If I lived a slow life, closer to myself and my environment, would I then be blogging? I think no. Blogging is a here-today-gone-tomorrow-activity that celebrates the short minded society we live in. The media is the message, and the message of this media is to read, react and forget. 50 years from now, schoolkids will still be reading about the great writers of teh 19th century, not about the great blogers of th 21th..Anyway...
I have had the privilege to spend almost a week in one of the less exploited Bulgarian seaside resorts. It has been a slow life. Nothing else to do than to visit one of the three possible beaches, and ponder where to consume your lunch and dinner. That's not a rythm of life that triggers you to blog.
Anyway... the lunch today did truly deserve a blog post. We spent the morning on a beach, slowly descending into a meditative existance where your body turns into wind, salt and sea. I guess we would never have left the beach, if it wasn't for the thunderstorm. It came. We ran.
Right before the rain started faling on us, we entered a place that looked more or less open for guests.
-Is it open? My fiancee asked.
The face of the man we met int he stairs told us that he made up the answer right there and then.
-Yeah, sure. Welcome up on the terace.
We sat down on a terace with view of the sea, with a roof but no walls. That proved crucial five minutes later when the rain was at its most intensive. We were handed menues, and skillfully picked the cheapest dishes (always go for chicken, and traditional salads).
Not that the menu was much of an advice. When the women in charge came up to us, it appeared that only a handful of the dishes in the meny were actually available. One of them was the "Arabian chicken", a kind of crepe with chicken, ham, cucumbers and mushrooms. I immediately fell for the offer and ordered an arabian chicken, whereas my grlfirend stayed with a traditional sirene po shopski.
The woman went down the stairs and we took a look at the menu. Damn! Of course the Arabian chicken costed three times as much as the chicken dish I had planned to order. For a moment we contemplated to go down to the kitchen and change the order, but what the heck... you only live once, and who wat s to die without haveing tasted the Arabian chicken.
This is when Harry showed up. Harry was a she, a 46 days old boxer puppy who came to us to look for a warm place and someone to cuddle him in the cold unfriendly weather. At this time the thunder was right above us. After saying hello, he decide to take a nap, using my feet as his cushion. Sweet...
The food came. It was tasty, and the people in the restaurant did their best to become our friends, so we were prepared to forgive them the 7 EUR Arabian Chicken. Nice place, we thought, and prepared ourselves to go.
That's when the owner shows up and tells us that because we are the first clients of the season, they had decided to give us a special dish of grilled captain's fish, and half a litre of wine!
We enjoyed the fish and the wine, and Harry enjoyed our company. Pretty soon she found a place to sleep in my fiancees's knee. So there we sat getting drunk on wine that we never had ordered, with the restaurant owner's dog sleeping in our knee. What can you do but to laugh. We agreed - this would never happen in Sweden, and that is a pity.
----------
I am not sure. Maybe this could happen in Sweden, under very specific circumstances. The thing about Bulgaria is that here it happens stuff like this all the time. Yesterday at dinner there was no dog, but well three cats hanging around in the restaurant,making the visit into something else than pure eating.
One obvious reason is that people here are not so neurotic about animals. At the dinner yesterday on cat had parked itself on a restaurant table. The bulgarian customers did not freak out, as Swedes would do, but in stead started to cuddle with it. After all, a cat has never killed anyone. Neither has a puppy.
But it is not only about anumals. The thing is that something happens once you have said hello to the restaurant owner's dog, cat, child or whatever - the professional distance between you and the restaurant owner dissapears, and you start interacting on a human level. My impression is that Bulgarians always wait for this to happen. They wait for something else to come up so that they can start behaving like friends and not customers. Not only the customers - the restaurant owners want it as well.
And as always - when all people involved in a situation want something to happen, it happens. We were treated as friends, and when we were happy to have experienced something out of the normal holiday routine. Somewhere along the line the price of the Arabian Chicken fell to about a quarter of the menu price. Sometimes it pays off to order something unexpected.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Climate, development and a little hygge
--- Poor in wealth, rich in sun ---
Why are some countries rich and others poor? Everyone who is thinking about global matters is bound to come up with some kind of answer, but most likely no answer will be final. Strolling under the Bulgarian sun, I can not help but thinking about Montesqieu's classical answer - the climate makes some countries rich, and other poor.
