Going native?
Global hard times this year will see many euro-families head into the great outback of Bulgaria in pursuit of a cheap and cheerful holiday away from it all among gritty rustic folk, rather than packaging up for the usual four-star basting between seven-footer Scandinavians on one of the plastic Costas at the other end of the continent.
For many of these daring souls it will be their first time off the beaten track in this part of South East Europe. Which means that, oh dear, the innocents have no clue about some of the larger than life adventures and country bumpkins they are going to encounter during their fortnight of fun.
So to aid and abet them on their haphazard way here’s the heads-up on a couple of the more curious denizens of rural society in Bulgaria as well as a rundown on how a handful of virgin visitors could actually end up going far more native than they ever intended, even in their wildest dreams.
Before taking a look at individual character types, however, one thing should be made quite clear. All Bulgarian yokels are very friendly and hospitable indeed. They are up there with the Irish in this regard. But in another habit they are equally well up with the Spanish.
Because they, too, are also in absolutely no rush which has been a cause of rigorous frustration for travellers in a hurry, sweating Roman legionnaires after Spartacus to sardined Thomas Cook tourists after a cocktail since time immemorial.
And, without doubt, one of the natives any tourist is just bound to encounter amid the rural hedgerows is the slowest of the lot. She is instantly recognisable because, funnily enough, not only do you see her here, you also see her there. In fact, you see her everywhere. On village benches. In cottage gardens. Wobbling along country lanes. Cruising vegetable markets. And, of course, dawdling in dozens of newspapers and magazines the world over, week in, week out.
I am referring obviously to the East European little old country lady, that three-foot nothing darling of the international media. There she is innocently shuffling along a side street in Elhovo, sick donkey on back, when suddenly out of the bushes emerges a Route 66 long telephoto lens and then next day, hey presto, she is on the front page of a newspaper in Bangkok under the screaming headline "East Europe collapses for the 654th time this week. Population eat pets".
An icon of the paparazzi, so frequently do assorted brands of said granny appear in different printed rags across the globe, that people from Peru to Paris to the Philippines might honestly be forgiven for thinking that the entire rural population of any country east of Finland or Germany really is made up of such simple old dears clad in dusty black, heads cocooned in the regulation tattered shawl. No wonder the place is in disarray, readers must blanche, but presumably the cakes are surely good (very true).
She's a star
Ok, one should admit that, on occasion, other threadbare curiosities of the countryside are also periodically in the frame as your eagle eyes will have spotted, the broken down bus, the crackpot local mayor, the bewildered goat herd or even the legless concrete communist apartment block now throttled by a jungle of nettles, to name but a few.
But wonderfully miserable though all these choices are, none of them, it would appear, epitomise downtrodden Eastern Europe quite as well as the glum village gran in the eyes of your average media mogul. None makes such an impact on the impulse buyer at the newsstand. So Citizen Kanes admonish editors to stick with the little old lady on page three! She’s a star, a gem, a real celebrity!
No doubt harassed photographers rebel from time to time, weary of shooting the identical thing endlessly. "You do realise we have been photographing exactly the same old bird since 1963, don’t you, Mr Editor? Isn’t it about time our bored readership had some variety?"
"What? Spice the golden oldie up a bit? Well, I suppose you could get her to drop the dead donkey off her back for once and swap it for a brace of oak trees or the hulk of a rusting Lada instead. No, I’ve got it. A huge old commie statue covered in moss and graffiti that she’s going to use as a scarecrow on the allotment! Or maybe even her house!
Yes, either of those would really get the lovey’s Sherpa hunchback a few inches closer to the pavement, wouldn’t it? Wow, what a photographic coup! Go on boys, slip her a couple more stotinki to go that extra mile for us!"
"An extra mile? Huh!? She is still only 23 metres further up the road from where the grumpy crone was when we first snapped her all those decades ago for gawd’s sake! She isn’t clockwork you know, let alone a Duracell bunny. Oh please, let us take a photograph of something else!"
"Good Lord, no", barks the editor. "The wrinkly stays! It’s quite imperative that our pictures speak a thousand words about Eastern Europe, after all."
"Yes, but why does that image always have to be thousands of years old into the bargain too, boss?"
