2024-02-11 08:21:14
Dr. Vladimir Petkov – translator, chief of protocol and diplomat, describes what it was like to live in the time of socialism
Dr. Vladimir Petkov was born in 1950 in Sofia. He graduated in medicine and then in diplomatic relations in Moscow. In his second volume of professional memoirs, he once again shares absurd and humorous episodes from his career as a translator, chief of protocol and diplomat.
“At the time, construction was intensive and large-scale in Bulgaria. The newspaper “Rabotnichesko delo” breathlessly described daily the labor exploits of the proletarian class with epic word combinations. Students and pupils tore from their morsel to collect the rich harvest and turn it into compotes. Hydro engineers built dams so that there would be water and the Bulgarians could live more hygienically, without congratulating themselves in the bathroom. V. “Sturshel” with caricature-feuilleton techniques canarded people to steal less from their public property. The agitators thundered with slogans and speeches about “small justice”, as Zhivkov had labeled it. The toilers of the silent front and the judicial system have been tirelessly vigilant in trying to get our countrymen to obey the laws in part. In general, everyone participated with their share in the national turmoil.
In the Soviet Union there were many rest homes of different categories. Most were intended for the standard working public from the proletarian ranks. A smaller number – for individual representatives of the people. And the smallest number – for the elite of individual representatives of working people. The unifying formula between them was the presence of billiards. An extremely popular game in those days, it does not require a pool, a bicycle, sneakers, you are close to the buffet, but it is still a sport, although not an Olympic one.
In Bulgaria, the same structure of holiday work was adopted. But instead of “home” a new expert word was used – “station”. A rest station for working peasants, for “Kremikovtsi” and so on. We were slightly behind with billiards, but everything should not be copied mechanically, it is not in tune with the dialectic.
Following the Soviet tradition, at the Golden Sands site, now Riviera, a pool table was installed in the central hall. The main players, as you understood, were the Soviet comrades. And they had the right to a well-deserved rest, tired of party building.
My stay in the living room by the table, in the comfortable armchair, turned out to be very interesting and instructive. Every afternoon, in the drowsy weather, a tournament was played there, the game was often interrupted by political disputes of a fundamental tone, the opponents were overexcited, individual screams, shouts in Russian, scandalous remarks and insulting qualifications could be heard. Match by match. I admired their enthusiasm, there was something brigadier about it. After 16:00 CET, the game was interrupted abruptly by the appearance of a group of drunken wives. The debates ended immediately, a fishy silence ensued, and all those who had been cursing before a little while headed for the beach under the stern gaze of the ladies.
I failed to clarify that morning, noon and night in the restaurant
in addition to nutrients and Euxinograd drinks, “Kent” cigarettes were also served
package, a symbol of luxury in those glorious years.
And here I was, with free coffee and a nomenclature cigarette, sitting in the armchair, waiting for another show. However, I found only two lovers of the complex game, who compete according to new, independent, individual rules of their own. They aimed indiscriminately with each ball at only one of the corner holes, which, as you know, have a net where the ball must fall after hitting. It was hot, there were no air conditioners yet, and they passionately ran around the table to aim their shot at that corner. Strange. I asked a tactfully topical question:
– Excuse me, is this some new type of Siberian billiards?
– Watch and you will see – I was answered.
And I kept looking to see. The moment came quickly. One of them shouted “Est!” as if he had caught a pike with his fishing rod. Precise hit! But the ball stood and did not fall into the net, contrary to most laws of physics. He looked at me, winked at me, ran nimbly, picked it up and pulled out a bottle of vodka that had been there. He took a rich gulp, screwed the cap on with some regret and dropped the bottle back into the stash. He looked at me again:
– Do you understand, Volodya?
I got it, it wasn’t hard. The game continued with great effort and skill from both sides.
After a quarter of an hour, the drink was consumed almost equally, brotherly, by the two contestants. They looked around and asked me to throw away the packaging. Which I respectfully did.
I came back, and the athletes were already aiming for the other corner. The game clearly got to them. They had just finished the second bottle when they heard the hum of the elevator. They humbly returned to the standard rules of the game. The elevator stopped and Olga Ivanovna, the wife of a master of bottled billiards, got out of it:
– Sasha, you blushed a lot, didn’t you raise your blood pressure?