The theory is 300 years old, and in a way quite easy to discard. In Montesqieu's texts there is so much of the joy of system-building, that it is easy to imagine that the writer bends reality to fit into the system, where necessary.
It is also easy to see that Montesqieu wrote in a certain historical moment when northern Europe was richer than southern - and eastern Europe, and Europe as a whole was richer than the rest of the world. The fact that the world looks similar today doesn't change the basic fact - it has not always been like this. And the only conclusion we can draw from history is that it will not always be like this. Aren't the chinese taking over now, by the way?
The people in Bulgaria now live considerably poorer than their Swedish counterparts, especially if you compare lower income Bulgarians with lower income Swedes. But in the 13th century they did not, and they probably were not worse of in the 16th century either, depending on who you ask.
When Montesqieu wrote his texts Sweden was enjoying an export boom - this corner of northern Europe was the world's biggest exporter of iron at the time. Bulgaria then suffered hard from the corruption and anarchy in the decaying Ottoman empire. The scars from that hard period has not yet healed completely in the Balkans.
--- Montesqieu is dead. Long live Montesqieu! ---
And still... the idea that the climate decides what countries are rich and poor is outdated. But still there is something appealing about it. Bulgaria has had a lot of bad luck with its governments, but when it is 30 degrees outside and your garden blossoms, you might care more about the good luck to have direct access to tasty tomatoes.
Bulgarian life is filled with what the Danish call "Hygge". Swedes are very jealous of the Danish hygge, so my description is not at all objective. Moreover, there is no Swedish word for the concept, so there is a possibility that we don't know what we are talking about, but anyway.
Hygge is something like a relaxed way of doing nothing with friends. The classical form involves beer but I guess that is not necessary. There are no achievements involved, no demands, and there has to be something improvised about it. You could maybe agree with someone to meet later this week for a "hygge" situation, but you couldn't plan 2 hours of "hygge" every friday for example.
When you walk between the panel houses somewhere in Bulgaria, this is exactly what you see - neighbours sitting outside, cracking jokes, not doing very much at all. I am not implying that they are happier than other people, but they do seem to have a good time.
A harsher climate kills the opportunities to "hygge". It might be less confortable outside, and in a harsher environment good planning might make the difference between survival and death. WSwedish summers, improvising must have been dangerous in pre-industrial times.
The struggle to stay alive also gives an incentive to demand a just government, as bad politics could easily be lethal. And there is not much of a garden to retreat to when times get rough. Could this be the reason that people seem to lose very much of their political sense when their lives become comfortable.
--- So what do we want? ---
It is obvious that people without "hygge" and whose toil in the fielsd give meager results have more to win from industrialization, and maybe we can establish some sort of historical relation between climate and development. But the world has changed a lot since Montesqieu's days, and other forces are probably in play now.
Still, some question about priorities linger. We might need development, but isn't hygge what we really want?
Why are some countries rich and others poor? Everyone who is thinking about global matters is bound to come up with some kind of answer, but most likely no answer will be final. Strolling under the Bulgarian sun, I can not help but thinking about Montesqieu's classical answer - the climate makes some countries rich, and other poor.
The theory is 300 years old, and in a way quite easy to discard. In Montesqieu's texts there is so much of the joy of system-building, that it is easy to imagine that the writer bends reality to fit into the system, where necessary.
It is also easy to see that Montesqieu wrote in a certain historical moment when northern Europe was richer than southern - and eastern Europe, and Europe as a whole was richer than the rest of the world. The fact that the world looks similar today doesn't change the basic fact - it has not always been like this. And the only conclusion we can draw from history is that it will not always be like this. Aren't the chinese taking over now, by the way?
