Author: Tereza Zaharieva
Location: the yard of the 73 school

It was one of those wonderful summer vacation days, where my only care was hanging out with my friends. Not that the school was a big obstacle but it is much better when no school duties weigh on your mind. So one fine afternoon my best friend Mitko rang at the door bell and told me he got one of those scooters that were so convenient to cruise on along the jammed streets of the city. So far so good, but we were fifteen-years-old and one may obtain a permit to drive a scooter only when aged 16. But this didn’t stop his parents to give him the scooter as a gift. So out we went together with another friend of ours to enjoy a ride on the brand new acquisition. Knowing we would be breaking the law if we were riding on the street, we decided to go to the yard of our school, which, being vacation time, was completely empty. We dragged the black motorbike to the schoolyard, making our way through numerous small streets so that we avoid meeting the police and finally we reached the school. Mitko got on the scooter and sped away. Keeping in mind that it was his first attempt he did it pretty well. Even I went on it the scooter, despite my fear of high speeds, not that this soap-box was able to be that fast, but still … Off I was, making a few circles around the yard and making plans to show off the new toy to the whole district. After that we and the other guy, Yana, sat on the staircase in front of the entrance of the school. Being typical girls we could not remain interested in a vehicle for too long. Mitko being a typical guy continued to cruise forwards and backwards in the yard. Yana and I talked all kinds of stuff, which I find impossible to remember now, but at the same time we were watching Mitko, who continued to show off, trying to attract our attention.

It was then, at one moment, when he had reached the furthest part of the yard that he stepped on the accelerator and headed towards us. I was watching him coming closer and closer to the wall of the school building and he was growing bigger and bigger, while his speed was growing ferociously … I remember thinking each second: “Now he is going to press the brakes, now he is going to press the brakes …,” but he was not pressing the brakes and the next memory I have replays only in slow motion … just like in the movies. I thought it was impossible to see something in this way, but up to this very day I remember how the motorbike was flying towards me and just two meters to my side it slammed into the wall … I saw the motorbike swirling around and my best friend was hurled up and his body slammed against the wall, after which he slowly fell to the ground. For a second the terrifying thought that I had lost him crossed my mind. I remember how I got up and ran towards him, I remember the relief I felt when I saw him standing up.

The experience did teach me something — that was the first time that I felt what it feels like to lose a friend. I had so many things that I wanted to tell him: how much he meant to me and how it was thanks to his friendship that I am the person that I am now. Unfortunately I have not had the guts to tell him all these things to this very day. Why? I myself don’t know. It is much easier to keep our mouth shut and talk about everyday stuff, the kind of stuff we discussed with my friends on the staircase on that day and which has left no imprint on my mind. The stuff that made us laugh but did not let us discuss our feelings. I do hope that he knows how I feel about him and one day I will have the courage to tell him how much my friendship means to me. 

Author: Svetlin Davidov
Location: the park in Zone B-18 neighbourhood, between Pirotska St. and Simeon St.

Despite being a quiet child, I was something of a foolster from time to time. Sometimes I apologized, sometimes I did not. My mother often told me: “Some day your children will behave just like you do you and you’ll see what all my fuss is about …”

I am already the happy father of a small boy, called Alexander. To be honest, I must admit I have always been longing for a son like him. Now, when I see how he is growing up, I often remember about what my mom said. It is very funny to observe his way of seeing life, the way he laughs, the way he copies each and every word and gesture of mine and his mother.

One day we were walking through a park in zone B. There were many mothers with their children in the nearby park as the weather was warm and sunny. Alexander is very curious and is constantly asking: “What’s that?” My wife Ani and I explain to him what each thing is in detail and he usually repeat what he understands in his baby language.

That day, on the bench next to us, there were three women, who were speaking quietly as their babies were sleeping in the prams ^[1]. Alexander approached them and, standing on tiptoe, tried to see what was in the prams. Then he returned to us and said they contained some “thing”. We explained to him that those were babies and that he also was a baby at one point earlier in his life. He looked at us and said with his sweet voice: “Mommy, buy a baby for me”. We all started laughing. He looked at us wondering and repeated the question: “Mommy, buy a baby for me”. Then we explained to him that some things could not be bought and that of all the unpurchasable items in the world, babies were perhaps first on the list. 

Author: Pavel Hadjiev
Location: 85 Tzar Samuil Street

The regular beat of “Still D.R.E” was coming out of the pizzeria. I have never been the greatest fan of this song, but it was still something unique for us — us kids from the Women’s Bazaar. Of course, at the top place of our chart was Gumeni Glavi’s song “Izviniavai Skapa” (Rubber Heads, Excuse me my dear). The mere thought of Shamara beating his girlfriend provoked my admiration over his arrogance and at the same time I felt disgust at the barbarous act of violence. Later I found out that such a combination of feelings is just impossible. The reason for liking the song was not just the fact that the girls did not pay any attention to us. Except for the girls in my class, my friends and me did not know other representatives of the opposite sex. Actually, we did not think we are ugly but our training suits covered with dust and our long combed-back home-cut hair revealed boyish poverty.

