Communist Gourmet: The Curious Story of Food in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria 9789633864043

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COMMUNIST et m r u o G

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COMMUNIST Gourmet

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COMMUNIST t e m r u o G The Curious Story of Food in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria

Albena Shkodrova

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© 2021 by Albena Shkodrova Published in 2021 by

Central European University Press Nádor utca 9, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Quellenstrasse 51, A-1100 Vienna, Austria 224 West 57th Street, NY-10019, New York, USA Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shkodrova, Albena, author. Title: Communist gourmet : the curious story of food in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria / Albena Shkodrova. Description: New York : Central European University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021018336 (print) | LCCN 2021018337 (ebook) | ISBN 9789633864036 (Paperback) | ISBN 9789633864043 (PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Food habits—Bulgaria—History—1944–1990. | Communism—Bulgaria. | Bulgaria—Politics and government—1944–1990. | Bulgaria—History—1944–1990. Classification: LCC GT2853.B9 S55 2021 (print) | LCC GT2853.B9 (ebook) | DDC 394.1/209499—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018336 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018337

First published in Bulgarian in 2014 as Sots-Gurme: Kurioznata Istoriya na Kuhnyata v NRB by Zhanet 45 in Sofia. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 978-963-386-403-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-963-386-404-3 (pdf)

On the cover: “Kolarovgrad [today Shumen] (March 28, 1958). Factory for tractor spear parts, the workers’ canteen. Doctor Irina Bradvarova and the chef are inspecting the menu in the kitchen of the factory canteen.” March 28, 1958. V. Popova, Pressphoto-BTA. Frontispiece: Restaurant Casino in Zlatni Pyasuci resort near Varna. 1958. Pressphoto-BTA.

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i m ir, a nd V l a d u n is m, To Elen a i a n Co m m r a g l u B t h ro u g h who lived a n d to u r, a nd A rt u e i M a n e es. a, El n se q u e n c o c Lode, Ya n s t i f o w ith so m e who live

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Table of Contents Foreword



ix

Made in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria



1

Why Do Bulgarians Hate Marzipan?



33

Canned in Bulgaria, by Poets, Diplomats, and Teenagers

 39

Shopping

 65

“Napoleon Blew It. Hitler Blew It. But Coca-Cola Pulled It Off!”

 95

Dining Out

 115

How One Man Could Spoil the Menu of Millions

 153

Sailing Academy for Waiters

 161

The Canteens: Chez Les Mères Sofiannaises

 169

Tripe Treats

 179

The Menu: Between Communist International and Rural National

 189

The Canning Season

 209

Tarator in Outer Space

 227

Appendix: Recipes

 235

Glossary

 247

Index

 249

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Foreword

F

previous page: fig. 1.  Workers’ canteen in the chemical factory in Devnya, North Bulgaria, 1980. Photo D. Bozhinov, Pressphoto-BTA. left: fig. 2.  “Boris Lalev, chairman of the

TKZS [the agricultural cooperative] in Verdikal village, Sofia region, reads to the second unit of the second field brigade a state decision about reducing for the third time the prices of consumer goods. July 3, 1953.” V. Popova, Pressphoto BTA. At the time the ruling Communist party was struggling to make landowners across the country join state-organized cooperatives. The cooperatives’ land was later nationalized.

ood is a treacherous topic to write about. It lures you in with what appears to be accessibility: food is an indispensable part of everyday life; it speaks to everyone. As a subject of contemplation, it is almost irresistible: it entices and appeals to all human senses. But what seems to be the great advantage of food writing is also its downside: as most people are preoccupied with what they eat, many have strong opinions about it. The chance of an argument over a dish getting you a black eye is just as high as one over football or politics. When the Bulgarian-language version of this book was published at the end of 2014, I was invited to the Sofia studio of a weekly political program on Bulgarian national television. I found myself unexpectedly in a noisy dispute with a veteran member of parliament. Undeterred by his scarce knowledge of the history of Bulgarian food, the politician from the Socialist Party—the successor party of the former Communist one— angrily shouted random assertions, which soon turned from food (had we ever really been talking about food at all?) to the former regime. Here is the other treacherous thing about food: writing about it means writing about nearly everything. As the Bulgarian philosopher Raycho Pozharliev puts it, food “is eloquent about many things, in contrast to other aspects of life, which mutter rudimentarily.”1 Historians have long looked down on food as a lowly manifestation of everyday life, but it is a dream subject to research, for it takes you to the very heart of any given époque. It is about the actual taste of times, in both a lit-

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eral and abstract sense. Food is very much an individual experience, endlessly varying. But it is also like a fabric in which the threads of every aspect of social life show through. By studying a single menu, one can read the entire context around it: the economy and society, technological development, material and emotional culture. Each dish can become a well with glass walls, offering a panoramic view of an entire world of the past—all seen from the kitchen. When I started writing this book in 2012, I had not yet realized this. I had the intention to write a hundred pages of short, humorous essays which would introduce strangers to the peculiarities of contemporary Bulgarian foodways. By then I had worked for five years as the editor in chief of Bacchus, Bulgaria’s wine and food magazine, and in that time, many entertaining stories had passed through my hands, which I intended to develop and bring together in a small volume. I had planned to label some of these essays as “the small mischiefs of Communism,” as I saw the Communist period of my childhood clearly responsible for some oddities of local food culture. I quickly discovered how delusional I was about the slightness of the topic. I found that people love to talk about food, that they daydream about food, that food opens up their memories and their desire to share them; but what they shared was their lives, and their life stories could not be taken lightly. The more I heard from them, the more I realized the

complexity of what I was researching and, most of all, the diversity of the ways in which people remembered and reinterpreted the past that we shared. My slightly arrogant journalistic excursion was transformed into an epic quest in which every encounter made me feel smaller and smaller. My own interpretation of events, which at the beginning seemed quite definitive to me, became contested by one, two, many others, and at the end, it was just a grain of sand in a sea of experiences. I talked to nearly a hundred people: professionals who worked in the food industry or related fields, or just people who had significant everyday life experience in Communist times. Many of these conversations led me back repeatedly to the state archives, where I researched the patchy records of different relevant organizations, the pages of state-published cookbooks, the most important women’s magazine, and any other sources I could get hold of. What came together as a result had little to do with my free will, let alone with my early plans. As many other books, I suspect, this one as well just happened. My writing became an in-depth account of how the Communist regime determined Bulgarians’ everyday experience with food from 1944 to 1989. This book examines the daily routines of procuring food, cooking, and eating out through the memories of those who lived during the period. It also considers how food was produced. It turned out to

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reflect more the perspectives of urban dwellers than of rural people. The narrative voices vary and are uneven in their reflexivity. I believe such is the usual texture of any society jointly created by some individuals who tend to reflect upon the ways and meanings of the social order they inhabit and by others who just live their lives. The early post-Communist history was dominated by the former, and then my research started to focus more on the latter. This book shows, I believe, that both perspectives worked together to mold Communist societies into what they were. After the book was published, it quickly became a bestseller in Bulgaria, and most of the conversations I had in my country since then became like a continuation of my research interviews—people kept reaching out to share their food experiences.

The English edition is not a verbatim translation of the Bulgarian one. Material was added, removed, and adapted for an international audience. What I did preserve is my journalistic voice. You will hear it through the book, wondering, doubting, being ironic, perhaps more emotional and assertive than you would expect in an academic publication. I thought that it would be right to keep it when rewriting the book, since it was the voice in my head when I had carried out the research.

Notes 1 Raycho Pozharliev, Filosofia na hraneneto: Kulturno-istoricheski konteksti [The philosophy of nutrition/eating: Cultural and historical contexts] (Sofia: UI Kliment Ohridski, 2013), 66.

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Chapter 1

Made in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria The food of Communist Bulgaria was meant to be industrial. It was an output of scientific and technical prog­ ress. Foodstuffs did not compete, as their production was centrally planned. They needed no advertisement be­ cause they were often insufficient. They mostly had no brand names because they were single representatives of their kind. They had no author, because they were created by the working collective. A few of them remained of blissfully preindustrial quality, as the communist state had failed to industrialize them. Others were of commu­ nist industrial quality: successes, half-successes and plain failures, which Bulgaria’s leader Zhivkov identified as “not goods, but bric-a-brac.” 1

Industrial, Scientifically Grounded Food

T

fig. 3.  Original caption: “Mlechna Promishlenost-Troyan produces four types of cheese. The workers are particularly proud of the blue cheese which evokes French Roquefort.” Photo D. Altunkov, 1985, Pressphoto-BTA.

he ideal Communist factory is no different from a contemporary leading pharmaceutical producer. A team of scientists in white coats leads the process from their laboratory. Trained technologists follow closely tested standards. A skilled and informed squad of engineers create, improve and maintain modern production lines. Quality and hygiene control are permanent and uncompromising. The workers, motivated financially and by their passion for their profession, regularly exceed their quotas during working days, not a minute over eight hours. In return they enjoy multiple perks: the canteen and the sport facilities of the factory, a dentist and a barber on the premises, an inexpensive vacation at one of the recreation facilities of the enterprise in the mountains or on the seaside.

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The ideal Communist food factory is supplied with raw material by smoothly running industrial agriculture and cattle farming. The nation’s vast, well-fertilized fields are tended by experts, empowered by the latest equipment and technologies. A growing number of healthy cattle, fed on quality fodder, provide for a record yield of milk and meat. This kind of farming and industry was needed to produce the food that the Bulgarian Communist regime delivered to its nation. There was no place for small-scale production in the new, modern state; there was no place for old rural ways. For the Communist leader Todor Zhivkov, fairytales started with the end of Bulgarian villages.2 To what extent the industrial ideal was met by the Communist economy is not easy to say. Some elements of this ideal were indeed achieved: scientists were employed to lead food production, food technologists were trained, and the number of qualified engineers increased. Standards were set in place, as were procedures for quality control. Planning and investments were scaled up. The working day was set at eight hours (albeit, until 1974, with a six-day work week), and many factories built recreational facilities. The industry succeeded in providing some overall affluence by the 1970s. But historical sources suggest multiple and critical shortcomings. The actual situation seems to have been somewhere between the propagandist rhetoric of the ruling class and

the scathing criticism of observers who, after escaping the regime, described the communist industry as disastrous. Few eyewitnesses seem to have been willing to associate the factories of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria with hygiene, perfection, precision, efficiency, or modernity. Instead, they described dangerous working conditions, primitiveness, filth, chaos, and long working days, as well as incompetence, corruption, exploitation, intimidation, and other types of harassment, often on political or allegedly political grounds. The equipment, the supply of raw materials, the decisions of the management, and worker motivation rarely approached the ideal. How could things have gone so wrong? What happened on the way, and how did the modernist utopia turn into a half-modern dystopia? For the new Communist government, the industrialization of food production and farming after 1944 was not really a matter of choice. Eastern European countries were pressured to become economically independent under the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. In his view, such independence was to be achieved by the development of all types of production, and heavy industry in particular.3 The industrialization of food and farming was part of this bigger plan. However, the postwar climate in Western Europe bred similar ideas in the aftermath of the Second World War. Even the most economically

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fig. 4.  Lab technicians Siyka Kircheva and Elena Zaharieva test soft drinks in the

Stoyan Syulemezov factory, Sofia, 1970. Photo R. Donev, Pressphoto-BTA.

advanced nations like the United Kingdom and France, having experienced deficits and hunger, invested heavily in the industrialization of food production. The trend was further boosted by the Marshall Plan for European postwar reconstruction, which made far too obvious the advantages of the industrial advances in the United States.

Besides, industrialization in pre-Communist Bulgaria had already started by the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, the country was a latecomer compared to the United States, Canada, or Western Europe, where food production became increasingly industrialized throughout the nineteenth century.4 But by 1944, many types of food

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and drink in the country were already produced industrially. In 1939, over 97 facilities processed meat in Bulgaria and exported bacon to the United Kingdom and to Germany, and in 1941, 52 larger canning factories were functioning.5 Similarly, the dairy industry was founded in 1909, when the Karapetkovi family launched several processing units in the Stara Planina—the mountain range of the Balkans, which cuts across the country. They started producing 120 tons of dairy products per year. The international trade of this private business was sufficiently successful that a son was sent to study microbiology in Bern and then to defend a doctorate on milk production in Munich. In 1940, the family built a new factory in the outskirts of Sofia, where 26 tons of milk per day were processed into Emmental, Gruyere, Trappist, and Roquefort type cheeses, as well as a broad range of other products, including baby food,6 which were subsequently lost to Bulgarian industry and consumers. By 1944 the first chocolate factory, Velizar Peev, had been filling the air of the center of Sofia with cocoa aromas for half a century and had started to expand. Beetroot sugar production began in Bulgaria in 1898, and by 1930 six large factories were functioning, some with French, Belgian, or Czech capital.7 With these domestic and external pressures, the Communist plan for rapid industrialization seems to have been the natural choice, or even no choice

at all. However, its forceful, radical character, which obliterated smaller businesses and gave little priority to the consumer industry, could hardly be deemed unavoidable. It was shaped by the loyalty of the new political leadership under Georgi Dimit­rov to Moscow and its interpretation of Stalin’s political guidelines.