The people in Bulgaria now live considerably poorer than their Swedish counterparts, especially if you compare lower income Bulgarians with lower income Swedes. But in the 13th century they did not, and they probably were not worse of in the 16th century either, depending on who you ask.
When Montesqieu wrote his texts Sweden was enjoying an export boom - this corner of northern Europe was the world's biggest exporter of iron at the time. Bulgaria then suffered hard from the corruption and anarchy in the decaying Ottoman empire. The scars from that hard period has not yet healed completely in the Balkans.
--- Montesqieu is dead. Long live Montesqieu! ---
And still... the idea that the climate decides what countries are rich and poor is outdated. But still there is something appealing about it. Bulgaria has had a lot of bad luck with its governments, but when it is 30 degrees outside and your garden blossoms, you might care more about the good luck to have direct access to tasty tomatoes.
Bulgarian life is filled with what the Danish call "Hygge". Swedes are very jealous of the Danish hygge, so my description is not at all objective. Moreover, there is no Swedish word for the concept, so there is a possibility that we don't know what we are talking about, but anyway.
Hygge is something like a relaxed way of doing nothing with friends. The classical form involves beer but I guess that is not necessary. There are no achievements involved, no demands, and there has to be something improvised about it. You could maybe agree with someone to meet later this week for a "hygge" situation, but you couldn't plan 2 hours of "hygge" every friday for example.
When you walk between the panel houses somewhere in Bulgaria, this is exactly what you see - neighbours sitting outside, cracking jokes, not doing very much at all. I am not implying that they are happier than other people, but they do seem to have a good time.
A harsher climate kills the opportunities to "hygge". It might be less confortable outside, and in a harsher environment good planning might make the difference between survival and death. WSwedish summers, improvising must have been dangerous in pre-industrial times.
The struggle to stay alive also gives an incentive to demand a just government, as bad politics could easily be lethal. And there is not much of a garden to retreat to when times get rough. Could this be the reason that people seem to lose very much of their political sense when their lives become comfortable.
--- So what do we want? ---
It is obvious that people without "hygge" and whose toil in the fielsd give meager results have more to win from industrialization, and maybe we can establish some sort of historical relation between climate and development. But the world has changed a lot since Montesqieu's days, and other forces are probably in play now.
Still, some question about priorities linger. We might need development, but isn't hygge what we really want?
Friday, June 11, 2010
Maladets! lands in Bulgaria
I am the kind of guy who always, even if I bring nothing else than my passport and an issue of the Economist, must give away something at the security check when i try to board a plane. I guess it is my left wing history that shines through...
About a year ago, when I left Bulgaria, I had packed my much loved swiss army knife in the hand luggage, which I had to give up, of course. That is kind of understandable, as it is not hard to imgagine how an able terrorist could threaten the pilot with a Swiss army knife. This time, however, I was forced to hand two Risifrutti rice-meals over to the authorities.
It really gets me thinking... how on earth could I hijack a plane with a Risifrutti? Isn't my belt a better weapon. Theoretically, on the James Bond level, I could shred my T-shirt, and use it to strangle the pilot. But a Risifrutti? If I threw it and hit him, it wouldn't even hurt.
Airport rules are silly. Every day thousand of people are checked, their bags are turned inside out and schampoos and rice meals are confiscated. I wish some sociologist would examine how people accept such humiliation treatment without a complaint. Imagine if someone told you that you can't bring a bottle of water on the train - most people would just laugh at that.
Maybe it is some kind of feeling that you are important, and that flying is a special activity that makes people accept anything on an airport. Maybe it is their own fear of terrorist who can turn water into bombs that creates this enormous confidence in custom-servants.
I don't know. Once I was in the plane, everything was just fine. I got to sleep, to read and to eat the parts of my food that was not liquid. We flew low cost, so there was no food on the plane, but I can't say that I missed it. I missed the Risifrutti, though.
And once in Bulgaria... what can you say? This country has an ease and a charm that is just conjuringg, especially in the summer. some firend surprised us with meeting up at the airport. Then we spent the mellow evening in Borisovata Gradina, eating the mandatory fried potatoes with chees and kebabche. A beer to that - and life is as close to perfect as it gets.