“Olechka, I’m fine,” he shared, “it’s a sport, there’s a lot of running around the table.”
– Okay, let’s go to the beach, why don’t you get tired of these balls! – ordered Olechka.
Sasha watched the moment, winked at me again and pointed to the third corner with his eyes. Then they set off as a family towards the blue sea. I took another bottle and hid it behind the sofa. For tomorrow’s tournament.
Food experiences:
In the mild stagnant times of the late 1970s, I was assigned to accompany a working group from the Central Committee of the CPSU. The goal of the Soviet comrades was perspective – how to correct the preferences of Russian people towards drinking vodka and orient them towards low-alcohol drinks such as wine and beer. And the People’s Republic of Bulgaria set a personal example in this regard, something like a standard and an example to follow.
Alcohol, it is known, brings people together. It turned out that the conversations about him – too. The guests shared strange things as we traveled. They used percentages. 13% of their country’s budget was formed due to the sale of vodka. 2% of the men were alcoholics, had difficulty getting involved in the work processes of building socialism and had unhealthy ideas about the prospective future.
In general, they created quite a lot of problems on the drunken front – broken families, problem children, hooliganism, crime – a legacy of the tsarist regime.
Their explanations revolved around the historical roots of water-mining and the use of moonshine, a disgusting alcoholic elixir made at home from sugar, yeast, bread or potatoes. However, they did not mention the social reasons, the king was gone for a long time and forever, and I did not wait for the topic, it was obviously sensitive for them.
To lighten the verbal situation, I explained our centuries-old traditions in winemaking and how in every house homemade wine and brandy are made so that our agrarian population is not bored during the long winter evenings. I mentioned that in some regions of the country they make children’s poparata with wine so that they don’t waste the milk and get used to the useful tradition from a young age. I did not forget to tell them about the good beer masterfully produced by our brewers.
So gravitating around the topic of vodka – brandy – wine – beer,
we ended up in front of the “Zagorka” plant in Stara Zagora. A model establishment, clean, tidy, clearly profitable.
A suitable secretary ushered us into the chambers of a non-standard for those epic times study director’s office. The shelves of the furniture section were not equipped with the volumes of Todor Zhivkov, nor with collections of the decisions of the party congresses. Probably the head of the brewery had appropriated them and read them in the evening in a cozy home environment, while his wife made a shop salad as an appetizer for the brandy. I don’t believe he drank beer at home either. On the shelves were placed bottles and jugs of various beers of our own production.
After the welcome, our host presented the guests with a huge advertising two-liter mug with the inscription “Zagorka”, a suitable souvenir for those traveling by plane, it did not take up more than half a suitcase. And only after that the exposition began. However, it was not applauded with internal delight by the Russian group. He spoke passionately to them about hops, machines, technology, all matters that concerned them little. They were interested in how we educate the population to drink beer and not slightly diluted spirits. But the lecturer in front of them was not an anti-alcohol educator, but simply a brewery director.
The time has come to invite us to lunch in the workers’ chair. There, the Soviet visitors were surprised, they did not hide it. We walked together with the staff along the sideboard with trays in hand. Each of the workers chose from the rich menu. These were ordinary toilers, individually inconspicuous in the glare of our day. But they were fed for free, decently and abundantly. With meatballs.
One of the guests left his food on the table and went to the fountain protruding from the wall to wash his hands. He came back after a moment and asked me:
– Volodya, a very strange sink! Metal, with a grid on top, no soap and napkins, just glasses.
I turned to the director with the current question, he laughed and led us together to the faucet. He explained to us that cold, fresh beer flows from it and anyone can drink on their stomachs.
– But is this serious? – the head of the group turned to me. – In our country, if we do this, there will be no one to work in the afternoon at the factory and we will have to build a sobering up at the exit.
We passed out together, but poured each other a beer, then another. Beer doesn’t quench your thirst, it makes you want to drink.
The host relaxed, his formal strain disappearing from his face, and began telling beer jokes for amusement. He laughed infectiously and the most of all. But remember one of the anecdotes, perhaps the most essential: “In brotherly Mongolia, they built a beer factory and sent a sample of the first beer to Czechoslovakia for analysis and evaluation. After a week, they received a telegram from Pilsen with the text: “There is no albumin in your horse’s urine.”