Anyhow, when you do come across one of these seemingly ‘listless celebrities’, as you surely will, there isn’t a hope in hell that either of you will speak the other’s lingo let alone dialect, so conversation will be strictly limited to body language. This will still baffle you, though, as such fairy godmothers are so heaped in crocheted garments you will not be able to tell which parts are moving and which aren’t.
Before long, therefore, your enthusiasm for chat will dissolve into bashful smiles as you begin to fidget nervously and shift from foot to foot. Grandma Giles will then instantly get the picture and her eyes will light up. You all want to dance!
That’s why you’ve turned up out of the blue! So ditching her walking stick quick as a flash she will click her fingers and cluck loudly and off wooden benches the length and breadth of the village will miraculously hop, skip and jump a bingo-hall’s-worth of her ordinarily lame widowed friends who will grab you all to their bosoms and start boogying the light fandango folk-style. Indeed to badly misquote the song, at the beat of a tambourine they all morph into dancing queens, old and sweet, only seventy-three!
Some of them will even warble delightfully, too, when fully charged up. Cross your fingers.
The wheels
Dizzy and thoroughly knackered 20 minutes later, though, you will say goodbye to your new found crumbly friends, and once more hop into the rental Zastava. Which promptly won’t start. Again and again you will madly turn the key but all the engine will do in return is start belching smoke like a power station as its mechanics expire in a catastrophic grinding of machinery so high-pitched that every randy goat within 15 kilometres will come looking for the new ‘gal’ in town.
Cue a surefire domestic with the flustered wife at this moment as it sinks in that you are now, metaphorically speaking, truly up that notorious creek without a paddle on a road to nowhere which, chances are, really might be eye deep in.... shhhh, I am sure you know what I mean. The pressure will intensify as a batch of the old ladies then begin to tut in suffragette-like support of your other half and cast spells on you. Go on, be a man and do something they all howl. Like put the fire out before the car starts to resemble a Catherine wheel.
So screaming blue murder about Balkan hatchback engineering you will wrench angrily on the door handle of your hired heap of scrap, and, yes, happily for once, the door will fly open after a few kicks.
Unfortunately, just then a gypsy horse and cart will gallop by at Boadicea speed neatly taking said door clean off its hinges. It will clatter to the ground like an iron curtain and you will start to bash your forehead against the steering wheel despite your splitting headache from all the ring-a-ring-a-roses, as your wife coughs through the oily smoke and starts baiting you that if your heart’s desire really was a three-door why didn’t you just hire one in the first place?
Anyway, welcome to our chaotic scene the second country character on the cards for you to meet on your travels, the wide-eyed gypsy, which you now do up close and personal as soon as you frantically tumble out of the gaping hole that was once your car door. In fact, you meet the whole family who jumping down from the cart holding scythes, rakes or other bits of antique farm kit circa 1732, immediately surround you.
In panic, you will peer at them suspiciously like they are parents of the ‘Children of the Corn’, even more so when you spot one or two ripe cobs sticking out of a youngster’s coat pocket. Your knees will begin to knock and your wife will look like she is going to wet herself any second.
But, as the tension mounts, the throng will suddenly open and you will come face to face with the generalissimo of the clan, a toothless, fat Charlie Chaplin. Eyes rolling around in their sockets, this Papa Roma will then suddenly defuse the stand-off by gripping you in a friendly Brezhnev: a rib-busting bear hug. His breath will wisp of vodka as he mutters in your ear.
You will shrug your shoulders. What’s he saying? No insurance? Certainly not. A trade is what he is after, and he probably won’t wait for your reply before clicking his fingers behind you mid-embrace at which six small tinker boys will lift your car door up onto their cart. Then these youths will be off at a canter before you can say what the...
Going native
Even before the ‘f’ word comes out of your mouth, however, fulfilling his side of the bargain the generalissimo gypsy will already have the bonnet of your chariot of fire open and, quite oblivious to all the fumes, be tinkering around in the hot engine with the knife, fork and spoon he has magically produced from out of somewhere next to the ferret in his trousers. You will rush around to see what he is up to. Is he going to strip the engine down to the last spark plug? Is this a Johannesburg township? Such thoughts will crowd your already addled brain.