This trip has begun more than well.
About a year ago, when I left Bulgaria, I had packed my much loved swiss army knife in the hand luggage, which I had to give up, of course. That is kind of understandable, as it is not hard to imgagine how an able terrorist could threaten the pilot with a Swiss army knife. This time, however, I was forced to hand two Risifrutti rice-meals over to the authorities.
It really gets me thinking... how on earth could I hijack a plane with a Risifrutti? Isn't my belt a better weapon. Theoretically, on the James Bond level, I could shred my T-shirt, and use it to strangle the pilot. But a Risifrutti? If I threw it and hit him, it wouldn't even hurt.
Airport rules are silly. Every day thousand of people are checked, their bags are turned inside out and schampoos and rice meals are confiscated. I wish some sociologist would examine how people accept such humiliation treatment without a complaint. Imagine if someone told you that you can't bring a bottle of water on the train - most people would just laugh at that.
Maybe it is some kind of feeling that you are important, and that flying is a special activity that makes people accept anything on an airport. Maybe it is their own fear of terrorist who can turn water into bombs that creates this enormous confidence in custom-servants.
I don't know. Once I was in the plane, everything was just fine. I got to sleep, to read and to eat the parts of my food that was not liquid. We flew low cost, so there was no food on the plane, but I can't say that I missed it. I missed the Risifrutti, though.
And once in Bulgaria... what can you say? This country has an ease and a charm that is just conjuringg, especially in the summer. some firend surprised us with meeting up at the airport. Then we spent the mellow evening in Borisovata Gradina, eating the mandatory fried potatoes with chees and kebabche. A beer to that - and life is as close to perfect as it gets.
This trip has begun more than well.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Heading south
The time has come to once again visit maladets! home country - Bulgaria. That means that maladets! in Bulgaria will come to life again.
As last time, the ambition is to serve the world wide web with more pictures, less analyzes and more personal writing. The context behind wathever comes up will be sea, sun, traffic jams, tsatsa, Shumensko and other Bulgarian niceties. And who knows... maybe I will find my MP3 player somewhere?
Enjoy!
As last time, the ambition is to serve the world wide web with more pictures, less analyzes and more personal writing. The context behind wathever comes up will be sea, sun, traffic jams, tsatsa, Shumensko and other Bulgarian niceties. And who knows... maybe I will find my MP3 player somewhere?
Enjoy!
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Blogging in the time of cholera
I was sick. Or to be completely true, I am still sick while writing this. I am laying under the sheets, drinking tea, while my head is spinning from antibiotics and other drugs they put in me...
When it comes to dealing with health and sickness, Bulgaria and Sweden are very different. My current diagnosis is a cold with lots of coughs, moderate fever and breath pains when I have coughed too much. A Swedish doctor would tell me to relax, drink tea, eat healthy stuff and call him again tomorrow if the coughs are still there. Bulgarian doctors, and it seems all Bulgarians are trigger happy, and immediately offer antibiotics, something that would be only the very last solutuions for a Swedish doctor.
And it is not only about the doctors. As a Swede I am sceptical towards medicines in general, and antiobiotics specifically. I want, and expect, my own body to conquer the disease without foreign help. It might take some days, but who has died from a flue? To help it I use ascetisism. No coffe, no alcohol. Tea and vegetables.
Bulgarians in Sweden on the other hand, despair over the doctors' reunctancy to prescribe medicine, and blames him for their diesases. I know, it sounds like a gross generalization, but it is real. Some days ago it was another Swede, with another Bulgarian girlfriend, and another Bulgarian mother in law, who fought the same battle, trying to avoid antibiotics as long as possible.
I held out for days, but eventually the fever got too big, and my Swedish method of living through it didn't seem to work. After all, I did not do it the proper Swedish way, since I didn't restrict myself from neither wine, women or coffee. So eventually I started the antibiotics cure. When in Rome, do as Romans do.