Well-Uneducated Management

I

n a secretly planned action on December 23, 1947, the new Bulgarian government expropriated 6,100 private businesses. Among them were numerous mills, dairy and canning factories, and other food production units. The process was executed with the help of the militsia—the Communist police force—and the proprietors were denied access to the premises of their companies. Bank accounts, vehicles, and most of the real estate of the owners and their families were expropriated. During the secretive operation, each of them obtained a document declaring the state’s commitment to pay compensation for the nationalized property. However, the government soon abandoned this promise, and only those who were connected to the Communist Party or who were documented participants in the “struggle against fascism” received compensation.8 An archival interview reveals how the Communist leadership prepared the management for the industries to be confiscated. According to Petko

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Kunin, one of the main organizers of nationalization and at the time Minister of Industry, it was a nation-wide operation known in advance by only a small circle of people. These selected party functionaries were asked to identify a new director for each nationalized factory who would be loyal to the Party. Once chosen, the directors-to-be were assembled in Sofia with many other workers to be educated in a three-day course in management and economics. As the real purpose of the sessions had to be kept in secret, those chosen were led to believe that the course was meant to improve worker and state control over industry in general.9 One can only imagine how the three-day course prepared the new managers. While the general disarray that must have prevailed across the country has not been documented extensively, some historical evidence offers a good idea of the atmosphere. One such source is Georgi Markov’s In ­Absentia Reports about Bulgaria. After working for some years as an engineer, Markov escaped in 1969 and emigrated to London. There he wrote what is still the most scathing criticism of the Bulgarian Communist regime, for which he was later murdered by the Bulgarian secret service.

My colleagues, specialists in Indian rubber, were sent to produce glass. Specialists in glass production ended up in the pharmaceutical industry, while food technologists were employed in the heavy industry. (Georgi Markov, Zadochni reportazhi za Bulgaria [In absentia reports about Bulgaria] [Zurich: Georgi Markov Fund, 1980])

In his essay, “Republic of Workers,” Markov described chaotic, uncontrolled struggles for power among Communists, as well as fierce exploitation exacerbated by the Profsuyuzi, the trade union that was supposed to protect workers but was “just the opposite: an instrument to facilitate their suppression.”10 Some accounts of the history of industry sectors also shed light on the levels of professionalism after nationalization. The dairy farmers proved to be particularly difficult to recruit as the earlier mode of production was seasonal and many experienced people had to practice at least two trades to survive through the year. A Communist book on the history of the dairy industry describes them as follows: Artisan Dragan Dimitrov from Gaber, Sofia area, is also a carpenter and a blacksmith. This helped him invent a machine to cut yellow cheese. The device

One of the general rules in our society was, and still

was later powered by electricity. Another artisan,

is, that an enormous number of people are occupied

Ilia Vasilev… works in the winter as a furrier. Nikola

with what is none of their business. This rule provided

­Mutavchiev from Aytos is also a rope maker. Granddad

for inexplicable and impossible employment ­choices.

Lilo Ivanov from Osikovska Lukavitsa trades ­onions

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in the winter. Goryan Milanov and Genadi Sokolov are dynamiters in the mines, and Kosta Stanev from Kar­ nobat is a tinker.

(Atanasov and Masharov, Mlechnata promish-

lenost, 45–46)

Judging by the historical accounts, early efforts to employ such experienced people in dairy production did not go particularly smoothly, and it does not seem to be their fault. In 1951 a newly employed dairy worker arrived in the village of Gorsko Kosovo and started work. Forty-five days later, he had still not found lodging and was forced to sleep in the dairy vat. Fed up, the man reportedly “fled the village, leaving behind the task of processing daily 310 liters of milk.”11 This early disarray seems to have continued through the following years and across industrial sectors. Accounts from the production of cured meat in Ruse at the end of the 1950s do not suggest major progress. Relating his experience with the establishment of a new production line, one worker recalls how he and his colleagues cut, chopped, and carried wood by hand in the depth of winter to light fires and prepare the product. He recalls that the stuffing equipment was operated manually and had a capacity limited to 10–15 kilos. To meet targets, employees sometimes worked around the clock.12 In the following years, technical advances introduced improvements, but they went far from smoothly. Professor Ivan Baychev, who worked in

the Ruse meat factory during those years, recalled that even with imported machines, they were still constantly lagging behind the international market. He said that while new equipment for industrial production was gradually introduced, the mentality of the workers and the managers of the meat processing factories remained artisanal: “They were unable to make full use of the machines and did not know their functions. So they went on in their small scale.”13 Despite the violent and chaotic start, by 1957 the government had quite advanced its plans, as it reported a changed ratio between the agrarian and industrial production in the country from 70:30 in 1947 to 68:32.14 In 1960 the Communist Party declared it had built “the socialist economy” and made a “deep revolutionary change” in agriculture.15 But if the People’s Republic of Bulgaria built a socialist industry by 1960, after that it started experiencing limitations. By then the Stalinist management style, greatly reliant on repression, had brought the country’s economy to a dead end.16 The new leader Todor Zhivkov sought ways to revisit the economic model. In the USSR, Khrushchev was making grand promises of a consumer paradise that would surpass the material level of the West. He gave a speech full of promises before the Twenty-Second Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1961 that was repeated by Zhivkov in Sofia. But the Bulgarian ruling class was more

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fig. 5.  Todor Zhivkov, leader of Communist Bulgaria between 1954 and 1989, inspects an animal farm, 1983.

Photo Stephan Tichov, Pressphoto-BTA.

careful with its commitments to the population.17 At the beginning of the 1960s they were more preoccupied with saving the country from bankruptcy because it was failing to pay its considerable industrial investments. It became evident that no solution had been found to the problem when in 1964, the government was forced to sell almost the entire gold reserve of the country to cover its debts.18

It seems that the Bulgarian Communist Party emerged from this ordeal with a new idea of consumption, which was no longer seen simply as a social issue but also as a means to stimulate the economy.19 Some historians interpret this attitude as a strategy to “bribe the masses” with promises for material welfare in exchange for political obedience.20 But one might argue how far the word “bribing” is applicable

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given how careful the Communist Bloc was to raise “correct” consumers taught to enjoy material wealth in ideologically appropriate ways.21 It would be fair to say that compared to earlier Soviet attempts at bribing the masses, the Bulgarian one was uneventful. Stalin’s idea to bathe the working class in caviar and champagne, to dress the women in fur coats and dab them with exquisite perfumes, did not take root in Bulgaria.22 Here the bribing took the less spectacular forms of vague promises of “improving quality of life” and the reallocation of resources to extend the production of consumer goods. But even these more modest goals soon proved unachievable, and between 1960 and 1980 it became painfully evident that the newly created Bulgarian industry had reached its limits. One major constraint was the limitation of international trade imposed by the Soviet Union on all the members of the Eastern Bloc. It resulted in a permanent lack of hard currency and a dependency on deliveries from the East rather than the West (that is, a constant shortage of certain goods). It also resulted in large-scale deals with Moscow, which were not necessarily profitable.23 But there were also internal, systemic problems. One of them was the centralized management system, which proved too unsophisticated and rigid to control the complex set of intertwined processes and interests, each subjected to different dynamics. Changing the functional logic of the market, it

brought a sequence of inefficient, and often absurd, but quite enduring arrangements. Todor Zhivkov was personally involved in many fields of the food industry. He frequently delivered speeches before different industrial forums, and central planning for him meant assuming a role similar to that of a general manager of a company: “By 1965 we need to build around 120,000 square meters of refrigerated area for the needs of meat production”; “We need to process and stabilize around 150 million liters of wine”; “to increase the production of grapes from 218,000 tons in 1957 to 680,000 tons in 1962.”24 Zhivkov was well informed of the problems of the industry, as the Political Bureau of the Communist Party regularly read detailed reports and discussed them. Just like a team of executives, the members of the bureau directed everything from the planned production of Smiadovska lukanka—a type of dried sausage—to the prices of the next season’s cucumbers. Furthermore, the Communist administration had a tendency to work with models borrowed from the Soviet Union, or self-produced ones applied willy-nilly across regions, industries, or any other possible dividing lines. The traces of this approach could be found in every area of food production and trade and could assume different expressions. One example was the standardized construction of industrial units, which resulted in the mul-

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tiplication of buildings that were not designed for the specific requirements of a given industry. An apple juice producing unit might have the same solid construction as a car factory, or vice versa.25 Another example was the policy to divide populated areas into categories with different food supply regimes depending solely on the size of the local population, regardless of the specifics of food production in that particular place. The passion for models was visible also in the (futile) plans to create centralized kitchens that would serve the network of restaurants and canteens, or in the creation of obligatory recipe collections for the network of public catering. The great advantage of the model solutions was that they were supposed to simplify management. They also fit the general prescriptive spirit of the system, which was more concerned with quantity than quality.26 They agreed with the Communist idea of modernity as a project in social engineering in which the individual and society at large had to be coordinated and trained like machine parts—an idea which horrified the world when further developed in the dystopian novels of Zamiatin and Orwell.27 The Bulgarian Communist managers had neither interest in, nor capacity for, tailor-made solutions. Facing complex management tasks, the Communist Party consistently failed to make intelligent decisions. They lacked expertise and flexibility and ran a system plagued with dysfunctions.

What Exactly Worked?

T

he Communist economic narrative was fed to the citizens in two contrasting versions that were fundamentally contradictory. One was the story of Communist successes, boosted by triumphant statistics. “By the end of 1976, 143,047 tractors operated in Bulgarian agriculture,”28 would be a typical statement in official speeches, propaganda, textbooks, or the press. The stunning precision of these statistics was meant to imply that the Communist administration knew its trade and should receive all the credit for its success. The other line was a narrative of “constructive criticism,” as it was called in the language of ideology. It described an opposing reality: In many factories the automatic equipment is ne­ glected and does not work. There are quite a few cases when expensive equipment remains idle due to a lack of trained specialists. For the same rea­ son, a  number of producers in the food industry avoid introducing even the most basic systems for ­automated control and regulation. (Ilia Popov, “Avtomati­ zatsia na hranitelnata promishlenost” [The automation of the food industry] Ikonomicheski zhivot, January 25, 1978, 18)

These critical statements sought to encourage self-reflection and self-discipline. They often came from the exact same sources: official speeches and

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fig. 6.  “Produce only the kind of goods that you yourself would buy!”

Poster by S. Krustev, 1976. Socmus Collection (www.socmus.coc).

the press. Curiously, they were meant to show that the Communist management knew its trade but also its shortcomings. The latter, though, were not related to the system but to disobedience. The two versions of this narrative intertwined and often came together in absurd contradictions. For example, one article would claim that “pig farming achieves significant growth with relatively

low investment and with good economic effects,” but also that “pig farming is for now unprofitable.”29 One of the reasons for the pig farm troubles, claimed the author of this press article from 1972, was that they were built and equipped “without a clear idea and knowledge of technologies, without experience in design and construction, without a stable supply of fodder, and without people knowledgeable of the industrial methods of production.”30 In general, the reader could well conclude, nothing in Bulgaria’s pig farming seemed to be right even though the official statistics indicated a twofold increase in the population’s consumption of pork since 1939. In a similar fashion, the levels of industrialization that were claimed in other areas of the food industry seemed dubious. In sugar and chocolate production, significant aspects of the manufacturing process remained manual until the last years of the regime. One account of the situation in a Plov­div factory, for example, tells how a confection, which required mixing in cauldrons, was produced manually. Sonya Vladimirova recalled the production of halva 31 in the same factory where she worked until retirement: “It was all done manually, on three shifts, in very unwelcoming working spaces… People worked with rubber aprons, with boots up to their knees: the process was waterbased, with a lot of steam, and the walls were not resistant to it: everything crumbled down…”32

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She said that when a new director was appointed in the 1980s, he found the situation appalling. Instead of mechanizing production, he simply stopped it. There is ample evidence for the limited, and at times failed, mechanization of the food industry on different levels. Both the narratives of its successes and of its failures came from the same levels of management and administration. Depending on their intent, experts and politicians used one or the other side of the tale, partially obscuring the tension between the two. A strategy that the Communist administration excelled at on all levels was playing with the statistics. “It doesn’t matter if you did the work, what matters is to report it!” the dissident writer Georgi Markov sarcastically remarked on this practice. “This rule led to all kinds of cheating, the point of which was to report work which was not actually completed.”33 Many sources confirm this practice. For example, in 1959 a discussion at the Political Bureau of the Communist Party criticized the grape-processing industry. “The manufacturers often produce extra grape must, so that they can transform it afterwards in grape honey. They do so in order to report twice the value of the manufactured product: once of the must and once of the honey. But the export of grape honey has no future, there is no demand for it on the international market,” explained party functionary Rayko Damyanov.34

Similar practices were recalled by people who worked in the meat industry. Ivan Baychev, who spent years as a scientist and technologist in the meat processing factory Mesokombinat in Ruse, remembered that once the animals were transformed into cuts of meat by one section of the factory, they were “sold” to the processing lines to inflate the annual sales figures.35 The specific cocktail of glorious promises and intentions and their tragicomic pursuit—sometimes in leaps triggered by ideological or professional enthusiasm and at other times by stagnation in which the system struggled with its own unsustainability—framed everyday life under Communism in Bulgaria in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. By the 1980s, the unsustainability of this system was already impossible to conceal. It was by that time that Zhivkov admitted that the state “created an industry of great scale given the size of Bulgaria. But its development encounters some problems. The main one is that we are unable to supply this industry with agricultural raw material…” Ignoring many other substantial problems of the food industry, Zhivkov concluded his sad understatement with the prediction that if the trends continue, in five to ten years Bulgaria would be forced to close entire factories.36 In reality, in less than five years Bulgaria closed the entire Communist chapter.

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Scientific-Technical Progress

I

n 1954 Russian writer Nikolay Nosov published The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends—a children’s book whose characters seemed to be inspired by, and have inspired, the Communist engineer. Bendum and Twistum wore goggles to protect their eyes from dust and carried files, wrenches, and screwdrivers in the leather pockets of their jackets. One day they decided to make a car that ran on a mixture of soda-water and syrup. Besides fueling the car, the tasty drink refreshed the driver, whenever he felt like taking a sip from the tank through a special straw. Another character, Doono, created a rubber flying balloon and a chatterbox. But foremost of them all was Taps, the workman, who manufactured the inventions designed by others. He took his time and never followed the design literally, but applied creativity. For example, instead of producing “a simple chatterbox,” a device to record and reproduce human speech, he combined it with a vacuum cleaner.37 These fictional characters are only partially exaggerated projections of Communist industrial engineers. The factory was their playground and the guiding principles of efficiency, pragmatism, and to a certain extent ethics were moderately taken into consideration. Just like Doono and Taps—the protagonist’s friends—the Communist engineers had brilliant and almost practical technical minds.