Just then, though, to truly add injury to insult, the moment you stick your head under the bonnet to take a shufti at the Heath Robinson repairs being executed, one of the other gypsies will lean his weary elbow on the bloody thing and down it will crash, catching you a corker on your already sore skull and bouncing your teeth off the radiator cap. You will collapse to the ground groaning like an Italian footballer in the penalty box and pass out.
Ten minutes later you will groggily come to. By this time your body will be covered in an old carpet, a goat will be licking your face and two paparazzi leaning over you.
"Can we take your photo, mate? We have been given permission to take a pic of some of the different locals by the editor at last and you guys look just the biscuit." Locals?
Oh god what mortification, will scream your erstwhile stylish wife by now hobbling around on one high-heel, the other having been chewed off by the first of the randy goats to hit the scene. Hearing the shriek, you will blink and try to spot her and your children in the crowd. But all you will see through the smoke is a dirty, dishevelled and mournfully faced bunch standing clueless around your by now wheel-less car. It will be impossible to tell your family and the villagers apart.
Moreover, as you struggle to focus on who’s who you will suddenly taste blood in your mouth and with your tongue feel around for your front teeth. Both will be missing, regrettably.
It is then that a shocking thought will hit home. Within the past half hour you have truly gone native, just as the holiday brochures promised you would! You have become one of the dusty, dancing, toothless band of local brothers with even an appropriately trashed motor to match! So your adventure vacation has really got off to a brilliant start. In fact, it’s definitely time for that first cocktail under the stars, both those spinning in your eyes and the others twinkling in the warm evening sky.
Happily, somehow your new gypsy buddy will read your thoughts at precisely that moment and quickly shove a cold bottle of high-octane rakiya to your cracked lips, the contents of which you will start glugging thirstily as camera flashes floodlight every twitch of your bobbing Adam’s apple.
Early next day back in London, your boss will sweep past his secretary’s desk and pick up the morning’s post and newspaper. The headline on the tabloid will yell ‘Eastern Europe collapses for the 655th time this week. Locals Hit Booze!’
"Hey, hahaha", he will guffaw holding the paper up so his PA can see. "Who does this toothless drunken bum on the front page remind you of? Johnson from Accounts, no?....... It’s his spitting image, isn’t it? Hmmm, hang on a second, where’d he say he was off to again? Wasn’t Bulgaria by any chance, was it?!"
For many of these daring souls it will be their first time off the beaten track in this part of South East Europe. Which means that, oh dear, the innocents have no clue about some of the larger than life adventures and country bumpkins they are going to encounter during their fortnight of fun.
So to aid and abet them on their haphazard way here’s the heads-up on a couple of the more curious denizens of rural society in Bulgaria as well as a rundown on how a handful of virgin visitors could actually end up going far more native than they ever intended, even in their wildest dreams.
Before taking a look at individual character types, however, one thing should be made quite clear. All Bulgarian yokels are very friendly and hospitable indeed. They are up there with the Irish in this regard. But in another habit they are equally well up with the Spanish.
Because they, too, are also in absolutely no rush which has been a cause of rigorous frustration for travellers in a hurry, sweating Roman legionnaires after Spartacus to sardined Thomas Cook tourists after a cocktail since time immemorial.
And, without doubt, one of the natives any tourist is just bound to encounter amid the rural hedgerows is the slowest of the lot. She is instantly recognisable because, funnily enough, not only do you see her here, you also see her there. In fact, you see her everywhere. On village benches. In cottage gardens. Wobbling along country lanes. Cruising vegetable markets. And, of course, dawdling in dozens of newspapers and magazines the world over, week in, week out.
I am referring obviously to the East European little old country lady, that three-foot nothing darling of the international media. There she is innocently shuffling along a side street in Elhovo, sick donkey on back, when suddenly out of the bushes emerges a Route 66 long telephoto lens and then next day, hey presto, she is on the front page of a newspaper in Bangkok under the screaming headline "East Europe collapses for the 654th time this week. Population eat pets".
An icon of the paparazzi, so frequently do assorted brands of said granny appear in different printed rags across the globe, that people from Peru to Paris to the Philippines might honestly be forgiven for thinking that the entire rural population of any country east of Finland or Germany really is made up of such simple old dears clad in dusty black, heads cocooned in the regulation tattered shawl. No wonder the place is in disarray, readers must blanche, but presumably the cakes are surely good (very true).
