Яко! :-)

From Their Own Correspondent...

Току върху парещия език на жегата--след дълго отсъствие и две пътувания, които ме оставиха с крайно противоречиви идеи относно смисъла на живота, вселената и всичко останало--откривам нещо ново на, както винаги, лишените от любов към България страници на BBC. Може би съм се заблуждавал, че всичко вече е приключило. Може би всъщност започва нещо съвсем свежо и ново. Пък и как иначе, щом като се сдобихме с първия действително лустрационен закон, заради който на едного беше предоставено нарочно създадено министерство "за българите в чужбина". ?!:-)

Ето го и самото материалче:

Meeting Bulgaria's New Mr Big

(Nick Higham, BBC Radio 4, 25 July 09)

Boiko Borisov is an intimidating man. He has the shaved head, thick neck and massive shoulders of a wrestler, which is what he was, long ago. He was also a fireman, karate coach, bodyguard and top policeman. Today he is a highly successful politician.

On the day we interviewed him he had just accepted an invitation to become Bulgaria's next prime minister in a brief ceremony at the country's Communist-era presidential palace - all marble pillars, grandiose staircases and chandeliers the size of trees - but we met in his office at Sofia's scruffy City Hall.

We waited in the ante-room with other supplicants - the man in charge of building the city's metro, a senior Spanish policeman - while a succession of political henchmen came and went through the door to the main office.

When we finally got inside, Borisov rebuffed my attempts at political small talk with a curt "stop chatting and get on with it". He made me distinctly nervous and he had an even more unsettling effect on my Bulgarian producer and translator, who told me she was physically sick after the interview.

This formidable physical presence no doubt served him well when, in the early 1990s, he offered his services as bodyguard to the deposed communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov. A decade later he did the same for Bulgaria's former king, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who returned from nearly half a century of exile to run for parliament and become prime minister. Borisov so impressed the king that he gave him a government job.

For our interview Borisov sat in an armchair in front of a cascade of silver cups, trophies and medals from his days as a sportsman.

When we were finished, he insisted on showing me the photos on his walls. There were pictures of him with top cops from Britain, the US and Europe and framed testimonials from the likes of the FBI and Europol, praising his efforts in the fight against organised crime. At the time, General Borisov was the chief secretary at the interior ministry and Bulgaria's most senior policeman.

This was not idle boasting. The testimonials are evidence that he really is serious when he promises to clean up his country. He was prepared, he said, to do whatever it took.

Bulgaria's politicians are notorious for being on the take, but he told me he was not prepared to shield anyone, even a minister or deputy minister, who engaged in corruption. "We need 100% trust from Brussels," he said. "We're going to do everything Brussels asks of us. For a country as poor as Bulgaria, it's vital to get the money from Brussels flowing again."

Bulgarian corruption takes many forms. At one extreme there are the mobsters, known as "mutri" or "thick-necks", many of them ex-wrestlers, who made their fortunes in the post-Communist anarchy of the early 1990s, running protection rackets thinly disguised as security firms or insurance companies. His political opponents sometimes accuse Boiko Borisov of being one of them, though one Bulgarian political analyst told me no-one had ever produced any evidence to show that he was.

At the other extreme is the day-to-day corruption involving underpaid public officials. Health workers who agree to speed up treatment or traffic policemen who turn a blind eye to speeding in return for cash. In between comes cronyism, influence-peddling, embezzlement, fraud, rigged tenders for public contracts, and outright bribery.

I met an investigative television journalist who told me of a case he had recently looked into, in which a driving instructor and an examiner had taken a bribe to give a licence to a man who had never even driven a car. The price: 300 leva (around £130/$80).

Bulgarians have turned to Boiko Borisov to get them out of this mess. In the recent general election around 40% of voters backed his political party, known as Gerb, which has adapted one of Barack Obama's slogans. Its glossy television adverts end with Borisov himself, speaking straight to camera: "Let's show them Bulgaria can," he says.

After our interview, we filmed the prime minister visiting a rebuilt school. Amid a mob of cameramen he patted children's heads, chatted up their mothers, embraced their grandmothers.
There is no doubt he is popular, but so was a previous prime minister, the king. Simeon successfully steered Bulgaria towards accession to the European Union, but he could not get rid of corruption, despite General Borisov's best efforts. In the most recent election the king's party was wiped out, and Simeon himself resigned as its leader.

Bulgarians now wait to see whether Boiko Borisov's career goes the same way or whether, as he promises, he really can fix Bulgaria's problems.

На историята--приятен апетит!

Е, може би не се случи тъкмо това, което ми се искаше. Няма да има много "Синьо лято", няма да има и "Рапсодия в синьо", но съм доволен! Липсваше ми усещането за енергия, която се придвижва отдолу нагоре--и толкова много ми беше залипсвало, че даже се зарадвах на професора Димитров, който твърди, че в България била извършена "велика демократична революция". Радвах се на опашките пред избирателните секции в квартала. Радвах се и на снимките от Мюнхен и Чикаго. Изобщо най-напред и преди всичко се разбра колко лесно може да бъде смачкана цялата тази работа с продаването на гласове: просто трябва да се гласува.

Най-много ме радва обаче историята, на която изведнъж й се отвори силен апетит и започна да лапа. Налапа Сергей Дмитриевич, направо го погълна някъде дълбоко в себе си, за да го предаде, струва ми се, съвсем скоро на пълно забвение. Погълната беше и онази смешна партия за стабилност и възход, a.k.a. Симеон Втори, сякаш за мечтано облекчение на вече бившия си лидер, някогашен местен цар и даже премиер. Не са за пренебрегване и по-малките играчи: отиде си любимецът на камерите, стожер на благотворителността и бакалавър по политология Емил Кошлуков--въпреки симпатичните сандвичи с надлежно номерирани стикери на фона на сочни резени прясна шунка...

Отидоха си. Сигурно е безвъзвратно. Надявам се, че е безвъзвратно. С други думи: so long and thanks for all the fish. :)

Иначе не съм сигурен какво ни се пише с... хм, д-р (нали?) Бойко Борисов. Засега предпочитам да си остана при еуфорията около трапезата на историята и да се наслаждавам на издания като Телеграф (британския, не Кръстевия!), според който

Right-wing former bodyguard nicknamed 'Batman' said he would form a government as soon as possible after exit polls signalled victory for his party in Bulgaria's general election.

:)