Their profiles were certainly defined by their working environment and the challenges it posed. Communist Bulgaria intensively imported equipment for its factories, the Iron Curtain notwithstanding. While the USSR was the first source to consider, Western equipment was often purchased as well. The bread industry was first supplied with Soviet and German production lines, then Hungarian, and eventually Dutch and French. Sugar processing was supported by Swiss and Italian equipment. Soft drinks bottlers used French and later German machines, and so on. However, there was some inconsistency both in the purchase and in the repair policy. One reason was that they both depended on the constantly obstructed flow of hard currency. So, within a couple of decades after being opened (and sometimes much sooner), the factories of Communist Bulgaria turned into a patchwork of new, old, Eastern, Western, and self-made equipment, smartly patched together with whatever was at hand. Bulgarian engineers, who created and were created by this framework, were similarly eclectic. They had a specific gift for self-made solutions, where amateurishness bordered on genius, and which were based on liberal attitudes towards other people’s know-how. A well-documented example is the history of the chocolate factory Republika in Svoge, expropriated from Peev.38 In 1963, the management purchased a production line for chocolates from

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fig. 7.  A worker removes meat from a refrigerator in the meat production factory in Burgas, 1956. S. Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

Carle & Montanari in Milan. A great rearrangement was undertaken to make room for the new equipment. But when, after four months of installation, it began operations, it was discovered that the factory did not have the equipment to prepare the chocolate and fillings necessary for the new production. In 1966, new negotiations ensued to procure the missing devices.

Two years later, Republika decided to expand and buy another similar production line. In order to bring down the price, management negotiated with a producer in the GDR where they purchased the main elements. “But they did not have a mixer that fit our needs. So we made it here—it turned out just like the Italian one,” explained the factory’s former technical director Hristofor S­ imov.

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He still finds it funny to recall the face of the Italian engineer when he arrived to check his company’s equipment and saw the copy. “He felt sick, he no longer felt like eating in the canteen. He was outraged.”39 The history of the first ham in Communist Bulgaria is similar. According to Ivan Baychev, who created the technology for its production, it all started with Nixon. “In his election campaign, he had said that if he got elected, he would make sure that every US citizen has ham three times a day. They [the USA] had then huge imports. The largest exporters were Denmark and the Netherlands, and Poland stood in the queue. Then Hungary joined, Romania tried… And finally came Bulgaria’s turn.” recalled Baychev.40 Inspired by Nixon, the Bulgarian meat industry resolved to produce canned ham for export. But at the end of the 1960s it had neither the technology nor the equipment to yield significant quantities. Baychev created the recipe and legalized it as a patent, but the price of the machines required was $240,000, according to his recollection, and this money was not available. Some months later Baychev went for a short specialized training program in Belgium. In a factory in Antwerp he saw a machine like the one that was needed: “And while I was smoking in front of the building, I sketched it on my cigarette box.” Upon his return he found a mechanic who con-

structed the equipment for 23,000 BGN—at the time about five percent of the original price. However, this proved insufficient to transform Bulgaria into a major exporter of ham to the United States. The American side, recalls Baychev, was indeed interested. And no wonder—they were purchasing the products of a non-industrial industry. Attached to their artisanal practices of the past, the producers delivered samples with purely lean meat. But finding enough meat of this quality for regular shipments for the American market proved problematic. Besides, no Bulgarian producer was able to manufacture the necessary packaging, and the factory in Ruse could not secure the currency needed to import it. After a couple of attempts, the hope of exporting large quantities of ham to the United States faded. The new unpackaged ham became a much-treasured product on the domestic market. Cases of knowledge pilfering were typical of Bulgaria in that time and should not be judged from the point of view of contemporary ethical standards. They might be interpreted as impudent, but at least as far as the engineers were concerned, they were committed quite innocently. First of all, they were performed in compliance with state policy. The national state archive has preserved a directive issued in 1954 by Foreign Trade Minister Zhivko Zhivkov. It instructed directors of foreign trade companies to import samples every year from Socialist and Western countries in order to “augment the assort-

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ment of consumer goods.”41 Concerning “scientific-technical progress,” as the process was commonly referred to during the period, the formation of an industrial espionage unit in the Secret Service was no secret to the general public, and even less to those involved in the technical support of the industry. To this encouragement from above, the Bulgarian engineer often added generous quantities of positive thinking and perhaps professional habits to treat all solutions as possible until proven otherwise. When completing a difficult (collective) task with very limited means, intellectual property was not a common consideration. It had never been institutionalized as a value to be taken into account in any way. On the contrary, borrowing was legitimized by Communist state policy. Shrewdness of this type was considered a manifestation of ingenuity, dedication to one’s work, and a kind of analogue of today’s “corporate loyalty.” It would also be wrong to interpret this thievery as disrespect on the side of Bulgarian engineers towards their Western colleagues. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. An engineer of the French production line in the Republika factory declared that, “During the installation we put great efforts to present ourselves well before the French experts, who were very satisfied with the performance of our people...”42 Many examples suggest that Bulgarian professionals saw knowledge pilfering not as a something

fig. 8.  ”An experienced worker, Martin Poibrenski, carries crates with clear fruit juice for export in the Vitamina factory, Krichim, 1967.” Pressphoto-BTA.

that might offend their Western colleagues, but rather as a way to impress them. Several experts from Republika recalled how one of the oldest chocolatiers in their factory stunned some visiting Swiss experts. He took some of the choco-

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lates brought by the Swiss, and “he hadn’t slept all night. In the morning he came and offered these samples, duplicated. The Swiss were stunned!”43 What the Swiss actually thought, we will probably never know. Memoirs from the period are rich in similar reminiscences. They are not retold as confessions of a guilty party but rather as recollections of professional glory.

Brilliant Solutions Bring New Troubles

T

he colorful chronicle of Republika factory illustrates well the improvisational heroism with which Communist confectionery was produced. It contains a history of constant shuffles and reconstructions, machines bought, borrowed, installed, repaired, moved up and down to fit the space, which was in turn adapted only to discover that for one reason or another, the machines were not appropriate, or that in order to function they required others, which once bought required even more reshuffling, and then the reconstructions had to be undone, and so on… It seems that Republika was not exceptional, just better documented. Archives offer glimpses of similar improvisation in other fields. For example, workers from the meat-processing factory in Ruse recalled how in 1959, after an old installation broke down, four steam engines had to be delivered, but

only two of them arrived. To solve the resulting production crisis, the factory engineers found and installed an old steamship engine. “The need for a water supply was solved in a similarly ingenious way,” adds the record, without specifying how.44 Not all innovations proved equally successful or safe. Atanasov and Masharov reported that in 1952, a steam engine at the dairy farm in the village of Vesenkovo exploded due to a “solution” introduced by a local mechanic. Trying to speed up the warming of the milk, he decided to cover the safety ventilation valve. “Even though everyone in Mlekokoop (the milk processing cooperative) heard about the incident, in 1953 the mechanic of the dairy farm in the village of Kamen opted for the same ‘solution’ and achieved the same result: the steam engine exploded.”45 Despite the general chaos and the frequent malfunctioning of the system, factory production increased in Communist Bulgaria. The meat processing factory in Ruse reported a four-fold increase in production between 1960 and 1985, and Republika had ten production lines by 1970, increasing (at least on paper) its production capacity twice in the five years after 1965.46 Indeed, the chaos only added to the merits of the Bulgarian engineers’ genius, which in this environment succeeded in the creation of functioning (and in many cases, lasting) equipment, usually for no money and by make use of whatever was at hand.

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Many patents were registered by the engineering team of Republika, just as by many other industrial teams. The lack of hard currency to import the latest equipment or spare parts had its positive side— it encouraged technical creativity, both on the industrial and the domestic level. Garages, cellars, and attics were transformed into workshops, and fathers trained an entire generation of children to disassemble and repair at least an electric plug and tape-recorder cassette. The world of Dunno and his friends was a literary reflection of this reality.

The Raw Material

T

he technical framework of the Communist industry was different from the Western industrial model, as was its supply infrastructure. As an earlier quote from Zhivkov implied, the raw materials for the food industry remained a permanent worry. They were often irregularly provided, of inconsistent quality, or in insufficient quantity, or they were not provided at all. In the latter cases, the industry either suspended some of its activities or tried to substitute non-industrial alternatives for the missing industrial ones. Some of the shortages, such as an insufficient supply of meat, continued throughout the Communist period. Others, like certain types of vegetables or fish, improved over time with the development of state-run farms and ocean fishing. A third

group of raw foodstuffs—mainly those that were imported—were planned and used sparingly as the state suffered constantly from a lack of hard currency. Coffee, cocoa, and most citrus fruits belong to this last group. Certainly, there were also goods that are ubiquitous today that were not imported and were practically unavailable in Bulgaria, like olive oil, even though it was produced in neighboring Greece and Turkey. The shortage of meat was a particularly curious problem as production statistics contradict the documented unsatisfied demand among both consumers and the public restaurant industry. The shortage of meat in the postwar period is neither surprising nor exceptional for Bulgaria as most of Europe at the time experienced it as well. But its persistence in Bulgaria until the 1990s does raise questions. While government statistics report a near tenfold increase in meat production between the end of the war (for example 59,000 tons in 1951) and early 1988 (573,000 tons),47 there are numerous reports and recollections of scarcity through the years. One reason certainly must have been the increase in demand since a certain affluence was achieved towards the end of the 1960s that raised consumers’ expectations. Another reason, which could not be traced in the statistics, must have been the gradual decline of private farms, which made a greater part of the population reliant on commercially distributed meat.

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meats opened at ELPROM factory in Teteven to provide meat produce for the workers’ collective. About 200 kilos of meat are processed here daily. The four members of the team have mastered the production of seventeen different types of salami whose excellent taste would satisfy even the most demanding buyers.” Pressphoto-BTA.

The insufficient supply of meat, and of good quality meat in particular, can be followed in the documentation of Balkantourist, the company that ran accommodations and catering for local and foreign tourists. The earliest reports from the Balkantourist company, dating from 1949, describe a shortage of meat and insisted on finding a solution to the problem. It is also prominent in the recollections of many restaurant professionals. Over the decades, agriculture seems to have improved, but the complaints persisted. According to the many people interviewed for this book, the supplies were sufficient only for a period of time in the 1970s. Baychev, who worked for years as a veterinarian in 11 different villages around the country,

recalls constant shortages of meat: “They always bragged about the modern animal farming they created, but every autumn they would wonder how to get rid of most of the animals because they were unable to feed them… And then they were trying to export everything they could, to put their hands on every single dollar and cent that they could.”48 Baychev’s estimation, which is confirmed by evidence on all levels, was that animal farming in Communist Bulgaria never matched industrial and consumer need. Other notorious shortages in the industry were of cocoa and coffee, which were entirely imported. Their appearances on the market were defined by the complex dynamics of the political relations of

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the Bulgarian state with fellow Communist regimes in Africa and South America and the availability (or more often unavailability) of hard currency. Apart from being unnervingly propagandist, the Communist regime of Bulgaria could also be amateurishly optimistic. Examples are the numerous attempts of the state to export “industrial” goods that were not really produced industrially. The example of the ham for Nixon is just one of many. The former workers of the Plovdiv sugar factory, for example, remember how in order to provide material for production lines, they had to break eggs manually, separate egg whites from the yolks, and peel oranges to cook marmalade from the peels. Once in a while when the milk factory would suddenly stop production, they would find themselves cutting open one-liter packs of milk withdrawn from the retail network. They similarly recalled opening thousands of 100-gram coffee packs during periodic coffee crises. Sometimes all this occurred while train cars were waiting at the factory to take goods to the USSR.49 Curiously, today some people in the industry can be heard denying that there were shortages of products in the past. For example, the workers from the meat processing factory in Lovech reacted with surprise. “What shortage!? We had too much meat—we could not satisfy everyone and accept their animals!” exclaimed Gena Rangelova and Yovka Stefanova, who worked as food technolo-

gists. “I started in 1968 and… there was never any shortage of meat. One needed connections to make sure an animal would be bought by us, so excessive was the supply!” said Rangelova.50 People from the former teams of the Plovdiv sugar factory and Svoge chocolate factory reacted in a similar way, claiming they never had a shortage of cocoa for their production. Their memories contrast with those of consumers, who remember well the chocolate shortages and the multiple imitations produced to replace it. Such denials do not seem to be due to weakness of memory but are grounded in the professionals’ perspective. Shortages were not always visible on their level, as the factories’ production was planned centrally and adjusted to import possibilities at a higher level. In further discussions of the process, the food technologists acknowledged: Decisions were taken centrally of “how many tons of chocolate we needed to produce, while the import­ ers were asked to deliver the necessary quantities cocoa… So we received as much as was planned— always. Well, sometimes with delays, but they de­ livered it… Well, sometimes we went to the border to wait for the trucks with the deliveries. And we “stole” the trucks of Malchika [another confectionery ­factory in Sofia] redirecting them to our factory. The customers were ours!”