She's a star
Ok, one should admit that, on occasion, other threadbare curiosities of the countryside are also periodically in the frame as your eagle eyes will have spotted, the broken down bus, the crackpot local mayor, the bewildered goat herd or even the legless concrete communist apartment block now throttled by a jungle of nettles, to name but a few.
But wonderfully miserable though all these choices are, none of them, it would appear, epitomise downtrodden Eastern Europe quite as well as the glum village gran in the eyes of your average media mogul. None makes such an impact on the impulse buyer at the newsstand. So Citizen Kanes admonish editors to stick with the little old lady on page three! She’s a star, a gem, a real celebrity!
No doubt harassed photographers rebel from time to time, weary of shooting the identical thing endlessly. "You do realise we have been photographing exactly the same old bird since 1963, don’t you, Mr Editor? Isn’t it about time our bored readership had some variety?"
"What? Spice the golden oldie up a bit? Well, I suppose you could get her to drop the dead donkey off her back for once and swap it for a brace of oak trees or the hulk of a rusting Lada instead. No, I’ve got it. A huge old commie statue covered in moss and graffiti that she’s going to use as a scarecrow on the allotment! Or maybe even her house!
Yes, either of those would really get the lovey’s Sherpa hunchback a few inches closer to the pavement, wouldn’t it? Wow, what a photographic coup! Go on boys, slip her a couple more stotinki to go that extra mile for us!"
"An extra mile? Huh!? She is still only 23 metres further up the road from where the grumpy crone was when we first snapped her all those decades ago for gawd’s sake! She isn’t clockwork you know, let alone a Duracell bunny. Oh please, let us take a photograph of something else!"
"Good Lord, no", barks the editor. "The wrinkly stays! It’s quite imperative that our pictures speak a thousand words about Eastern Europe, after all."
"Yes, but why does that image always have to be thousands of years old into the bargain too, boss?"
Anyhow, when you do come across one of these seemingly ‘listless celebrities’, as you surely will, there isn’t a hope in hell that either of you will speak the other’s lingo let alone dialect, so conversation will be strictly limited to body language. This will still baffle you, though, as such fairy godmothers are so heaped in crocheted garments you will not be able to tell which parts are moving and which aren’t.
Before long, therefore, your enthusiasm for chat will dissolve into bashful smiles as you begin to fidget nervously and shift from foot to foot. Grandma Giles will then instantly get the picture and her eyes will light up. You all want to dance!
That’s why you’ve turned up out of the blue! So ditching her walking stick quick as a flash she will click her fingers and cluck loudly and off wooden benches the length and breadth of the village will miraculously hop, skip and jump a bingo-hall’s-worth of her ordinarily lame widowed friends who will grab you all to their bosoms and start boogying the light fandango folk-style. Indeed to badly misquote the song, at the beat of a tambourine they all morph into dancing queens, old and sweet, only seventy-three!
Some of them will even warble delightfully, too, when fully charged up. Cross your fingers.
The wheels
Dizzy and thoroughly knackered 20 minutes later, though, you will say goodbye to your new found crumbly friends, and once more hop into the rental Zastava. Which promptly won’t start. Again and again you will madly turn the key but all the engine will do in return is start belching smoke like a power station as its mechanics expire in a catastrophic grinding of machinery so high-pitched that every randy goat within 15 kilometres will come looking for the new ‘gal’ in town.
Cue a surefire domestic with the flustered wife at this moment as it sinks in that you are now, metaphorically speaking, truly up that notorious creek without a paddle on a road to nowhere which, chances are, really might be eye deep in.... shhhh, I am sure you know what I mean. The pressure will intensify as a batch of the old ladies then begin to tut in suffragette-like support of your other half and cast spells on you. Go on, be a man and do something they all howl. Like put the fire out before the car starts to resemble a Catherine wheel.
So screaming blue murder about Balkan hatchback engineering you will wrench angrily on the door handle of your hired heap of scrap, and, yes, happily for once, the door will fly open after a few kicks.
Unfortunately, just then a gypsy horse and cart will gallop by at Boadicea speed neatly taking said door clean off its hinges. It will clatter to the ground like an iron curtain and you will start to bash your forehead against the steering wheel despite your splitting headache from all the ring-a-ring-a-roses, as your wife coughs through the oily smoke and starts baiting you that if your heart’s desire really was a three-door why didn’t you just hire one in the first place?