The difference inideas about health and sickness run deep. Consider this - when Bulgarians drink they raise their glasses and say "Nazdrave!", "for health". Whenever they ask each other something for birthdays or new years, being healthy is always mentioned first. "Health is the most important thing" is a common thing to say, even among young Bulgarians.
Swedes say "skål" meaning the "bowl/glass that we drink from". This skål is either accompanied with a song (that praises the bliss of drinking) or a lenghty speech aboout some individuals personal achievements, much like they do it in Georgia. If someone in Sweden wished me "a healthy 2010" I would look at him or her long, wondering what he or she meant with that. Does he expect me to get sick?
Somehow we take health for granted in Sweden. During many years, the lower living standard in Bulgaria potentially made diseases lethal in a way that they were not in Sweden. People did die. But they wished each other to be spared from this destiny, the most brutal of all. Getting treatment quickly might have been about survival in a way that it was not in Sweden.
Another thing is that it is a hell of a lot more annoyning to be sick in Bulgaria than in Sweden. Consider sitting on the bus with 40 degrees of fever in Lund, and compare that with sitting on a bus in rush hour Sofia. And if your apartment is cold, you better get better quickly, or you might get worse just as quick.
But when it comes to the doctor's prescriptions of antibiotics there is also another pattern of society which is relevant. Sweden is, in spite of repeated efforts of neoliberalisation and Europeanisation, a fundamentally socialdemocratic society, a society that sets the individual free from his relatives and close relations, but subordinates him or her under its political will.
Actually, I dont think that Swedish society is moving towards Europe any more. Is there anyone in Sweden who wants to abolish the monopoly on alcohol? I can see such individuals, but no political movement, and I think that is good actually. But my point is that the difference between Sweden and Europe is still there, and Swedes are as proud as ever about it.
Maybe it was when we understood that also Germany and France have a social democratic tradition that we settled with the way we are. Maybe these things simply can not change. It is interesting how no technical revolutions, no new governments, can really change some fundamental things in the Swedish society.
Antibiotics is actually a very good example. It is good for the individual, who gets healthy quickly, and does not have to suffer more than necessary. But it is a huge problem for society that too many people take antibiotics, as bacterias show up who are resistant etc. For a Swede it is natural that he or she as an individual pays the price for society's welfare. It would be difficult to convince a Bulgarian to sacrifice his or her happiness for society.
Or another example - the swine flue vaccine. In Swedish TV, people actually said that people should vaccinate, not for their own sake, but for society. I could somehow buy the argument that I should have vaccinated not to contaminate elderly and sick, but some people took it one step further and asked us to vaccinate to save Sweden's economy. That is not a healthy thought...
Looking at Sweden and Bulgaria, it is easy to see what these differences in society at large. Whereas most people live much better in Sweden than in Bulgaria, there is absolutely no guarantee that an individual lives better in Sweden. For those who are strong and lucky enough to create the life they want, Bulgaria is a wonderful country.
Sweden, on the other hand is clinically clean from corruption, which I think also has to do with this. Power is not vested in individuals, but in the jobs that they do. You do what the police says, simply because he is the police. You don't expect any special treatment and you don't get it - therefor you have no reason to bribe him. You respect the uniform, not the man in it.
If fact, most of the time the Swedish police doesn't even need to tell you what to do. As a people we are masters in internalizing rules and regulation, and turning them into taboos. We simply don't break rules, not because we are afraid of the police, but because we simply don't break them It must be fantastic to be a politician in Sweden.
In Bulgaria, power is brokered by specific people in specific situation. You might do as the police says, or you might not, depending on who he is. Since every situation is different, you can always improve your chanses by putting money in the right pockets. Lots of openings for individual creativity, but it is difficult to build a society like this. Imagine the ightmare of being a Bulgarian politician.
Since the politicians in Bulgaria surely do not expect people to follow their instructions, I can well understand how some of them take a bigger intrest in enrichening themselves in stead of trying to rule the country.
