Protest

~ Veselin

People are protesting. They want more money. I had the rare and not quite wanted opportunity to walk in the middle of the usually very busy road, while the intersection was blocked.

I suspect it’s all really about the upcoming adoption of the Euro currency but asking for money is also plausible. Just unsure why now, if not because of the Euro?

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9 thoughts on “Protest”

  1. I remember being in Sofia in the summer of 1996 and hearing about the inflation regarding the Lev. It was interesting to go back last summer and see how it had changed, and the ways it hadn’t changed.

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    1. We were all very poor in 1996. I was last year in high school at that time. I had one pair of cheap Turkish jeans, one cheap Turkish jacket (for the entire high school period). I hated April-May because of how cold I was with that thing, traveling to school in the morning. I was freezing. I didn’t have a computer, which negatively impacted my development as a software engineer.

      The graduation party cost $9/person and it felt super high.

      1996 was the year when I stopped eating jam made of plums. My parents made like 120 jars of that damn thing and we had to eat all of it in the shape of cold pancakes with sour jam of blue plums.

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      1. It’s interesting, because in 1996, there were a lot of Turkish goods in Armenia, even though the Turks and Armenians are on terrible terms. They had a bus that went twice a week to Turkey via Georgia. My friend and I went to Istanbul that way, because it was cheap. I am glad we did it, but it was very rustic. And then we visited Sofia via bus and the border patrol scared the crap out of me. They were very aggressive.

        But I remember thinking Sofia was much nicer than Yerevan was…. I enjoyed visiting and drinking lots of Astika and Zagorka beer, and going to a bar called Funky’s. I am glad we visited last year. I want to go back and see more.

        I don’t blame you for having an aversion to plums after that experience.

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      2. Wow! Your knowledge about the local beers is great 🙂 Astika used to be one of my favorite beers before I quit alcohol.

        Bulgarian border control from that era was very corrupt. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to find people with small violations to extort cash.

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      3. Oh yeah… We got Bulgarian beer in Armenia and it was cheaper than German and much better than Armenian or Turkish, so I drank it often. As for the border guards, I remember on the way in, they sent a couple of people back to Turkey. On the way out, we made a border guard sad, because we had been to the police to register and were covered our whole time. I think he thought he was going to get to fine us $100 each. His face visibly fell when he saw our stamps, which even covered our stay in Sozopol.

        I also remember learning that nodding means no in Bulgaria, and shaking your head means yes! 😂

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      4. I’m surprised we exported beer 🙂

        Also, I’m glad that borders are not quite like that anymore. The one with Turkey has officers from EU to keep an eye on our people

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      5. Well, I think Armenians would just go to different countries and buy stuff to sell. That was why they had the Turkish bus. They had one that went to Greece, too. We managed to catch that one on the way back, when we were stuck on the Georgia/Turkey border. It was a good thing, too!

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