Anyway, welcome to our chaotic scene the second country character on the cards for you to meet on your travels, the wide-eyed gypsy, which you now do up close and personal as soon as you frantically tumble out of the gaping hole that was once your car door. In fact, you meet the whole family who jumping down from the cart holding scythes, rakes or other bits of antique farm kit circa 1732, immediately surround you.
In panic, you will peer at them suspiciously like they are parents of the ‘Children of the Corn’, even more so when you spot one or two ripe cobs sticking out of a youngster’s coat pocket. Your knees will begin to knock and your wife will look like she is going to wet herself any second.
But, as the tension mounts, the throng will suddenly open and you will come face to face with the generalissimo of the clan, a toothless, fat Charlie Chaplin. Eyes rolling around in their sockets, this Papa Roma will then suddenly defuse the stand-off by gripping you in a friendly Brezhnev: a rib-busting bear hug. His breath will wisp of vodka as he mutters in your ear.
You will shrug your shoulders. What’s he saying? No insurance? Certainly not. A trade is what he is after, and he probably won’t wait for your reply before clicking his fingers behind you mid-embrace at which six small tinker boys will lift your car door up onto their cart. Then these youths will be off at a canter before you can say what the...
Going native
Even before the ‘f’ word comes out of your mouth, however, fulfilling his side of the bargain the generalissimo gypsy will already have the bonnet of your chariot of fire open and, quite oblivious to all the fumes, be tinkering around in the hot engine with the knife, fork and spoon he has magically produced from out of somewhere next to the ferret in his trousers. You will rush around to see what he is up to. Is he going to strip the engine down to the last spark plug? Is this a Johannesburg township? Such thoughts will crowd your already addled brain.
Just then, though, to truly add injury to insult, the moment you stick your head under the bonnet to take a shufti at the Heath Robinson repairs being executed, one of the other gypsies will lean his weary elbow on the bloody thing and down it will crash, catching you a corker on your already sore skull and bouncing your teeth off the radiator cap. You will collapse to the ground groaning like an Italian footballer in the penalty box and pass out.
Ten minutes later you will groggily come to. By this time your body will be covered in an old carpet, a goat will be licking your face and two paparazzi leaning over you.
"Can we take your photo, mate? We have been given permission to take a pic of some of the different locals by the editor at last and you guys look just the biscuit." Locals?
Oh god what mortification, will scream your erstwhile stylish wife by now hobbling around on one high-heel, the other having been chewed off by the first of the randy goats to hit the scene. Hearing the shriek, you will blink and try to spot her and your children in the crowd. But all you will see through the smoke is a dirty, dishevelled and mournfully faced bunch standing clueless around your by now wheel-less car. It will be impossible to tell your family and the villagers apart.
Moreover, as you struggle to focus on who’s who you will suddenly taste blood in your mouth and with your tongue feel around for your front teeth. Both will be missing, regrettably.
It is then that a shocking thought will hit home. Within the past half hour you have truly gone native, just as the holiday brochures promised you would! You have become one of the dusty, dancing, toothless band of local brothers with even an appropriately trashed motor to match! So your adventure vacation has really got off to a brilliant start. In fact, it’s definitely time for that first cocktail under the stars, both those spinning in your eyes and the others twinkling in the warm evening sky.
Happily, somehow your new gypsy buddy will read your thoughts at precisely that moment and quickly shove a cold bottle of high-octane rakiya to your cracked lips, the contents of which you will start glugging thirstily as camera flashes floodlight every twitch of your bobbing Adam’s apple.
Early next day back in London, your boss will sweep past his secretary’s desk and pick up the morning’s post and newspaper. The headline on the tabloid will yell ‘Eastern Europe collapses for the 655th time this week. Locals Hit Booze!’
"Hey, hahaha", he will guffaw holding the paper up so his PA can see. "Who does this toothless drunken bum on the front page remind you of? Johnson from Accounts, no?....... It’s his spitting image, isn’t it? Hmmm, hang on a second, where’d he say he was off to again? Wasn’t Bulgaria by any chance, was it?!"