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The former workers at Republika chuckled recalling these adventures. Asked how they did it, they assured me that they never paid a bribe: “just a box of chocolate. The customs people were our people, and they sent the trucks to us instead of to Sofia.”51 The illusion of sufficiency was further supported by the way in which the trade departments of the factories functioned. Within the framework of long-term, centrally-managed planning, their ability to respond to immediate orders from the trade network was minimal. Most often their “flexibility” was limited to the ways in which they could distribute what they produced. “There were meetings during which traders were able to agree on quantities, but within the limits of our possibilities. Thus the better traders got a better assortment,” said the team of Republika.52 The situation was similar in Lovech, where former workers said that in spite of some daily orders from traders, the factory eventually just manufactured what it had the capacity for, and the trade department’s role was to distribute it.53

Tasty, Sometimes with Worms

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o someone who never lived under Communism, the recollections of contemporaries could be confusing. Their political history notwithstanding, Bulgarians are prone to reminisce nostalgically about the sweet tastes of their youth

or childhood, remembering that food was more fragrant and authentic than what they eat today. They recall fruit, vegetables, meat, or yoghurt, that in the 1970s or 1980s were more natural, less industrialized, and without preservatives. But while people everywhere tend to romanticize the food of their past, Bulgarians do so only sometimes. On other occasions, they dwell on the horrors of the Communist food industry. Some remember shops selling stinking meat with the butcher hiding the bones, fat, and ligaments under the better cuts; or sausages made of “toilet paper”; or “Dog’s Joy” ham, the nickname referring to its quality; or cured meat, in which hair and fractured bones were regularly found. They tell of “chocolate bars” with no chocolate; of vegetables that were canned unwashed; as well as spoiled milk, shops selling rotten tomatoes, frozen potatoes, and carrots so dirty they were unrecognizable, and so on. Indeed, reminiscences of the good quality of food back then often end up with admissions that the pure food in question was coming from family gardens or orchards, and was processed by grandmothers and mothers manually in significant quantities to prepare for the winter. But sometimes the industrial food of Communism is still considered better than the less regulated post-Communist production and trade. These nostalgic reminiscences often emphasize the higher-level quality control of the Communist period.

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Made in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria fig. 10.  “Dairy factory ‘Serdica’ is the largest

facility in the national dairy industry. It produces milk and yogurt, yellow cheese, ice cream and various dairy products. Almost 300 tons of yogurt leave the factory lines to find their prominent place on the table of each family.” Pressphoto-BTA, 1984.

Looking back at how farming and the food industry was run, it is fair to say that central planning, the involvement of scientists in the industry, and other policies put in place a significant system of quality standards although the industry was never able to pursue them consistently. There are clear indications that the experts were concerned with issues of food quality. Today, many of them recall that they followed some firm principles that were abandoned or loosened for less restrictive standards in post-Communist times. In interviews for this book, many mentioned that cheese was never put on the market before aging for 60 days, sausages were meticulously kept in special barns in the mountain areas to dry, bread dough was

given time to rise and develop a rich taste, and soft drinks were produced with natural spring waters to increase their beneficial impact on human health. However, all these standards were part of a vision of industrialization that, similar to the Western one (or perhaps even in more radical ways), also shared a passion for chemical fertilizers and industrial replacements of natural products. The aim to build industry entirely on mechanized farming left no space for labor-intensive fruit and vegetables, reducing their production or removing them from the market entirely. Preventing cattle diseases with drugs and ensuring rich crops with chemical stimulants and pesticides were also industry goals. The state’s desire to “introduce high-protein fodder cul-

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tures and chemical products in animal farming,” to “broaden the use of chemicals agriculture,” to “introduce industrial hybridizing and heterogenetics in animal farming via artificial insemination,” and “to increase medical prophylactics” are all stated in Party documents.54 In general, when, and indeed if, consumers enjoyed products of pre-industrial quality, it was often due to the inability of the state to industrialize them properly. Efforts to educate a highly skilled working class were compromised by a system in which the political loyalties of individuals took priority over their professional competence. This rule corrupted and demotivated generation after generation, and the consequences, at times comic, were mostly lethal to any goodwill of employees in regard to their professional obligations. Markov’s essay “Party and Work” offers brilliant insight into this pervasive social degeneracy.55 The author narrated how the best electric technician of the factory entered his office one morning and announced that he had become a member of the Party and therefore needed a new assignment. “I did not become a member of the Party to work! You will find something nicer for me… If you are in the Party, then the power is yours. If the power is yours, you don’t need to slave! Let the others slave!” reasoned the technician. Markov further marveled at the great number of incompetent people who the Party allowed to advance to management posi-

tions in the industry: “The trouble after all was that loyalty to the Party was what the industry needed the least. To function, the equipment required not Party slogans, but brains and skillful hands.”56 Two examples illustrate the situation in the food industry from the recollections of Baychev of meat production and Sonya Vladimirova of confectionery manufacturing. Baychev recalls how the initial unsustainable attempts to produce industrial products from top-quality meat were later replaced by more industrial practices when lower-quality products were developed to serve as raw material. In this later period, an official from the upper levels of the hierarchy learned that in some countries, soy is used as food filler. Incompetent but enterprising, the official imported soybean flour. His “innovation” reached the meat factory as an order to add this flour to meat products (instead of extracted soy protein). Baychev’s team, even if they clearly realized this to be a mistake, were forced to obey orders. He said the factory produced inedible products for quite a while before higher management realized the error. Sonya Vladimirova, a former food technologist in Vasil Koralov factory in Plovdiv, spoke of similar practices as late as the 1980s, suggesting a lack of concern for consumers’ health. She recalled the delivery of mysterious low-quality substances from the USSR that the technologists were forced to use in production. One of them arrived as cocoa, but was “grey in color and was nothing like real cocoa

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powder.” The other was milk powder, which “was like lime, but greyish and did not behave like milk powder when dissolved in water.” Although some of its qualities, such as fat content, corresponded to the standard, it “tasted like soap.” Speaking of other similar industrial innovations from the 1980s, she concluded: “Was it safe? Who knows? Nobody discussed health safety then.”57 One of the principal ways in which the Communist food industry regulated quality was the Bulgarian State Standards system. It was introduced in 1932, when the Bulgarian Institute of Norms (BIN) was created based on a German prototype, the DIN (Deutsches Institut fur Normung). The Communist administration later built upon it, adding requirements for each product made in state factories. The standards were used to control manufacturing on a daily basis. After the fall of the regime, when anarchy reigned, some consumers nostalgically referred to the old order and the quality it provided. The belief that the Communist industry produced better-controlled and less harmful foodstuff still lingers today. The reputation of Communist regulation has improved over time, beautified by the growing temporal distance and in reaction to the limitations of contemporary food quality control. The memories of the bad quality and the impotence of the consumer industry, which was a primary source of unrest during the Communist period, have faded.

fig. 11.  A worker at the confectionery factory “Hristo Nikolov” in Sofia

prepares a New Year’s cake. According to the original caption, festive cakes were the most sought out item from the factory’s production. The celebration of Christmas was banned by the Communist state and New Year’s became the grand festivity at the end of the year. Photo D. Viktorov, 1978, Pressphoto-BTA.

The accounts of many technologists who worked in the food industry confirm the existence of draconian rules and standards. “The control was murderous!” exclaimed Darinka Koleva, who worked

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in dairy production in Lovech.58 “You couldn’t release anything on the market before the lab analysis of the product was done. If the cheese hadn’t aged for 60 days, you couldn’t sell it… If you had packed milk with 2.9 instead of 3 percent, you were in trouble. They were watching you! There were two labs: one in the factory, and one in DVSK [State Veterinary and Sanitary Control].” She said that whenever the lab found a discrepancy between a product and the industrial standard, the workers had to open all the packaged milk, pour it out to the containers and correct the butter content.59 To ensure such control, the Communist state maintained numerous specialized personnel in the factories and in various testing agencies. “We were two people in the meat-processing factory,” recalled Baychev about Ruse, “and then there was one in the lab. Six or seven vets with the highest qualifications, five or six paramedics, several lab technicians. It was excessive.”60 On the one hand, former technologists proudly spoke of strict regulations in their food production units. “One followed all the standards because we knew that there was a doctor who daily examined your work: who cut the salamis, analyzed them in a lab… You’d make something in the evening, in the morning the doctor would come, check it, and only then you could release it on the market,” recalled Gena Rangelova and Yovka Stefanova, who worked in the meat factory in Lovech.61

Yet as the interview conversations unfolded, the food technologists gradually recalled the numerous factors that led to the end products differing from the industrial standards. Sometimes it was incompetence, as with the soy flour/soy protein mix-up mentioned above. “It was such stupidity and ignorance!” exclaimed Baychev of this “innovation.” He said the flour was delivered packed like cement, and inside the paper bags it was littered with burned matches and even cigarette butts. It was still added to the sausage mixture anyway for almost a year before the protests of the medical personnel caused that “innovation” to be cancelled.62 At other times the reason for compromises with quality were shortages, and these were persistent. As the price of cocoa rose on the international market (or Bulgaria’s ability to pay for it shrank), the food technologists in the chocolate factory in Svoge were pushed to invent confectionery items that contained little cocoa. This is how they came to focus on soy and started experimenting with it. “We invested a lot of energy in this, as there was enough soy, but only with the equipment at hand.”63 They admitted that these efforts were perhaps the least successful in their professional history. But regardless of what they thought of their soy-based inventions, these products reached the Communist consumer. But not only the shortage of luxury goods like cocoa led to concessions; most raw materials had

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gluts and shortages that led to compromises. Speaking of raw milk, Darinka Koleva, who worked in the dairy factory Serdica in Lovech recalled that “There was a lab that controlled a set of indicators: acidity, fat content, viscosity. If [the raw material] did not satisfy the required values, it was fed to the pigs.” This rule was followed whenever possible. However, and as with the Communist state in general, many rules sounded perfect but were impossible to follow. In the case of Serdica-Lovech, good intentions were often thwarted by crises. And, “Once a crisis would come, nothing went to the pigs. One modified the high acidity with baking soda,”64 and the resulting product was sent to market. Workers from the confectionery factories re­ called how butter from the national food reserve, covered with mold, was delivered to be used in production in packs of 125 grams. “We had to open the packs one by one and scrape off the mold, but we could not scrape too deep, as that would reduce the quantity,” recalled Vladimirova, who worked in Plovdiv’s sugar factory. She remembered too that she had to work with rancid peanuts and walnuts with worms: “you send them back, but then you don’t have anything to work with, so you take them again.”65 The flour, which was usually of good quality, also sometimes arrived spoiled, and workers had to sift out the worms out. Or not. The workers also devised their own methods to avoid sanitary and quality control. Range­lova

and Stefanova spoke of the many tricks of technologists, recalling how they would make an ideal salami at the beginning of the week, and then keep “feeding” the labs with samples from it, while actually releasing new batches to the public that might not have satisfied the criteria. They also recalled rolling dry salami in flour to imitate the white fungus it is supposed to accrete during drying and aging. In fact, there is much evidence that industrial hygiene, however regulated it was in theory, was far from exemplary. “Doctors passed out when visiting our factory!” recalled Vladimirova emotionally. “Nothing was maintained! The waffle hall was made for two tons of production, but was releasing twelve tons. It was designed for one production line, but three were operating. The management would adjust the space a bit now and then but avoided investments. So every time we knew that a doctor was about to visit, we would spend three days cleaning!”66 These reminiscences certainly do not allow for any quantitative conclusions on the quality of Communist industrial food output. But they clearly show that state Communism corrupted its plan for an industrial utopia, just as it corrupted its humanistic utopia of socialism as a political movement. As anthropologist Milena Veenis insightfully noted, it was (limited) resources and not ideas that shaped production under Communism.67

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Generic versus Branded

C

entral planning provided for certain aspects that differentiated Eastern European economies from the Western ones. Among the peripheral but curious peculiarities was an ambivalent attitude toward branding. In an economic environment in which producers struggled together to supply the bare minimum to the market and were encouraged by the state to achieve synergy, they lacked motivation for internal competition, and it took three decades before the idea of using brands for marketing purposes started developing. In 1974, there were a total of 870 registered Bulgarian brands in the country and 7,888 foreign ones.68 At about this time, new domestic brands were being registered at a rate of 37 per year. Communist consumers expected to find only one type of various food products and most of them were referred to just by their generic name. Asking for milk or yoghurt, customers rarely bothered to refer to the animal they came from, as the only widely available dairy products were from cow’s milk. “Oil” meant the only available kind, sunflower oil. White cheese, another staple of Bulgarian cuisine, was simply called “cheese,” ignoring any indication of its producers or region of origin. Specification of goat, cow, or sheep cheese would only happen in the rare periods when these were available. Bulgarian industry only made

one kind of butter and did not offer any choice between salted or unsalted, ghee, fermented cream or sweet cream, or any other kind. “Smetana” was the single type of cream on the market, and it was sour cream, leaving more than one generation of the urban population ignorant of the existence of fresh cream. Both unpacked and packed goods were sold under their generic names, even when special labels and logos were developed for them. The fruit processing factories bottled “Apple Juice” or “Apricot Nectar.” There was one kind of packed rice, called “Rice,” and one type of grape vinegar, called “Grape Vinegar,” and so on. The refusal of the industry to give products names sometimes affected popular language. If some differentiation was needed but not offered by producers, the consumers would find another way to indicate the distinction. For example, one of the best remembered food items was known as “The 5-Waffle” (in Bulgarian, vafla ot pet), its popular name referring to its fixed price of 5 stotinki.69 A more serious push towards branding came in later Communist decades, when strategists in central management criticized the limited variety of goods in the supermarket 70 and there was a general ambition to create more consumer goods. Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, the industry released most of the brands that today are associated with the Communist period.

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By this time, factories had a routine administrative procedure to introduce new food items. The usual procedure was that technologists came up with ideas and sent their description to other technologists to create production guidelines and standards. The documentation was then forwarded to a higher, central administrative level for approval before production could be launched. But while this was the usual way to plan food products, there were many other creative paths that shaped the face of the industry. Technologists from different factories reported that specialists who had established themselves professionally in their field before 1944 created some of the best-known and most produced by the communist industry items. Such was the origin of some of the best brands of chocolates (Trimontsium, Hebros, Plovdiv) in the confectionery factories in Plovdiv and Svoge, and also the first and most popular brands of halva and Turkish delight. Bay Stefan Kozela 71 was once the chief food technologist. He sat, trading jokes—he was very communicative—and stirred, and mixed, and prepared, and then put something on a sheet of paper, or on a box and walked to the director: Try this!”72 The former technologists and engineers from Svoge said that Kozela had started working in the factory while it was still owned by Velizar Peev and stayed there his entire life, for 50 years, applying his experience in developing new chocolates.