What goes for the police, also goes for doctors. Swedish doctors are extremely far from their patients. You have to be more or less dead before actually meeting one, and their dealing with patients is the way a civil servant deals with cases. Efficiently, distantly, always with the bigger picture in the back of their head.
We citizens, on the other hand, have internalized their instructions for a healthy lifestyle, and take on the responsibility of healing ourselves without bothering our superiors.
Bulgarian doctors, and I think doctors in many countries, have a much more personal relationship with their patients. Another relationship, where money or gifts in the right place might well improve the individuals chanses of getting what he or she want. The meeting between patient and doctor is a specific case, with a specific solution - very often antibiotics, since this is quick, cheap, and preferrable from a purely individualistic perspective.
Whatever... as long as I get healthy soon. I hate being sick, and being sick in a different country is even worse. If antibiotics is what it takes, than so be it!
When it comes to dealing with health and sickness, Bulgaria and Sweden are very different. My current diagnosis is a cold with lots of coughs, moderate fever and breath pains when I have coughed too much. A Swedish doctor would tell me to relax, drink tea, eat healthy stuff and call him again tomorrow if the coughs are still there. Bulgarian doctors, and it seems all Bulgarians are trigger happy, and immediately offer antibiotics, something that would be only the very last solutuions for a Swedish doctor.
And it is not only about the doctors. As a Swede I am sceptical towards medicines in general, and antiobiotics specifically. I want, and expect, my own body to conquer the disease without foreign help. It might take some days, but who has died from a flue? To help it I use ascetisism. No coffe, no alcohol. Tea and vegetables.
Bulgarians in Sweden on the other hand, despair over the doctors' reunctancy to prescribe medicine, and blames him for their diesases. I know, it sounds like a gross generalization, but it is real. Some days ago it was another Swede, with another Bulgarian girlfriend, and another Bulgarian mother in law, who fought the same battle, trying to avoid antibiotics as long as possible.
I held out for days, but eventually the fever got too big, and my Swedish method of living through it didn't seem to work. After all, I did not do it the proper Swedish way, since I didn't restrict myself from neither wine, women or coffee. So eventually I started the antibiotics cure. When in Rome, do as Romans do.
The difference inideas about health and sickness run deep. Consider this - when Bulgarians drink they raise their glasses and say "Nazdrave!", "for health". Whenever they ask each other something for birthdays or new years, being healthy is always mentioned first. "Health is the most important thing" is a common thing to say, even among young Bulgarians.
Swedes say "skål" meaning the "bowl/glass that we drink from". This skål is either accompanied with a song (that praises the bliss of drinking) or a lenghty speech aboout some individuals personal achievements, much like they do it in Georgia. If someone in Sweden wished me "a healthy 2010" I would look at him or her long, wondering what he or she meant with that. Does he expect me to get sick?
Somehow we take health for granted in Sweden. During many years, the lower living standard in Bulgaria potentially made diseases lethal in a way that they were not in Sweden. People did die. But they wished each other to be spared from this destiny, the most brutal of all. Getting treatment quickly might have been about survival in a way that it was not in Sweden.
Another thing is that it is a hell of a lot more annoyning to be sick in Bulgaria than in Sweden. Consider sitting on the bus with 40 degrees of fever in Lund, and compare that with sitting on a bus in rush hour Sofia. And if your apartment is cold, you better get better quickly, or you might get worse just as quick.
But when it comes to the doctor's prescriptions of antibiotics there is also another pattern of society which is relevant. Sweden is, in spite of repeated efforts of neoliberalisation and Europeanisation, a fundamentally socialdemocratic society, a society that sets the individual free from his relatives and close relations, but subordinates him or her under its political will.
Actually, I dont think that Swedish society is moving towards Europe any more. Is there anyone in Sweden who wants to abolish the monopoly on alcohol? I can see such individuals, but no political movement, and I think that is good actually. But my point is that the difference between Sweden and Europe is still there, and Swedes are as proud as ever about it.
Maybe it was when we understood that also Germany and France have a social democratic tradition that we settled with the way we are. Maybe these things simply can not change. It is interesting how no technical revolutions, no new governments, can really change some fundamental things in the Swedish society.
