miro and Chagall paintings, for free. I have seen Dalís in Paris as well, but at a much higher price. You can also get a cheap cup of coffee in a cosy café, where wireless is free to use. That is valuable for a blogger, and symptomatic forcultural life in Sofia. When things happen they are much more inclusive than in the west, where you need at least one university degree to feel welcomed on a Picasso Exibition. There is a liberating abscence of canons, which makes it easy to incorporate all kinds of cutural influences. Here high litterature mix with hip hop in a way that could not be unnatural, only innovative.

Here are some street pictures from today, to give you a more tangible experience...To see them you will nee Firefox 3.5 or similar browsers that can play video without a flash player.

The contrast could not have been bigger...

... at least that's what Prekrasnaja said when we arrived at her family's place in Pleven, Northern Central Bulgaria after 15 hours of travelling and seven different modes of transport. And really - our arrival offered everythin one would put in a novel about Bulgaria. It was not at all like Sweden. An unlikly trafficjam in the entrie center of Sofia. The cabdriver smoked  and tried to cheat us on money.

Then the trip continued in a Marschrutka populated by a few more travellers than us,most of whom where constantly speaking on their mobile phones. The most expressive of them called various friends to tell about her new found lover. When she didn't have anyone to call, she competed with the driver in playing annoyingly lound chalga music.

Finally in Pleven we needed one more cab. Without boasting I can say that my Bulgarian is sufficient for most situations like these. But I didn't get one single word of what the driver was saying. She did, thugh, and we sailed off, I next to him, in a cab that looked like it needed a few serious fixes. The driver had wisely enough downprioritized things like shock absorbers in order to buy a colour TV, complete with a remote control.

But we arrived, and had some unlikely tasty sarmi (kåldolmar) and red wine, and suddely Bulgaria was a warm and relaxed country. The contrast could not have been bigger to the madness outside. But hey... life is made from contrasts.

Sweden is white

Last hours of free time before the trip now. I will work this afternoon, and tomorrow early we leave. Extra early, of course, because Obama is coming to Copenhagen, where we fly from, so the bridge between Sweden and Denmark will be closed during intervals. I guess the terrorists will come with the early morning train like us.

In spite of climate changes, Southern Sweden is now covered by a 10 cm snow cover. Fantastic. Winter abroad is not like winter at home. I walk around, feel the sting in my  cheaks, listen to the softened sounds of a world in snow, breath the freshened air. All these impressions bring back pleasant memories from a childhood furher north... I can only wish that Sweden is the samewhen we came back, but I don't think it's very likely. After all this is almost Denmark, and even a normal winter is quite snowless, so... I'll make the most of it while it is here.

maladets! is coming home

Maladets! blog was born back when I was living in Bulgaria. Not exactly... but more or less true. Tomorrow, within 24 hours I am going there again.

I decided to take this opportunity to write a travelogue. You can expect pictures, inisgnificant details and a personal touch. Maladets! never gets as serious as I want it to - but here I will not even try to be serious.

I hope you enjoy travelling with me to the country of roses and energy crises... Bulgaria!