Another group of food items arrived as recipes, supplementing imported equipment: the baguette (called fransela in Bulgarian), the local (and not so petit) version of petit-beurre, the millefeuille crisps Elitsa produced with Danish machines, and many others. The shortages, or sometimes surpluses, of certain by-products also led to the creation of new products: numerous fake chocolate products, commonly called marzipan in Bulgaria; all kinds of biscuits and desserts, using alternative fruit flours and flavors; but also, surprisingly, one of the most popular dry salamis, which was made of veal meat, Lovech. According to two former technologists in the meat processing factory of Lovech, the recipe for this salami was created to use a sudden surplus of veal.73 Yet another specific and somewhat curious cause for the diversity of food products under Communism were the Party congresses and other important state celebrations. Many accounted for the creation of one or another new food item or brand specifically for the purpose of having it for an important upcoming Party meeting. New goods were created and old ones were repackaged to celebrate “20 years of power to the people,” a slogan on a halva tin box, or “Eight congresses of the BKP [the Bulgarian Communist Party]” on a box of Turkish delight.74 The connection was not always so evident, but some documents suggest that factories regularly invested efforts to “celebrate” party congresses by sending the first samples of new items.75

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fig. 12.  “The three types of yellow cheese produced by the State Business Association ‘Dairy Industry’ in Troyan are exported to Europe, Asia, and America, and to Switzerland. Photo D. Altunkov, 1985. Pressphoto-BTA.

In any case, the diversity of goods on the Bulgarian market, much like their quality, never reached the levels recommended by strategists. After 1960, when the state’s idea of a developed, modern country increasingly favored consumption, concern grew over the lack of consumer choice. Several sources suggest that experts were trying to emulate the United States and its diversity of prod-

ucts, but by the 1980s, they bitterly gave up.76 By then, on paper and only on paper, the Bulgarian food industry was producing 3,000 different food items.77 It is difficult to compare this even to the 5,800 food items 78 in the average US supermarket three decades earlier. This stark contrast in the number of brands should not be seen as an indication solely of the different level of development between Bulgarian and American industry. It was also due to the different operational logic of the Communist economy. But even if, as historians Bren and Neuburger argued, we avoid making such judgements based on distinctions between East and West and consider Bulgarian modernization on its own terms,79 the Communist food industry still significantly failed to meet the ideals to which it aspired. State-socialist modernity was more dystopian than utopian. It scrambled with evident impotence toward the ambitious task of running an entire country centrally. Indeed, as it has already been pointed out by historians, the model offered economic freedom on an amazing scale.80 But while this provided opportunities for surprising advances, it also, and sadly more often, opened space for particularly spectacular failures. The complex system, rife with dysfunctions, ended up consistently neutralizing and discouraging any real application of skills and intelligence, while it needed extraordinary quantities of both to advance.

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Notes 1 Peko Takov, Za povishavane kulturata na obsluzhvaneto v turgoviata [Improving customer service culture in trade] (Sofia, Turgovia, 1962). 2 In 1979, Todor Zhivkov gave a speech before the National Agrarian-Industrial Union: “And it wasn’t easy to turn this reality into a fairytale for the young generations, which starts with the words ‘Once upon a time there were Bulgarian villages…’” Todor Zhivkov, Agrarnata Politika na BKP [The agrarian politics of the Bulgarian Communist Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1985), 69. 3 Ivalyo Znepolski, ed., NRB ot nachaloto do kraya [PRB from the beginning to the end] (Sofia: Ciela, 2011), 136. 4 The first chocolate factory in Switzerland opened in 1803; the first meat packing factory in Cincinnati, Porkopolis, opened in 1818; the first meat processing plant in Canada dates from the 1850s; and the agricultural industry of the Netherlands formed from the 1840s onward. Eric Nijhof and Peter Scholliers, eds., Het Tijdperk van de Machine [The age of the machine] (Brussels: VUB Press, 1996), 30–31. 5 Atanas Petrov, Milladin Sharatov, and Dimitur Krustev, Hranitelnata promishlenost v Bulgaria: minalo, nastoyashte, budeshte [Food industry in Bulgaria: Past, present, and future] (Sofia: Tehnika, 1983), 140, 93. 6 Georgi Atanasov and Ivan Masharov, Mlechnata promishlenost v Bulgaria v minaloto I dnes [Dairy industry in Bulgaria in the past and today] (Haskovo: Zemizdat, 1981), 32–38. 7 Angel Traykov, “Durzhavata da sudeystva na prerabotvatelite” [The state needs to support the food processing companies], interview with Dr. Georgi Kikindonov, head of unit in the Agricultural Institute in Shumen and a sugar beet selector, AgroCompas, April 2015, http://www.agrocompass.bg/article. php?ID=687 (accessed July 4, 2018). 8 This information was shared by Petko Kunin in 1947, one of the three main organizers of nationalization. Petko Kunin, “Kak se izvurshi nacionalizatsiata v Bulgaria” [How the nationalization in Bulgaria was carried out]. Archive recording of Petko Kunin, released as a Youtube video by Zagubenata Bulgaria [Lost Bulgaria] https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yjVohkEORv4 (accessed June 1, 2018). 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Veteranite razkazvat: 100 godini Rodopa Russe [The veterans remember: 100 years of Rhodopa Ruse] (Ruse: Rodhopa Factory, 1986), 8.

13 Ivan Baychev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Ruse, October 29, 2012. 14 Ivanov, Rashko. “Narodnoto stopanstvo prez epohata na socializma 1949–1989” [The state economy during Communism 1949–1989] Dialog (2007) https://www2.uni-svishtov.bg/dialog_old/2007 /4.07.RI.pdf (accessed June 12, 2013). 15 Zhivkov, Izbrani suchinenia [Selected works] (Sofia: BKP, 1975), vol. 3, 193. 16 By 1959 Bulgaria was in a deep economic crisis, with a rocketing negative trade balance, reaching up to 951.5 million BGN, and in hard currency debts amounting to 87.8 million BGN. Ivalyo Znepolski, ed. NRB ot nachaloto do kraya [PRB from the beginning to the end] (Sofia: Ciela, 2011), 289. 17 Todor Zhivkov, 22 Kongres na KPSS i poukte ot nego za BKP [The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the lessons from it for the Bulgarian Communist Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1961), 28. 18 Daniel Vachkov and Martin Ivanov, Bulgarskiat vunshen dulg 1944–1989 [The state foreign debt 1944–1989] (Sofia: Ciela, 2008), 116–20. 19 Martin Ivanov, “Socialisticheskoto blagodenstvie i konsensusut na licemerieto” [Socialist welfare state and the consensus of hypocrisy], Sociologicheski problem, no. 1–2 (2011): 237–38. 20 Ivaylo Znepolski, Bulgarskiat komunizum [Bulgarian Communism] (Sofia: Ciela. 2008), 234–35. 21 Ivan Elenkov, Kulturniat front [The cultural frontline] (Sofia: Ciela, 2008), 145–46. 22 For Stalin’s campaign to create luxury for the masses, see Jukka Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia (Oxford: Berg, 2003). 23 According to a recently opened document of the CIA from 1950, “Bulgaria cannot sell any of its production, including tobacco, to the West without Soviet permission. Bulgaria has lost much of its profitable market for its principal export product, and most of the tobacco taken over by the USSR, by means of unfavorable barter practices, is resold at high profit.” The same document claims that Moscow regularly imposed such unprofitable deals to the countries from the Eastern Bloc. “Soviet Trade Practices and Activities Harmful to Satellite Economy and East–West Trade,” CIA Intelligence memorandum No. 286, CIA Archive (May 2, 1950) (accessed on June 20, 2018) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP 78-01617A000900170003-1.pdf. 24 Todor Zhivkov, Za uskoryavane razvitieto na narodnoto stovanstvo [Speeding up the people’s economy] Speech before the plenum of the Central Committee of the BKP in January 1959 (Sofia: Partizdat, 1959), 68.

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25 Such an example was quoted by the chairman of the soft-drink producers’ association: Milcho Boshev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Ruse, October 30, 2012. 26 Zhivkov personally and repeatedly acknowledged this fact. See, for example, Todor Zhivkov, Rech za otkrivaneto na Natsionalnata partiyna konferencia [Introductory speech before the National Party Conference], March 22–23, 1984 (Sofia: Partizdat, 1984), 40–42. 27 Eugene Zamiatin, We, trans. Gregory Zilboorg (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1924) and George Orwell, 1984 (London: Secker&Warburg, 1949). 28 Petrov et al., Hranitelnata promishlenost, 56. 29 Nadezhda Petkova, “Promishleno proizvodstvo na svinsko meso” [Industrial production of pork meat] Ikonomicheski zhivot, April 12, 1972. 30 Ibid. 31 Halva, an Arab delicacy made of nuts, seeds, and root paste, was brought to Plovdiv by an Armenian artisan in the nineteenth century and has been produced in the city ever since, achieving great popularity in Bulgaria. 32 Sonya Vladimirova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 4, 2013. 33 Markov, Zadochni Reportazhi, 32. 34 Rayko Damyanov, Doklad za sustoyanieto na industriata [Report on the state of the industry before the Political Bureau of the Bulgarian Communist Party] 1958, Sofia, CSA 1-6-4048, 8. 35 Baychev, interview. 36 Todor Zhivkov, “Za povrat kum intenzivno razvitie na selskoto stopanstvo” [Towards an intensive development of the agriculture] in Zhivkov, Agrarnata politika na BKP [The agrarian politics of the Bulgarian Communist Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1985). 37 Nikolai Nosov, The Adventures of Dunno and his friends, trans. Margaret Wettlin (Moscow: Progress, 1980). 38 Andrey Vidinov, S imeto “Republika” [Under the name “Republika”] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1984). The quoted episodes from the history of the factory are based on Vidinov’s book and on an interview for this book with several former workers at the factory, including engineer Simov: Hristofor Simov, Ganka Solakova, Elena Peshterlieva, and Georgi Dimitrov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Svoge, November 22, 2012. 39 Simov et al., interview. 40 Baychev, interview. 41 Zhivko Zhivkov, “Zapoved 18 na ministura na vutreshnata turgovia” [Order 18 of the minister of domestic trade] (December 25, 1954) CSA 310-2-7. 42 Vidinov, S imeto Republika, 77. 43 Simov et al., interview.

44 Alexander Nedkov and Boyan Draganov, 100 godini mesopromishlenost v Ruse [100 years of meat processing industry in Ruse] (Ruse: Rodhopa, 1986), 36. 45 Atanasov and Masharov, Mlechnata promishlenost, 73. 46 Vidinov, S imeto Republika, 59. 47 NSI (National Statistics Institute), Statisticheski godishnik [State statistics yearbook] online edition, http://statlib.nsi. bg:8181/bg/index.php, 1959, 85; 1989, 206. 48 Baychev, interview. 49 Mariana Lapkova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, November 2, 2012. 50 Yovka Stefanova and Gena Rangelova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Lovech, November 23, 2012. 51 Excerpts from the interview with food technologists and engineers from Republika factory in Svoge: Simov et al., interview. 52 Ibid. 53 Darinka Koleva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Lovech, November 23, 2012; Stefanova and Rangelova, interview. 54 IX kongres na Bulgarskata komunisticheska partia [Ninth Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party] (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na BKP, 1966). 55 Markov, Zadochni reportazhi, 44. 56 Ibid. 57 Vladimirova, interview. 58 Koleva, interview. 59 Koleva, interview. 60 Baychev, interview. 61 Stefanova and Rangelova, interview. 62 Baychev, interview. 63 Simov et al., interview. 64 Koleva, interview. 65 Vladimirova, interview. 66 Vladimirova, interview. 67 Milena Veenis, “Cola in the German Democratic Republic: East German Fantasies on Western Consumption.” Enterprise and Society 12, no. 3 (2011): 499. 68 Dimitur Doganov, Reklama na markata [Advertisement of the brand] (Sofia: Bulreklama, 1974), 10. 69 100 stotinki make one lev, which is the Bulgarian national currency. 70 Spas Karanfilov and Nikolay Portnih, “Osnovnie napravlenia perspectivnogo razvitia roznichnoy torgovoy seti” [Main directions of the development of the retail network] (1976) Sofia, CSA 707-3-3; Lalka Deseva and Asparih Germanov, “Opredelyane na asortimentnata struktura na stokovite zapasi po tipove supermarket” [Defining the assortment structure of the stock in the different types of supermarkets] (1974), CSA 707-1-179.

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71 Bay [bai] stands for an elderly, respected person. Kozela means “the buck.” 72 Simov et al., interview. 73 Stefanova and Rangelova, interview. 74 This dedication had a comic ring to it, as “stretching Turkish delight” meant talking without saying much. 75 Vidinov, S imeto Republika, 78. 76 Karanfilov and Portnuh, “Osnovnie napravlenia”; Deseva and Gevanov, “Opredelyane na asortimenta.”

77 Petrov et al., Hranitelnata promishlenost, 56. 78 Andrew F.,Smith, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 266. 79 Paulina Bren, and Mary Neuburger, “Communism Unwrapped,” in Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe, edited by Paulina Bren and Mary Neuberger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 7. 80 Ibid., 8.

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fig. 13.  From left to right: Hristofor Simov, Ganka Solakova, Elena Peshterlieva and Georgi Dimitrov, four former workers in the chocolate factory in Svoge, near Sofia, who recalled the production of cheap replacement of chocolate under the name “marzipan.” Photo Albena Shkodrova, 2012.