Antibiotics is actually a very good example. It is good for the individual, who gets healthy quickly, and does not have to suffer more than necessary. But it is a huge problem for society that too many people take antibiotics, as bacterias show up who are resistant etc. For a Swede it is natural that he or she as an individual pays the price for society's welfare. It would be difficult to convince a Bulgarian to sacrifice his or her happiness for society.
Or another example - the swine flue vaccine. In Swedish TV, people actually said that people should vaccinate, not for their own sake, but for society. I could somehow buy the argument that I should have vaccinated not to contaminate elderly and sick, but some people took it one step further and asked us to vaccinate to save Sweden's economy. That is not a healthy thought...
Looking at Sweden and Bulgaria, it is easy to see what these differences in society at large. Whereas most people live much better in Sweden than in Bulgaria, there is absolutely no guarantee that an individual lives better in Sweden. For those who are strong and lucky enough to create the life they want, Bulgaria is a wonderful country.
Sweden, on the other hand is clinically clean from corruption, which I think also has to do with this. Power is not vested in individuals, but in the jobs that they do. You do what the police says, simply because he is the police. You don't expect any special treatment and you don't get it - therefor you have no reason to bribe him. You respect the uniform, not the man in it.
If fact, most of the time the Swedish police doesn't even need to tell you what to do. As a people we are masters in internalizing rules and regulation, and turning them into taboos. We simply don't break rules, not because we are afraid of the police, but because we simply don't break them It must be fantastic to be a politician in Sweden.
In Bulgaria, power is brokered by specific people in specific situation. You might do as the police says, or you might not, depending on who he is. Since every situation is different, you can always improve your chanses by putting money in the right pockets. Lots of openings for individual creativity, but it is difficult to build a society like this. Imagine the ightmare of being a Bulgarian politician.
Since the politicians in Bulgaria surely do not expect people to follow their instructions, I can well understand how some of them take a bigger intrest in enrichening themselves in stead of trying to rule the country.
What goes for the police, also goes for doctors. Swedish doctors are extremely far from their patients. You have to be more or less dead before actually meeting one, and their dealing with patients is the way a civil servant deals with cases. Efficiently, distantly, always with the bigger picture in the back of their head.
We citizens, on the other hand, have internalized their instructions for a healthy lifestyle, and take on the responsibility of healing ourselves without bothering our superiors.
Bulgarian doctors, and I think doctors in many countries, have a much more personal relationship with their patients. Another relationship, where money or gifts in the right place might well improve the individuals chanses of getting what he or she want. The meeting between patient and doctor is a specific case, with a specific solution - very often antibiotics, since this is quick, cheap, and preferrable from a purely individualistic perspective.
Whatever... as long as I get healthy soon. I hate being sick, and being sick in a different country is even worse. If antibiotics is what it takes, than so be it!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
More on malls
In Slavenca Draclic's excellent book "Cafe Europa", the author describes an Albanian man who sits by the road, trying to sell one banana. His idea of economical progress is to get this banana sold, so that he can buy two bananas tomorrow, sell them the next day to buy three, and eventually becoming rich. This is not what street vendors look like i today's Bulgaria, but when you see some of them it is not difficult to imagine the scene that Draculic describes.
For Draculic, the banana selling man is a sad illustration of the void Albania fell into after the fall of commuism. That is not the way people get rich. (it is definitely not the way that today's rich Bulgarians made it). But that this banana selling man would be a perfect illustration to a book about classical liberal economic theory, like Adam Smith's The Wealth of the Nations.
These theories have a lot of flaws, but the crude economical life in the Balkans show that there is some truth in Smith's and his peers' philosphy. I have seen few places in Europe where Neo-liberalism has been carried out so consistently as in Bulgaria. What is more important, capitalism here began from a kind of tabula rasa that is the starting point for Smith's theories but has never existed in a country like Sweden.
