"Music is what still keeps me alive," said 68-year-old Vasil Petkov. During the spring, Doctors' Garden is the venue where you can steal five minutes from your busy schedule and listen to him playing the accordion.

This is his favourite place in the city and he enjoys coming here to play some well-known melodies and to remember the good old times with a bit of nostalgia.

Moreover, music is not just a hobby for Petkov. He has worked in different orchestras as a musician for more than 47 years. The accordion has been a witness and a faithful friend to the good and the bad times in his life since he was seven years old, when he first touched a musical instrument.

The accordionist reminisced with a smile about the time when his career was in its prime and engagements at weddings and restaurants and travel abroad were his everyday life. The musician can also be proud of big collection of prizes from musical contests.
During the socialist period, orchestras which played Bulgarian folk music were regular guests at all national holidays and communist party leaders' celebrations. So was Petkov's orchestra.

"Todor Zhivkov loved Bulgarian folk music, especially the horo (Bulgarian national rhythm and dance)," the musician recalled.

But for three years now, the only scenes he has been playing in are the grass areas at  Doctor's Garden during the spring, and the streets of Nessebar during the summer.

As with every artist, the audience is the thing Petkov cares most about. "People here are very nice and kind," he said. "I made some friends here who come to listen to my music and I must say most of the people who pass by are generous."

At the same time, he feels very happy when he manages to get some of the passers-by to smile, even for a minute, it makes his day.
He doesn't see himself as a beggar, because what he's performing is not begging, but art. The accordionist explained about his concerts in Doctor's Garden: "It gives me strength and makes me feel a complete person. At least I earn some money to buy candies for my grandchildren."

However, he confessed if wasn't for the financial support of his two sons, it would be impossible for him and his wife to get by. The monthly incomes form their pensions and the family are about 160 leva.

Petkov said that bad political governance of the country is the reason for the financial instability, not only of the pensioners, but of many Bulgarian citizens.

When it comes to the future of the country he is pessimistic: "I have travelled abroad, my two sons live abroad and I can tell that here it's difficult for young people to find realisation of their professional ambitions."

Petkov doesn't regret much that none of his sons has continued the family tradition of being a folk musician as his father and his grandfather were.

"It'd be very hard to earn your living playing Bulgarian folk music nowadays," he said. "Pop folk is the profitable hit today."

According to him, this kind of music is only a temporary phenomenon. He finds the lyrics of the pop folk songs "disgusting" and defines the songs this genre produces as being as easy to forget as  they are to remember.

"Bulgarian folk music is the one with a value," he said. "It has survived in this generation so far, and it will in the generations that come now, because it's unique."