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Chapter 2

Why Do Bulgarians Hate Marzipan? How the Name of an Ancient Almond-Based Delicacy Was Given to Fake Chocolate

S

hould you decide to please a Bulgarian friend with some marzipan bought in your favorite confectionery boutique, you might very well have the following exchange:

You, holding out the package: “I’ve got something for you.” Your friend, with a broad smile of gratitude: “What is this?” You: “It’s marzipan.” He, incredulously: “What?” You: “Marzipan. I really love this brand.” He, now alarmed: “You mean, you brought me marzipan?” You, now confused: “Eh… Yes…?” He, trying hard to control his irritation: “Wasn’t it supposed to be brown?” Or if he, like my mother, is really not into playing polite with you: “You couldn’t find any chocolate, eh?”

To many Bulgarians, particularly older ones, marzipan is a dirty word. At some point in the twentieth century, it became entirely disassociated from almond paste, which is its meaning in other languages. If you walked into a shop in the 1980s and asked for marzipan, you would have gotten a sweet, brown, sticky block, wrapped in tin foil, which tasted vaguely like petrol. Since real chocolate was not easy to find, children often ended up with this mysterious substitute—it was the best energy bar as they could get. In the late 1980s, when real chocolate was particularly difficult to find, it was even sold in a wrapper misleadingly labeled “chocolate.” But popularly it went by the name “marzipan.”

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The Bulgarian marzipan, that is, this bar of fake chocolate, is a much hated product, and not simply because some found its taste or texture repulsive. It invokes the deception and humiliation of the Communist system and its attempts to delude the population by passing rubbish off as delicacy, misery as affluence, and exploitation as the pursuit of higher goals. The entirety of Communist reality was promoted the way the marzipan was sold— wrapped in misleading words. The memory so haunts many Bulgarians that it prevents them from discovering the real marzipan, even if it has long since become available in the local market. While Communist confectionery production is clearly responsible for the dislike of soy bars, it is unclear why they were named marzipan and by whom, causing lasting damage to the reputation of the ancient almond dessert. So, on an October morning in 2012, with a piece of Belgian marzipan in my bag, I headed to the historical producer of Bulgarian marzipan in Svoge. At Sofia Central Station, I cut through the thick cloud of tobacco smoke produced by desperate, last-minute smokers on the platform and jumped in the train car, inhaling the sharp stench of machine oil and a sanitized but unclean lavatory. In the next 40 minutes, the train would take me unhurriedly through the gorge of the Iskar River, Sofia’s beloved villa zone. The same trip must have been taken nearly 20,000 times by Stephan Kozela [the Buck]. He was

a technologist at Peev’s chocolate factory in Sofia before 1944, and he remained in this position for half a century, even after the enterprise moved to Svoge and was later nationalized. He would have known the answers to my questions. But he is long gone. Instead of Kozela, four people were awaiting me in the town hall of Svoge, touchingly formal, sitting in the ceremonial room under the national coat of arms. They worked with Kozela as young professionals in the chocolate factory, then renamed by Communist expropriators as “Republika.” Hristofor Simov, cheerful, lively, and quick to offer opinions, worked as technical director of the factory. I already knew his name from a book on Republika’s history, published in the 1980s. Ganka Solakova and Elena Peshterlieva, elegant and stately women, were food technologists. They remained distant, but only until they started talking about their work. Georgi Dimitrov, named after Bulgaria’s (in)famous Communist leader, chipped in to summarize in simple words what the others said. He had been a labor leader in the factory. Our conversation, at first hesitant and tentative, soon intensified, and after a couple of twists reached my goal: the marzipan. “What was it actually made of?” I asked. It is a confectionary based on cocoa solids—what is left after the butter is extracted. To make Bulgarian marzipan, these cocoa solids were mixed with hydrogenated fats, flavors, sugar, fruit, and soybean flour. This mixture was shaped into lit-

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Made in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria

tle blocks. The most popular brand, Lyulin, was a standard in the People’s Republic. But there were also other kinds of marzipan confectioneries, and the taste varied, depending on the proportions and the exact ingredients. “It was delicious, our marzipan,” concluded the four. I took the Belgian marzipan out of my bag, and while unwrapping it and cutting it in pieces, I wondered what was passing through their heads.

“So what was it called then?” I asked, hoping to final­ ly fall on a lead. “Nut marzipan. It was made of nuts. It had nothing to do with the other marzipan,” she said, pointing out the obvious. “But why was this cocoa confectionary called marzi­ pan in first place?” “The word was borrowed from Europe,” said Dimi­ trov. And then he offered the first crack in the wall of my historic mystery. “When I started working

“What is that?” they asked.

here in 1958, it was already in production. The reci­

“Marzipan.”

pe must have been created while the factory still be­

“Marzipan!?” Short, confused agitation followed.

longed to Peev. It must have been a confectionary for

Ganka Solakova was the first one to recover: “Hold

the masses, a cheap dessert… It smelled like choco­

on, this is NUT marzipan!”

late, but it was not. We had a special machine to pro­

“Do you know if there is a connection between this

duce marzipan, we manufactured around twelve tons

one, and the one Republika was producing?”

a day… The mould we used was very old, from before

“This marzipan was the basis of what we produced,

September 9 [1944]. The factory bought it in 1938.”

we added cocoa solids to it,” said Simov.

And just as I thought I had made a breakthrough, that

“This is not true,” corrected Solakova, “our marzipan

marzipan after all was not one of the small mischiefs

was like a chocolate block, made of cocoa solids. It

of the Communist regime, he added: “First the factory

was created as a cheap alternative to chocolate.”

made chocolate with the mould, and then marzipan.”

“But what is the connection between this confection­

(Hristofor Simov, Ganka Solakova, Elena Peshterlieva, and Georgi

ary and the original marzipan?” I insisted.

Dimitrov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Svoge, November 22, 2012)

“There is no connection,” said Solakova. “Such a thing was never produced in the factory since I have worked in it,” Simov said, pointing at the Belgian marzipan. “It was,” Solakova again corrected, “we used it as fill­ ing for chocolates.”

This took me back to square one. The marzipan mould was imported to Bulgaria in 1938 but was first used to produce chocolate. Sometime between then and 1958, the mould was switched to producing fake chocolate. But Dimitrov did not

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know when the switch was made and when the name “marzipan” was attached to the fake chocolate. The only certain thing was that soy derivatives were a novelty under Communism, at least in this factory. A shortage of cocoa was notable during the People’s Republic. Constantly lacking convertible currency, the regime counted on friendly Communist regimes in Africa and Latin America to obtain cocoa without having to pay in American dollars. But it was not always possible, and chocolate was not easy to find on the Bulgarian market. “For a while, cocoa was imported from Ghana. But after the military coup, it became problematic. We worked long nights to create new confectionaries [which did not require cocoa] because we had to meet production targets…,” explained Vasil Gyurov, a technologist at Republika, in the book on the factory’s history.1 Over time, chocolate also became one of the hidden symbols of the regime’s hypocrisy and demagogy. The political establishment of Communist Bulgaria saw no need to suffer the shortages experienced by its population. They had access to firstrate chocolate for themselves all the time, or nearly all the time. Employees in the chocolate industry from the 1960s recall how their factories worked around the clock to fulfill the orders of the political elite, who had priority over any other production tasks. Food

technologists developed special products, different from those for the market and made of better quality chocolate. This more luxurious line was purchased by the UBO, a division of the state security service which was responsible for accommodating, transporting, and catering to the political elite and foreign diplomats. It took care of the “special purveyance”—the term that masked the supply of the political establishment with delicacies missing from ordinary market goods. This routine was established by the very first Communist leader of Bulgaria, Georgi Dimitrov, who copied it from Stalin. “We made some types of chocolates only for them. There were liquor-filled chocolate bottles, little chocolate umbrellas, ‘rocks,’ which were chocolate shells filled with praliné,” remembers Vla­ dimirova, who worked in another confectionery factory in Plovdiv. She said the chocolate was required to be of the best quality, and only one unit in the factory was allowed to work on such orders. The UBO would inform the factory of the content and deadline for an order, and the factory had to make the necessary arrangements to deliver in time, even if it meant working in three shifts. “And there were always orders. There were workers who did nothing but this,” Vladimirova said.2 In addition to placing priority orders in the large factories, the UBO had at their disposal a small production unit in the center of Sofia. “It was a separate industrial unit on Luvov Most,

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and they worked only for UBO, they used fantastic ingredients!”3 Meanwhile, the people of the People’s Republic were resigned to enjoying Bulgarian marzipan. “It was very tasty, it’s true!” insisted the four in the town hall of Svoge on that October morning. In fact, they may be partially right, because the content of the “marzipan” varied over time and in different confectionery items, and some versions tasted better than others. One variety, Kuma Lisa, was made with cocoa solids, pure butter, milk, and rosehip flour, and was considered all right. Another popular item was the chocolate box Lilia, which was made of Bulgarian marzipan paste. But among them all, the taste of those little marzipan blocks must have been repellent enough to make a couple of generations of Bulgarians avoid anything with the name marzipan. The probable source of this negative association was the introduction of soy flour as an ingredient. Remember that in Bulgaria at the time, it was used as flour and not as protein extract. Even the Svoge technologists admitted it was not their greatest achievement.

“And yet,” concluded Georgi Dimitrov, “our chocolate was so much better than the one that the factory makes now!” His former colleagues seemed to share his resentment for the product of the factory’s current owner, an international corporation. “It was incomparably better!” they agreed. “Well, perhaps it is that we were young,” added Simov apologetically. While the train took me back to Sofia through the dramatic contrasting lights of the Iskar river gorge—deep shadow, blinding sun, tunnel, blinding sun—I smarted from my failure to untangle the mystery of the Bulgarian marzipan. I will probably never know who and what caused this confectionery mystery.

Notes 1 Andrey Vidinov, S imeto “Republika” [Under the name “Republika”] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1984), 54. 2 Sonya Vladimirova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 4, 2013. 3 Ibid.

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Chapter 3

Canned in Bulgaria by Poets, Diplomats, and Teenagers How the Most Advanced Canning Industry in the Balkans Really Functioned

It was all like a vast, unguarded barn. We, the brigadiers, were a gang of teenagers, who were only busy cooking up new mischiefs… There were these large cauldrons in which they were processing tomatoes. I remember how we hurled those tomatoes at each other as in Spanish festivals… Vassilena Mircheva, translator and journalist

In some parts of the management chain there cropped up bureaucracy, acts of anarchism, even misdeeds. But these are not lasting phenomena, for they contradict the very essence of our formation, and the counteracting forces are powerful. Todor Zhivkov for the French magazines France Nouvelles and La Nouvelle Critique, 15 March 1975

T

he brigades were the working armies of the East European Com­ munist regimes. Borrowed from Stalin, in Bulgaria the idea was

launched in the 1940s the Soviet way: set on megalomanic tasks and assigned a “civilizing” mission. But it ended the Balkan way: as a pet­ ty crime of the regime against its citizens, who were abused as a cheap workforce, covering for major failures in state industry and agriculture. The dictator planned to use the brigades to train subjects in subor­ dination and to hold them in check. Unfortunately for him, the work

fig. 14.  Workers at the meat processing plant Rodopa in Levski are packing the produce. 1971. Photo B. Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

camps also bred an alternative youth culture—one which spurred creativity in mischief and delivered crates, jars, and cans with unex­ pected contents.

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fig. 15.  “Join forces in the brigadiers’ movement.” Poster by N. Kovachev, 1985. Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

Usually Kina Neykova would leave for work at a quarter to eight in the morning. Dressed smart and casual, she would take her purse, put on a pair of elegant shoes, and go down the stairs of her high-ceilinged apartment building in central Sofia. She would cross the shady Slaveykov Square, walk down the tramline for another block, and arrive at her office—approximately eight to ten minutes after leaving home. Normally, she worked as an administrator at the Union of Journalists, almost entirely in quiet and at a desk. But the spring of 1959 was anything but normal. Instead of getting up at seven, she had to do so at five-thirty. In place of silk, she had to put on thick woolen socks. A pair of shoes with solid India

rubber soils replaced her heeled pumps. Her habitual outfit was swapped for working clothes. Instead of reaching her office in the city center at eight, she had to be in the outskirts of Sofia at six-thirty. There she had to climb into the back of a truck to be taken somewhere in the fields beyond the city limits. Together with a few other colleagues from the Union of Journalists and a substantial group of writers, Neykova was one of the tens of thousands of Sofia inhabitants summoned that year for a bizarre brigade. For eight hours a day, intellectuals, administrators, physicians, engineers, and many others shoveled dirt around the capital. Asked to leave behind their work in offices, they had to contribute with their hands and enthusiasm to the accomplishment of a grandiose project: a navigable canal around the city. Similar dictates that involved gratuitous effort, the sacrifice of private time, and disregard for family circumstances, provoked little open resistance among Bulgarians in those years. From ambitious construction projects to the cleaning of neighborhoods, by the end of the 1950s, the population was well-trained to respond to such expectations of the regime. To Neykova the task was not only unusual and involuntary, it was humiliating. The work was particularly enraging because for many, the goal itself was a joke. “In the midst of full economic disruption, misery, deficit, and hunger across the country, we were

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summoned to start the construction of the Sofia Sea, which was to consist of a system of canals and lakes,” the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov wrote of this campaign years later in London. “To me it is unclear how this idea, from a childish fantasy, had evolved into a state construction program in execution… If any of the new leaders of the country had asked us to move [the mountain of] Vitosha, or to cover with earth Vladaya Gorge, perhaps it would have seemed more reasonable to me…”1 In fact, this ambitious construction project was rooted in Bulgaria’s pre-Communist past. The idea belonged to Adolf Muesmann, a German architect who drafted a comprehensive plan for the future development of Sofia in 1938, proposing to connect existing rivers and water basins around the capital. This idea had caught the fancy of the Communist leader Vulko Chervenkov and possibly piqued his Communist pride. In the early 1950s, he went one better and aspired to nothing less than a waterway between Sofia and the Black Sea, 350 kilometers to the east. However, in 1956, with the end of the Stalinist era, Chervenkov was removed from power. The new Communist echelons abandoned the dream of a sea link and limited themselves to Muesmann’s project. In 1957, the Bulgarian communist authorities approved the construction of the canal by “youth brigades.” The plan, which the Politburo approved in principle, envisaged the excavation

of the 17-kilometer canal to be done “80 percent mechanically and 20 percent by hand.” Unfortunately for Kina Neykova and thousands of other Sofianites, it also included the involvement of the “working people of Sofia.”2 “There were many different people,” remembered Neykova. “All of them white collar, no workers. We

fig. 16.  “Brigadiers’ labour 1975. Building for our homeland”. Poster P. Mutafchiev. Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

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were grouped with the writers—they had a tent at their disposal and from time to time kindly offered us shelter from the wind.”3 She recalled the presence of the poet Nayden Vulchev and his brother Dimitur, also a writer, and Asen Neykov, an advertising

fig. 17.  The construction of the mountain road between Govedartsi

and Malyovitsa in Rila mountain, South Bulgaria, during an international brigade in 1965, involved 400 young people from 16 countries. “Here strong bonds within the international youth movement are created”, states the original caption. Pressphoto-BTA.

copywriter who was later ambassador to Ireland. “Each of us had to put in one full month of work, twenty-six working days,” said Neykova. The work consisted of excavating earth by hand. “Many of those [working in the fields] were, of course, women who had never held a shovel in their hands…”4 Later Georgi Markov remarked that “millions of working days were wasted on a task that would have taken a month to accomplish with two excavators.” 5 Kina Neykova’s ordeal lasted many hours and days in the fields. Just as she thought it would soon be over, it was prolonged due to bad weather. Her labor duty was finally fulfilled on Communist Victory Day, May 9. Soon afterwards, the idea for the navigable canal was quietly abandoned. A mound hundreds of meters long, which the campaign left lying in the outskirts of Sofia, remained for decades as a living memorial of the leaders’ dream of a sea. This memorable episode was an extreme example of the common practice to summon people for compulsory work brigades. It marked perhaps the lowest point of the Communist brigadier movement in Bulgaria. The lowest, but not the end—a new leader was rising and was committed to resurrecting the brigades.