The vents of the pizzeria took the smell of ham, mushrooms and spaghetti right into the library club. No one of us had ever been in the pizzeria. Gigo stuffed his hand in the pocket, had a deep sigh and said in his perky manner “Lets go to the comps!”

Me and Niki looked at him as if he bitterly cursed us. There was a reason behind this, of course. Throughout the whole week I was studying hard doing math and reading literature. I was not spending anything, so I can go to the neighborhood computer club in the weekend and play some Counter Strike. The library club on Tsar Samuil Street was our meeting point although we didn’t know how it was called. All we did before was playing hide and seek, football, and basketball. Until computer clubs started opening everywhere. This changed our everyday life completely. We rarely gathered at the library club. We could not breathe without spending our pocket money to see how the Diablo characters pass another level. Yet, we were united. As we had no money to go to computer cafés, we continued to play football in the library club yard and to listen the same Bulgarian rap music. We had no mobile phones but we did not need them – they bring only problems. The library club united us, and despite the bad and neglected field, and the worn out clothes, I felt happy. There was nothing more pleasant for me than to get together with these guys at night, to play Chipicao, and to tell each other stories that no-one of the others believed for a reason.

One evening my parents told me that our apartment had been sought, and that we were moving out. I could not stop crying. 

Author: Nadia Hamdan
Location: downtown Sofia

An ordinary day, a Wednesday. It’s December. The sun has been shining for the last few days and it is incredibly warm for December at a city like Sofia. Finally I make up my mind to put on my skirt, the fashionable boots and sunglasses so that I feel cool throughout the day. I have to do thousands of chores throughout the city and I know I will have to walk and wait in long queues throughout the day, yet I know that this is going to be one wonderful day in Sofia. After work, my usual wide smile on my face, I get down to the chores. The moment I go out there goes the rain and it is raining cats and dogs. The sun is gone all of a sudden. A biting, cold wind starts blowing and temperatures drop. This is the day when all the deadlines for all my chores expire despite the bad joke that the weather is playing on me. I don’t have much of a choice, except to face it and keep my smile. The obstacles, however, have not started yet.  A few jeeps and taxicabs speed by when the traffic light is red and I miraculously escape death, I am starting to get nervous. The traffic is hellish, maybe due to the rain. In the tram the people are bustling again, hitting me on the feet and sweeping me away as they fight to get to the three precious free seats. One of the windows of the dirty and cold tram is broken, letting in the rain. I, however, keep on smiling. I know that this is going to be a wonderful day. As I am getting off the tram one man bumps into me and I drop my bag in a huge puddle near the City Centre Sofia. Everyone is staring at me with a sneer and sympathy. All the things that were in the bag are scattered – I get them together and keep going, my bag dripping and dirty. In the meanwhile I drop my MP3-player and it gets wet too. Its battery is down and it stops playing, because maybe it is already damaged. Finally I get to the place where I should line up in a long queue to pay my bills. Finally one nice thing – there is no queue of people waiting. I keep on smiling. I make an attempt to enter the shop, but it is closed – it is audit time. I am turning to the other side – I am very angry now and at that moment a Mercedes speeds by and a shower of muddy water pours on me. Not an unusual thing in Sofia. The traffic jams are getting worse and worse. I abandon the hope that this will be one wonderful day. I am wet all over, my bag is crumpled like a banitsa. I regret my decision to put on my skirt, because it is freezing cold. I find out that my boots are letting the water through and my feet are wet as well. On my way home, riding on the tram, a lady standing next to me gets on my stocking and it runs a ladder. Today I hate everybody. I am disgusted that in my city live only idiots. The easiest thing to do is to start shouting at the woman and vent my frustration on her, but finally I decide that she is not the one to blame for spoiling my wonderful day. I get off the tram at the stop at the Central Hali. I have just a few miles to go to get to my home and get warm. My whole body starts shaking with fever, I must have caught a cold. The traffic light is red again and counts sixty seconds. Sixty seconds during which I have nowhere to hide from the rain… There is no point in it too for my whole body is soaked to the bone. I am desperate and even feel apathy towards what turns out to be my worst day. The flood is relentless and I look like shit, the wet is making my hair curlier, even though I have been flat ironing it for more than forty minutes in the morning. The countdown shows there are forty seconds to go before the traffic light turns green. At this disgusting moment the rain suddenly stops. I look right and I see a woman standing next to me, a woman whom I don’t know, aged about 25, pretty short and frail, holding her umbrella above my head. I look at her questioning and puzzled. She smiles back at me and says “I know you could not have been worse, but here is some shelter at least while you wait at the traffic lights.” I smile back, I am amazed and happy. There is no reason to say why. It was so kind and exhilarating to see at least one polite person. The woman I don’t know can’t help me physically, me being soaked to the bone, but somehow it … turns out to be one truly wonderful day in Sofia.

