I have been always too naive.

After one my first travels abroad (from Bulgaria), I travelled with a bus on the way back home. Thanks to the strong impressions from what I`ve seen, I was greeting Sofia with smile on my face. Not for long thanks to the deep hi-there-culture shock.

We came home in the capital from the highway, going near the gypsies’ quarter. Dirty kids were playing half naked on the streets, laundry was hanging from antennas, and everywhere was grey and dirty. Some cars` windows were broken and then on the next street I saw old lady to beg for money. A church was near, but also so far away and cold. This was in the suburbs, but still…near my home in city center after 20:00 o`clock you can see prostitutes.

…this was my welcome sign to my hometown.

My Bulgaria.

I decided to try myself as travel writer in one of the famous BG travel magazines, but the main editor told me friendly: “Look, you are still young. You don`t discover anything. Everyone knows that streets in France and Italy are cleaner then here. Even the trucks don`t get dirty in the rain. You can`t surprise anyone when you explain that you walked for hours with your white plimsolls and they stood white in the end of the day. And what about how level are the roads and the trash, which the gypsies pretend to clean (cause here the main people who work as dustmen are they)? Everyone knows that here we scratch graphite on our memorials and we have beggars on each corner. And what about the seaside…you know how many hotels are there and that are the only reasons not to have wild beaches anymore. That is not special.”

But it was. For me. And I promised to myself that I won`t let my children to live in such cities.

It is not about the vision of the country. It is about the vision of the nation or more exactly its look on the environment.

Maybe not the green cities, not the mountains, not the Black sea, forests and animals will attract foreigners here. Maybe only the ruins of the past centuries will remain sadly magnetic.

One is sure.

I decide if I will remain in the Red book of a disappearing Bulgaria.

PHOTO SOURCE: For the misery pics thanks to Darik and blog.thedezine, for the beauty of BG, thanks to myself and my nonpro cam.