Weak demand, poor customers and lack of capital have forced the Bulgarian market economy to develop into a small scale capitalism. Some might call this backwardness, others might say that is natural at this level of development, but it nontheless have some very positive sides for the customer. Bulgaria is sometimes like a capitalism with a human face - you buy the goods from the person in front of you, not merely have them handed over by a disinterested employee in a multinational corporation. That is not always nice, human face can laugh, cheat and be angry. A multinational corporation is always couldn't care less, even though they employ the best minds of our genereation to convince you that they do.
I have written about the Bulgarian malls before (here and here), but I have proably not understood them properly. In an earlier post I wrote that what is sold in the malls is not more expensive than what you can buy in the streets. This is true to some degree, but as a matter of fact stores in the malls are more expensive than most stores in the normal shopping street, while they are cheaper than the more eclusive stores on Vitosha Bvd. for example.
Mark my words... "THE stores in the malls are cheaper than MOST malls in the street". What is really significant about the malls is not the price, because next to the amazingly expensive Bennetton, there is always a Zara with a 50% discount, and a Kenvelo where clothes, at least for male clients are cheaper than anywhere else. In the street, on the other hand, there is still a myriad of small shops, with different kind of goods like hand made jewellery or more or less hand made clothes, different prices etc. This is exactly how capitalism looks in the school books, but the reality in capitalist countries differ.
This kind of stores hardly exist in Sweden. In stead you find the same stores in every town: H&M, Dressman and MQ for clothes, Cervera for kitchen utensils, Claes Ohlsson for tools etc. Interestingly, deragulation has done nothing to increase the number of small stores, rather opened up markets for international brands. The same brands, and the same prices everywhere. When small stores exist they position themselves as more expensive boutiques.
The economic reasons for this are obvious - it is difficult to sell clothes cheaper than H&M, tomake them by hand in Sweden is not realistic, and the rents in central commercial areas are expensive. The housing bubble has probably made them a lot more expensive.
What the entrance of malls in the Bulgarian economy really represent is this kind of Brand Capitalism, as I know it from home. In every Bulgarian town there will be a mall, with the same brands and the same prices. There are nice things in the malls, of course, but I think many find it more interesting to visit the smaller stores, where chances are you might be dissapointed or positively surprised.
The prices of commercial space in Sofia and other East European capitals have sky rocketed in the last years, and there is probably quite a lot of pressure on smaller entrepeneurs. In addition to existing malls, many new malls are projected It will for sure turn some of the current entrepeneurs into disinterested employees in multinational corporation.
Still, I can't see malls completely erasing the small scale capitalism, still visible in every Bulgarian street. Not all small scale vendors are nice, of course, and we could wish that the malls outcompete the crooks among them. But unless Bulgarian shopping habits, values change drastically I think people will support their local traders. You simply feel so much more important as a customer, when the the shop owner depends on your money to survive the day. Kenvelo does not.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Maladets! is back in town
The updates have been few lately, but this is not to be interpreted as anything else than a sign of health. A foreign country should a) be experiences b) written about. Whenever you have the choice between the two, staying away from the internet to get some real life experience i always a good thing.
After a nice new years eve in Sofia, we went up to a hut in the mountains, close to Troyan. Wonderful. One cvan easily say that we saw the best Bulgaria has to offer at this time of year. Snow, sunshine and mountains.
The snow will not be long lastig though. Unlike the rest of Europe, Bulgaria has had extremely high temperatures over new year. On new years eve it was closeto 20 degrees warm! Eventually snow and temperatures fell, but before we are leaving to Sweden the temperatures areexpeccted to reach above 10 degrees again.
Until then...
After a nice new years eve in Sofia, we went up to a hut in the mountains, close to Troyan. Wonderful. One cvan easily say that we saw the best Bulgaria has to offer at this time of year. Snow, sunshine and mountains.
The snow will not be long lastig though. Unlike the rest of Europe, Bulgaria has had extremely high temperatures over new year. On new years eve it was closeto 20 degrees warm! Eventually snow and temperatures fell, but before we are leaving to Sweden the temperatures areexpeccted to reach above 10 degrees again.
Until then...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)