Author: Mihail Dyuzev
Location: a bench at Alexander Nevsky Square (the third on the left when you face the entrance)

I love early morning Sofia. No hellish traffic, the people whom I meet know exactly where they are going. The familiar sight of bustling, hurrying people comes in the “later” hours of the morning.

That happened about ten years ago. I was a student and was going to my classes at the university, which started at 8 am. It so happened that I got to the Rectorate much earlier. With nothing else to do, I bought a cup of coffee from the van at the N280 bus stop and headed towards Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, where there are many benches, besides the weather was fine.

And so, the place is the third bench on your left when you face the entry of the cathedral. It is May, a bit cold at 7.20 am. The ambience is kind of ghostly, because of the light fog, the domes of the Othodox Christian giant sticking out through it.

I was sipping slowly from the cup of unexpectedly strong coffee and drawing on yet another cigarette, bizarrely calm. That’s when I thought about the strength of this place. I am the least religious person you will ever find, but at that moment I felt as if I was in front of an altar without being in a church.

There was no need to think about anything, I did not even try, I was just enjoying the timelessness of the moment. The noise from the city was not yet getting to the third bench where I was and may be that was the reason why the toll of the bells shook me all over. I did not only hear the bells, I felt them with every inch of my body. There was something grand in that moment, at least this is how I felt it. All of a sudden I felt one complete whole with the majesty of the temple.

That was a weird feeling, I admit. Even now when I pass through that place I remember that moment and even feel a bit jealous of myself that I did manage to feel it.

Author: Luidmil Kardjilov
Location: Aprilov street

I often pass by that place. And I see the large, heavy barrier. I look further, and I spot the other barrier, which is just as large and as heavy. And between these two barriers is locked the street – the street of my childhood. This is the Aprilov Street, in downtown Sofia, between Oborishte and Shipka. I played here, I rode a bicycle here, I also got into a car here for the first time, into my father’s car. This was a notable event for me as well as for our street. In the spring of 1965 there was only one car in my street but in fact this was not a regular car but a Cadillac. The limousine of the American Ambassador. Every Saturday the drive would drive out of the garage, right across from the entrance of our house, and would start to burnish this huge American monster. An incredible sight. The open door disclosed unsuspected beauties. Leather upholstery, a smell of something fine, a massive wheel, and an enormous engine under the bonnet. For me this was a great amusement and an unrealized dream. A dream which actually all of a sudden came true. Because my father bought a car. Well, it was not a Cadillac, it was not even a Mercedes, it was not even a Ford, it was just a Wartburg. So from that moment there were two cars on our street. My father’s Wartburg, and the Cadillac of His Excellency. And the Saturday afternoons received a new meaning. My father and I started to wash the car together, with a hose and a soft brush, with soap-suds, the Wartburg started to shine fabulously. It was an enemy worthy of the huge Cadillac’s steel. We were washing, and so was the ambassador’s driver. In those years they often showed Nixon on television, my God, they showed how he was riding in a Cadillac just like the one parked next to our Wartburg. This is the street of my childhood. With the cracked paving stones, with the ants wriggling among them. With the lilac in the yard, and with the cats hidden in the house entrances. And the two cars. My father’s car, and the ambassador’s car. Then unnoticeably things changed. The cars became three as the writer Nayden Valchev also bought a Wartburg. Then, the following year, a little further down the street a Moskvich appeared, after a while a Volga started to park nearby. Time passed. There were more and more cars. Today the street is beyond recognition. The barriers stand proudly guarding the residence, and cars occupy the sidewalks. I stand by and look – is this the street of my childhood?

Author: Dragomir Simeonov
Location: the blue telephone cabin

“Cool, someone has thrust something into the coin slot!,” the girl lisped and hit the coin slot with the receiver. He was startled and didn’t immediately understand what was going on. He stood a few steps behind her, awaiting his turn to use the phone. “Is it damaged?,” he asked in a second. “Screw them!,” she said without paying attention to the man and continued showering abuses against the unknown culprit. Then she turned to the man behind her, looked at him severely as if he was involved in the embarrassing situation and moved away with a theatrical walk.