Making Use of Compassion

I

t all started with altruism. The destruction caused by the Second World War in the 1940s created

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need and misery, and thus sympathy. Many people found themselves involved in helping their neighbors and communities. Historians have recorded many examples of voluntary assistance with harvesting, working in the fields, cleaning houses, and restoring infrastructure in the difficult years of the war and the months after it. Then the Communists came on the scene. They had specific know-how: a decade earlier their Soviet patrons had succeeded building a whole city in the wilderness of the Russian Far East, using a combination of enthusiasm fueled by propaganda and intimidation—the city of Komsomolsk on the Amur River. Following their example, Bulgarian Communists thought they could make use of the population’s constructive energy, and so they did. It is difficult to determine how much of the enthusiasm demonstrated by the Bulgarian brigades in the 1940s had to do with faith, and how much with fear. The first decade of Communist rule in Bulgaria was greatly based on terror. In 1944 the Communist Party, supported by the Soviet army, came to power with a membership of barely 8,000 people. It gained totalitarian domination through a series of didactic mass murders— between 2,000 and 20,000 people vanished in 1944 and 1945 during the first purge.6 Eighty-five concentration camps for political adversaries were set up across the country. Two thousand officers were arrested, and many were shot in 1946.7 Many oth-

fig. 18.  A Bulgarian student, collecting peaches during an

international brigade in Central Bulgaria. Participating students from Poland, GDR, USSR and Bulgaria committed to harvest 250 ha of peach orchards in the area of Novi Krichim, reads the original caption. Photo Emil Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

ers were killed over the next few years. Communist terror was facilitated by intensive surveillance. An official document from 1948 testifies that the brigades were no exception.8

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fig. 19.  Festive mood in a TKZS in Purvomaysko near Plovdiv, 20 June 1952 (2). Photo Simeon Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

One could assume that many people may have joined the early brigades out of fear. However, it is not unthinkable that some young people who came from remote rural areas to participate were tempted by an opportunity to become independent from their family and be part of a grand project. It might be that they perceived the new initiative almost romantically: elevated, on a more general level, by the proletarian triumph of remov-

ing the upper classes from power and distancing themselves from the shameful alliance with Hitler arranged by the old ruling class. They might have opted to join the construction of “New Bulgaria,” hoping that the miseries of war could be left behind with a single mighty effort. The brigades also offered them a dose of cosmopolitanism, which had been ­previously inaccessible to the lower classes. The early brigades in Bulgaria included

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Hungarians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and even Italians, Brits, Danes, and Palestinians.9 The regime certainly wished to promote that point of view. Several poets and writers, and an army of reporters, described the experience with passionate words, most notably the poet Penyo Penev. The brigades during the period between 1944 and 1950 were clearly no laughing matter. Brigadiers had to work hard, achieve grand goals, and burn with passion at the same time. But most importantly to the new Communist regime, the brigades were effective. They made possible a number of monumental projects: the building of a pass through the mountain range Stara Planina that stretched across Bulgaria, obstructing the traffic between north and south; the construction of electricity transmission lines, roads, rails, water and drain infrastructures, factories, and the planting of forests. In an attempt to replicate Soviet new town projects, in 1947 Bulgaria used the Communist brigades to raise its own town in the wilderness: Dimit­ rovgrad, named after the surname of Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov. Kindergartens, experimental biological fields, zoos, a dam, even archaeological excavations followed. In the 1980s the chroniclers of Communist achievements dubbed this approach a “creative use” of Soviet Communists’ experience in construction.10

fig. 20.  Agricultural work in the area of Plovdiv, 25 March 1953.

Photo Violeta Popova, Pressphoto-BTA.

The postwar brigades also had an ancillary goal of introducing the participants to modern life in all its complexity. In the fields, large groups of rural people were meant to be trained to lead a more civilized, urban life in a collective. During the construction of Dimitrovgrad, which lasted from 1946 to 1952, the organizers attempted to improve the food habits of the participants: their eating patterns, table manners, and menus. Documents recount efforts among brigade leaders to teach their subordinates to behave at the table. “They singled out smacking, slurping, burping, and other unpleasant habits, which were subjected to sharp criticism—they wanted to train the brigadiers to become well cultured young people. Eating culture was an issue during these brigades,”

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said sociologist Bilyana Raeva, who researched the construction of Dimitrovgrad. “The state leadership used the brigades to introduce its modernization policy in many ways.”11 In fact, the concept of nutritional value arrived in Bulgaria decades earlier. Cookbooks from the turn of the twentieth century dedicated entire chapters to the impact and importance of food to human health and to how to build a wholesome diet. Such knowledge was perhaps better distributed among the wealthier classes and in the larger towns than in the rural areas, where most of the brigadiers came from. Table manners, the introduction of an eating pattern of four meals a day, general knowledge of nutrition, and the link between diet and profession were all educational goals of the brigades. “Food was subjected to control—its vitamin content was monitored, meat had to appear on the menu at least several times a week. It was not always possible to keep these standards given the chronic shortage of meat,” wrote Raeva in her study of children in the brigadier movement.12 But this interest in serving nutritious food, and even more so the civilizational role of the brigades, altogether vanished by the time Kina Neykova was brought with her colleagues to the fields around Sofia. Not only was there no food (she clearly remembered bringing her bread every day), but the situation marked a more important change. It was

no longer rural people being trained in urban culture, but just the opposite: city dwellers, thrown back to pre-modern times to shovel earth for the accomplishment of a megalomaniac’s project. “No one talked. You never knew what to expect from people. From anyone. For this reason, no one dared discuss the matter. We worked to get through the day. Informers were everywhere.”13 Markov’s analysis of the situation was more straightforward: The construction of an artificial lake was perceived not only as construction project but as a way to terrorize people, to constantly test their limits, to abuse them, to force them, to provoke them, be­ cause whoever suddenly revolted against this mad­ ness was sent for a lengthy labor vacation on the Danube or elsewhere. I must say that it was a gross provocation, because I did not know a single normal person, who even for a second would believe that he would cruise around Sofia on a boat. Even the most fanatic and disciplined party members grumbled. (Markov, Z­ adochni reportazhi)

As the earlier construction projects advanced, the regime rejoiced. But soon authoritarianism, militarism, overwhelming ideological indoctrination, and incompetence plagued the brigadier movement, and the brigades quickly became a blatant form of exploitation. By 1948, word must have

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spread enough to force the Communist leaders to defend themselves against the accusations of “enemies from abroad” that the Bulgarian youth was being put forcefully to work. “Entirely voluntarily, with high social awareness!” reiterated Georgi Dimitrov with indignation and panic.14 While enthusiasm was fading among the “democratic youth,” as the regime dubbed them, it was growing within the ruling class—the balance must have seemed good enough for the government, so in 1949 they institutionalized the brigades. They created lists of projects, introduced working shifts, and ordered the involvement of university and high school students. This idea did not meet with success. The management became so problematic that in 1950 the brigades were officially called off. Six years later, Todor Zhivkov’s political star was rising. As the newly elected leader of the Communist Party, he decided to revive the brigades. And so the brigadier movement had a second life. From construction of infrastructure and monuments, the new head of party gradually steered it towards agriculture, where he and his predecessors fought their most difficult battle. The young generation should no longer be used as manual laborers, proclaimed the Communist Party in 1956. Youth should be involved in “creative work.” Under this slogan, students commenced the manual harvest-

ing of fruits and vegetables, and 10,000 Bulgarians departed for the Soviet Union, where they had to “offer their labor and force to strengthen the sacred Bulgarian-Soviet friendship.”15 Zhivkov called the brigades “the correct lifestyle” for Bulgarian youth, the perfect match to the nation’s development,16 thus closing the issue to debate for the following three decades. But why did Zhivkov insist on maintaining the brigades in the first place? By the late 1960s, the regime congratulated itself on the full mechanization of agriculture and its complete adaptation to the needs of industrial food production. Why, having achieved such advanced development, was the regime still so heavily dependent on the inefficient, often ineffective, manual labor of the brigadiers? In its agricultural strategy, the Communist leadership never mentioned the brigades. Yet, if one believes the unreliable statistical data of the time, they were carrying out more than half of the seasonal work. One of the reasons was that Bulgarian agricultural production did not, even for a moment, come close to what the regime’s leaders claimed. Agriculture, as American anthropologist Gerald W. Creed suggested, was the stepchild of Bulgaria’s totalitarian regime—unlike industry, which was their own.17 The history of farming during the four and a half decades of Communism was one of sharp turns and inconsistencies.

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Channeling Strong-Willed Rural Bulgaria into Freewheeling Reforms

B

ulgarian agriculture was historically dependent on a large number of small landowners. In the ­early twentieth century, it was still barely mechanized and the farmland was greatly fragmented, with as many as 15,000 individual plots of land within a single village.18 But since the 1890s, it was set on a path of consolidation: following European trends of the time, voluntary associations of farmers had started to appear. When the Communist regime took over in the late 1940s, it intended to immediately concentrate the farmland. But it ignored the European model and opted for the Soviet one: to consolidate quickly, forcefully, and completely. The land also had to become property of the state, and agriculture had to be industrialized as soon as possible in order to feed cheaply the new Communist nation and provide raw material for a modern food processing industry. Despite the seemingly clear plan, the period between 1944 and 1956 was not one of agricultural modernization. The consolidation of land into larger units that would be managed by “collectives” proved difficult as the farmers did not cooperate. So, while figuring out how to push through the planned reforms, the regime simply expropriated the farmers’ produce. The farmer’s obligations to the state were openly called “requisitions,”

fig. 21.  Brigadiers picking cherries. 1985. Photopanorama,

a publication of the regional center for photopropaganda, Gabrovo. From the private archive of Nikola Mihov.

and through the years they varied from “tolerable” (according to records from the Second World War period) to 75 percent of the harvest in 1950.19 The brutal requisitions soon pushed farmers  to invent a range of methods to avoid the confiscations. They hid their animals in the forest, their grain deep in cellars. As time went on, these tricks became increasingly risky. State control tightened, interference in farming matters increased, and fines were raised.

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Some farmers gave in, some felt threatened, some were recruited by local Communist missionaries, some were tempted by the promised mechanization of labor, some perceived collectivization as a chance to settle family issues, and some gave in to the promised mechanization of labor. But most farmers remained opposed, and collectivization was stymied. But the regime was not eager to reconsider its goal. “Our important economic and political task in the coming two to three years is to achieve the full cooperation of agriculture,” reiterated Zhivkov in July 1956.20 The regime proceeded to hem in the rural population with restrictions, interference, and controls until farmers gradually saw joining the collectives as their only remaining option. To seal the controversial deals faster, the authorities organized an unexpected carnival. Creed describes its appearance in the village of Zamfirovo one day in 1956: a crowd of shouting masked people accompanied by a thunderous orchestra suddenly arrived, stupefied some, frightened others, and so made all villagers sign the declarations to join the local cooperative. In this manner, collectivization was accomplished in 1958. At that time the land still remained private property, but in reality the villagers had lost all control over the farming process and produce.21 So when the state executed the actual nationalization (i.e., expropriation of the farmland of the cooperatives), it was able to proceed r­ elatively smoothly.

Fifteen years after coming to power, the Communist regime accomplished its initial goal: the farmland of the country, now state property, was consolidated, collectivized, and run by state cooperatives. But soon after the task was achieved, its

fig. 22.  “The land is generous to caring owners. To gather the rich yield

from mountainous regions like ours, the whole population must join forces in a timely and conscientious manner. The skilful hands of the COMSOMOL members from the Mathematical High School offered good help in harvesting the strawberries in the village of Branilovtsi.” 1985. Photopanorama, a publication of the regional center for photopropaganda, Gabrovo. From the private archive of Nikola Mihov.