He has not looked at her but approached the phone quickly to see a crushed sheet of paper stuck into the slot. He tried to pull it out but did not manage to. Only now did he realized what the girl was so upset about, and turned to see if she was still around. She was not there, and there was not other phone around, but the call he had to make could not wait. He searched for something thin in his pockets that he could use to pick out the ball stuck in the slot. The only thing that seemed somewhat appropriate was his keys but unfortunately none of them would fit. He leaned forward to study the object carefully. It was white, long about a centimeter and half, and burned at one end. It was a cigarette stub, of course it was a stub. Whoever stuck it in there crashed it first so that it could go through the slot, and now the stub had regained its former size and was stuck. “How can someone stick stubs in the telephone slot!” — he got angry in a somewhat dignified manner, but was still really angry. “What if somebody needs to make an urgent call” — he continued to look at the ground continuing with his thoughts. A pin, a paper clip, a piece of wire — he was looking for something with which to pick out that piece of trash. However, the only thing he found to his liking was a crushed plastic straw. With it he resumed his attempts to reach the intruder; the stub was stubbornly trying to resist. He was entirely engrossed in his mission. This stub was not only his own problem, it was the stub which interferes with the normal development of life. There is always such a small stub that spoils everything. He thought that it was not a bad theme for an article — the stub which … damn it.

He felt he was sweating, he took off his jacket, and squeezed it between his knees so that both his hands could be free. In a few minutes he raised his head to rest but also to enjoy his partial success — he had managed to peel of the paper from the stub, now only the beige spongy body of the stub remained in the slot. Maybe he should pour some water to get it wet — it might get out more easily that way? He looked around, thought of how this might look from the side, then spat into the slot, and continued to reach with the straw. Fiber by fiber the stub was falling apart. He was coming closer with each second. His fierceness was growing, the tip of his tongue was showing between his closed lips, his jacket was down at his ankles. He suddenly froze, put the straw on the phone, and carefully, in a surgical like manner, caught the sticking out piece of the stub with the tip of his nails. Then slowly and triumphantly he pulled it out of the slot. He took a deep breath and smiled. The good triumphed despite all setbacks. Even stubs, and people who stick them in street phones slots could not stop the good ones.

He looked at his watch. His call was more than half an hour late and there was hardly a chance of someone still waiting for him, but he still felt he should try. He took out the coin from his pocket, put it in the slot, it fell into the coin chamber with a clang, and … nothing showed on the display. He knocked on it. He then hit it on the side with his fist. The coin was gone for good in the steel body of the phone. God knows how many coins this phone had swallowed before someone felt obliged to stop the injustice by sticking a stub into the slot. And he lost so much precious time to pull it out. He was now looking for something on the ground. He found it. He leaned, took it in his hand, crushed it, and stuck it into the coin slot. One small stub again took on the role of savior, martyr, in the greedy coin slot. He thought to himself, “Hopefully, the next person trying to make a call will not understand the world order so one-sidedly.”

Author: Yana Nikolova
Location: the square in front of the Central Baths

“The stretch of the crank.” That’s what I call the 100-meter long stretch between the TSUM and the Central Baths, or, to put it more pragmatically — between Serdika underground station and the station of the mythical tram N. 22. I hate and I love this place. I hate it as, in my opinion, it is that part of the capital where one can meet more mentally deceased people per square meter than anywhere else. I love it … for the same reason. I like to observe the inhabitants of that tiny piece of land in the centre of Sofia. I like the meek mad man in a purple suit, who always listens to a song that can be heard due belting from his scratchy retro transistor set. “It is raining roses …” — I can hear this suspicious, sugary refrain in spite of the buzzing noise …

I like also the swarthy street sweeper, who idly takes a drag on her cheep cigarette during yet another long break between two short sweeps.

I like Ginka as well. Or Binka. Or may be Dochka. ^[1] I do not know the name of the woman, who sells refreshments but I am sure it sounds like that. She always shouts, not so convincing: “Hot sesame rings, pleeeease!” I like her because Ginka, Binka or Dochka, or whatever her name is, is the singular inhabitant of the stretch who could be possibly called “normal”. I like her and I hate her. For the same reason.

Squeal. The standard “squeak”. The tram drags its rusty trunk totter to me with a lazy movement. I get on. I wave goodbye in my imagination to my weird, new-old friends through the window, dirty due to the numerous touches, millions of flies and dozens of thoughtful looks. I know I am going to see them again tomorrow. Here, between TSUM and the Central Baths, between Serdika underground station and the tram N. 22 station. Between two melancholic, crazy smiles in a tired, long day.

The tram moves off. A weird man, rocking back and forth to an imagined rhythm who sits next to me introduces himself: “Nice to meet you, I’m Stirlitz!” Then he begins to reveal to me the secrets of the world conspiracy.