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promoters realized that the reform would not lead to the intended results. In fact, it brought a plethora of unintended consequences. Now it was up to the state to take care of everything, and no element of the new system seemed to work as planned. In two years, between 1957 and 1959, the authorities reported a 32 percent increase in the production of cooperatives; their expenses, however, grew 112 percent within the same period. Agricultural income, which was to be distributed between the workers in the cooperatives, barely rose 11 percent.22 “[These negative trends] obstruct the further development of the cooperatives and if not eliminated, might cause serious losses to national economy,” officials reported.23 Furthermore, people fled their farm work and their villages never to return. They left by the hundreds of thousands, the numbers increasing each year despite the government’s efforts to stem migration to the big cities: 109,000 left the villages of Bulgaria in 1957; 129,000 in 1958; and 141,000 in 1959.24 The social and economic model of rural Bulgaria was transformed beyond recognition, further contributing to these downward trends. As anthropologist David Kideckel observed, the unexpected consequences of forced centralization brought a paradoxical dependence of the state economy on local decisions and actions: “Formal socialist government and economic institutions were held in thrall

to personal decision making, extensive bargaining between individuals on all levels of the economic system, and a widespread informal economy.”25 Soon after completing the nationalization of the land, the state embarked on petty reforms and a series of contradictory policies. First, it tried to adjust the newly acquired land consolidation to the geographic and geological reality by dividing it again. Then it pushed the collectives to grow bigger. In 1970 it started the construction of the gigantic umbrella organization, the APK (Agrarian Industrial Complex), and then, nine years later, it abolished it. Then it reintroduced “private farming”—a model of activity that resembled private business. None of these erratic initiatives helped. The state economy was in constant crisis, and agriculture needed emergency measures at all times. From the 1970s on, Bulgarians experienced a persistent gap of 12 to 15 percent between the production and consumption of agricultural products. It seems that the goal of the mechanization, modernization, and industrialization of agriculture followed the same pattern that had become typical for every branch of the Communist economy: malfunctions of the general strategy led to minor adjustments, which, in their turn, had unexpected consequences. Those, eventually, were incorporated into new reforms, thus leading to new series of unwanted events, so that the end result was a freewheeling, fluctuating patch-

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fig. 23.  Students harvesting peppers in the area of Pazardzhik in August 1986. Photo Dimitur Altunkov, Pressphoto-BTA.

work—not ­surprisingly distant from the initial concept and propaganda slogans. One of the dramatic consequences of Communist industrialization was the depopulation of villages. Subjected to pressure during collectivization and forced urbanization, and disappointed by the results of the agricultural reform, the rural popu-

lation in Communist Bulgaria decreased dramatically from 75 to 35 percent in four decades. Depopulation meant a rapid decrease in the workforce. The lack of agricultural labor was already anxiously reported in the late 1950s and only worsened in the coming decades. One solution that the regime found was the youth brigades.

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Rural People Turned Citizens, and Then Back

T

o authorities more concerned with their image, it could have been embarrassing that while in the first two and a half decades the regime was building a new middle class by bringing people from the countryside to the cities, over the next thir-

ty years it had to transport many of those same people back to the countryside with buses and trucks to collect the harvest. But such was the reality, and the brigade movement had to be continued. And it had to be taken seriously. “Every year our factories and construction sites, our cooperative fields, state farms, equipment stations—all our economy enjoys the influx of a fresh workforce of thousands of young men and women from cities and villages, from schools and the military,” said the leader of the country in 1956. He continued in his typical flamboyant style: Unfortunately, we still observe some young men and women… who avoid labor, and especially agricultural labor, who refuse to work in the fields, on the farm, in the equipment station… who wish to live on their par­ ents’ backs. Some young people seek… cozy jobs and an easy life. Some educated young people find it hu­ miliating to be involved in agricultural production. And we should not ignore these manifestations of ugliness, which defile like warts the beautiful face of youth. (Zhivkov, Agrarnata politika, 239)

fig. 24.  “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.” Unsigned poster,

1976. Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

As a sort of Communist beauty therapy, the labor of university and secondary school students was used on vegetable farms, in orchards, tobacco and cotton fields, and food processing factories. Elementary school students, being smaller, were sent to collect herbs and wild fruit.

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Soon the number of brigades increased dramatically. In 1963, officials reported the employment of 12,000 schoolchildren; in 1971 it was 340,000. Their importance for the national economy grew, at least on paper, and according to published statistics in the period of 1979–1981, they contributed 60 percent of all labor involved in the Bulgarian harvest.26 Even the wind of change in the late 1980s could not put a stop to the brigadier movement. It only made it more erratic. The deep economic crisis into which the country was sinking yet again, sent schoolchildren to construction sites, cattle farms, and food processing factories—not just during vacations but even during the school year. It was all done in the name of education.

“The Youth Master Modern Technologies”

T

he brigades “stimulate [the youth] to master science, modern equipment and technologies, to learn and apply leading examples,” boasted the Communist leadership. The brigades helped young Bulgarians to “improve constantly their cultural level and technical knowledge.”27 Hardly anything could be further from the truth. Brigadiers were not illiterates encountering the world of modern technologies. They were children, taken away from their schools to be confronted with the primitiveness and poverty in

which rural Bulgaria languished, to learn the routine of petty fraud typical of totalitarian societies while idling around one or another assembly line, rarely taking showers. Between the belief in compassion in the aftermath of the war and the decline of the regime in the 1980s, there was a large gulf. The Sofia Sea was only one of its names. The political regime, which must have been aware of the growing cynicism, had two strategies to keep the brigades going: one was financial and the other ideological, and neither worked particularly well. Nominally, brigadiers received salaries for their work. But they had always been paid minimally, if at all, by the enterprises they were helping. Toward the end, the matter turned into a complex game in which everyone cheated everyone else, and, according to people’s recollections, tried to give as little as possible. As a result, many thought that earning money on a brigade was unlikely. Cultural studies scholar Alexander Kyosev remembered that “the targets were not being achieved, and they tried to push us, but we didn’t care because they wouldn’t pay us anyway.”28 The going rate for work in the fields or the factory for brigadiers was very low compared to the standards in cities where most of the children came from. “You work for a whole month and you get 30 leva (while a teacher would, say, get a 100 a month). The heritage of Vulko Chervenkov’s time,

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when a working day on the fields paid 0.05 leva, and the hunger was devastating and it was pointless to do work of any kind, was still pretty much in place…”29 “We were summoned to pick grapes, and it was a great outwitting between us and the local villagers. They promised to pay for everything above the target, which they set. But then the truck was always somehow not full enough. At the end we went with them to see how come, and suddenly everything was in order,” recalled Maria Neykova of her brigades in the 1970s.30 A similar account came from Boryana Gen­chena, a participant in another more luxurious brigade on the Black Sea coast: We had to work in Pomorie, our quarter was built just next to the sea, and we had great time. There were almond groves there, but they wouldn’t let us work in them, they sent us to pick peppers instead. But I guess we weren’t helpful enough. They were bringing

One such case was narrated by Vassilena Mircheva, of a brigade in the 1980s: On an autumn brigade, where we were collecting plums, the boys of our class agreed with the director of the APK to work longer hours in order to earn some money. And they really worked hard, stayed behind, had to walk or hitchhike back, while we were trans­ ported by buses. And at the end they just lied to them. They paid them some miniscule amount on top of what they gave to everyone else. I believe the director of the APK and the brigade leader made a deal to do so. (Vassilena Mircheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, November 26, 2013)

Brigadiers did not usually earn much, but payment rates for agricultural work were low and inconsistent for permanent workers in the cooperatives as well. Creed describes such variations in his study. He also recounts his participation in grape harvesting:

us food in the fields: bread, lukanka [a popular Bulgar­ ian dried salami considered a luxury under Commu­

[The aimed production rate] was only 250 kg and in

nism], and at some point they told us that everything

theory was feasible. But that was not the case in

we earned, they spent on our food, and they sent

practice, as I learned from my own experience. When

us back earlier then agreed.

my brigade arrived on the vineyard, we had to fill up

(Boryna Gencheva, interview

by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 20, 2012)

the van with empty crates at the weighing point—be­ cause in the area where we had to work, there were

Apart from such small subterfuges, sometimes there were cases of more direct and painful cheating.

none. After an hour of picking grapes, we filled these crates up. The bus had left. So I had to walk to the

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weighing point, which was 10 to 15 minutes away, to bring new crates. We couldn’t carry too many in our hands, so each of us had to walk three times to the point, wasting about an hour of his working time. By 16:00 we had filled up all the crates avail­ able at the point, so we were forced to stop work­ ing. We also had to sort the grapes according to their quality, which took time. The state of the vine­ yard was also holding us back. It was full of weeds, and we had to seek the grapes among them, while watching not to hurt our hands… It was impossible to achieve the target under such circumstances. At the end we got paid 5 leva per person for a whole day of work—2 leva less than if we had reached the target. (Creed, Domesticating Revolution, 98–99)

Creed also recalls inconsistencies in the payment for agricultural work. The lowest rates were set for hay harvesting, while working in milk production was well paid. Raising sheep was more labor intensive than raising cows, but it paid worse. Still, it would be wrong to conclude that villagers in Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s lived in misery. By that time, they had found a variety of ways to support themselves on the side. Those methods—like concealed private production, and in the later years of the regime, legalized private farming—did not work for one-timers like the brigadiers. For them, the agricultural work often remained unfamiliar and badly paid.

The other strategy to sustain the brigades as a practice was to run them in a military style, combining discipline with intense ideological indoctrination. To the political leadership, the brigades were a “two in one” formula: not only was their labor needed, but the working campaigns created a convenient environment to keep the political ideas of the younger generation in check. A military-style regime had been the norm in the brigadier movement since its creation in the 1940s. From uniforms and canteens, to dormitories and restrooms, the brigades had numerous similarities with life on the front line. The daily routine of the brigadiers was strict and rarely tolerated frivolities. Sociologist Bilyana Raeva said of the Dimitrovgrad brigades that the participants had to “get up very early—around half past four to five in the morning—and had a busy program until 10 PM, when everyone needed to be in bed and asleep; there was indeed a very strict regime and participants were obliged to follow it.”31 A document from 1970 speaks of increased efforts to teach patriotism to the brigadiers on Todor Zhivkov’s orders: “Military training assumed a central role. This activity is on the one hand a continuation of military training performed by schools, and on the other it enhances the romance of brigade life.”32 Military training in schools, which involved one hour of theory class each week and fifteen days

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of practical training in the last years of secondary school, was abandoned around 1987–1988. But the attempts to turn brigadiers into a loyal labor army of the regime, which involved organizing them in military-style squads and making them stand in files on the field, saluting their “commander,” lasted until the very last days of the student brigades. As Alexander Kyosev recalled:

ordination, which, with the decreasing threat of punishment in the later brigades, only increased. Recollections of pointless abuse are utmost in the memories of many former brigadiers today: We were sent to work in a canning factory in Ruse. They made us get up at five in the morning. By five thirty the ninth-grade students33 had to be lined up in the field. And then we waited—until eight, nine, or

The difference between practical military training

nine-thirty to be transported to the factory. And once

and brigades was not big—on a brigade you would

we got there, we would wait again for the workers to

work, on a military training you would do other idiot­

finish their breakfast so that we could also get served

ic things. There was a morning warm up, giving out

our buns and tea with bromine.

(Mircheva, interview) 34

instructions, morning check of ranks, formal cele­ brations, celebration of the brigade’s patron—usu­ ally an important partisan, and a wall newspaper. (Kyosev, interview)

Collectivist in concept and as such, naturally disrespectful of individual time or labor, the established order was often woefully ineffective. Brigadiers, in fact, were constantly given the impression that the brigades were more about tyranny than work. They were routinely forced into purposeless, wasteful periods of idleness and waiting, which compromised the military discipline of the participants and furthered the sense of being stuck in a system of vicious, inhumane, disrespectful machinery that aimed to humiliate and, ultimately, subjugate them. This often triggered insub-

Time was lost not only by delays in transportation, meals and such, but also due to a lack of any clear concept of how to actually use the labor of the brigadiers. “They didn’t always know what to do with us,” one former brigadier Vassilena Mircheva recalled her schooltime brigades: I remember for instance how once part of our group was called for a job, and I remained together with about ten people to wait—to be told what to do. So they brought us to a large pallet with cans. “Wait here,” they said, “for this button to light up.” “So once it does, what are we supposed to do?” we asked. “Nothing, just wait,” they replied. And so we waited, and waited, and we never found out why we needed to wait for that button to light up. In the meantime, though, the lab

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worker came and took a couple of cans from the pal­ let “to test,” then another worker passed and bagged another couple, and before our eyes this pallet shrunk to half its size before it was noon—I guess they had all secured their families’ dinners.

(Mircheva, interview)

The lack of organization not only wasted the time of the summoned workers, it also rendered their efforts futile and even lead to damages in the equipment, the crops, etc. In addition to school and university students, employees from various other sectors of the economy were temporary liberated from their usual labor and sent to perform unfamiliar tasks without any preparation, or even last-minute instructions. Some of them recount how, lacking experience or directions, they destroyed what they were supposed to take care of. “We left early in the morning on the two ensemble busses, and already people were drinking rakia [clear fruit brandy popular in the Balkans] on the buses. We get to the place and there wasn’t really much of a direction at all, there was nobody supervising anything,” recalled American Mary Sherhart on her experience of joining a brigade with the folklore ensemble Varna in 1984.

fig. 25.  The original caption reads that it has become a tradition for brigadiers from the regional high schools to participate in the harvest at the Agricultural cooperatives. 1985. Photopanorama, a publication of the regional center for photopropaganda, Gabrovo. From the private archive of Nikola Mihov.

So, the ensemble just went to these trees and start­

the orchard comes out and just starts yelling furi­

ed picking these apples and throwing them into

ously about how the ensemble is handling these ap­

these huge containers of apples. And after about,

ples. They couldn’t use any of them because they

I don’t know, three or four hours, somebody from

were all bruised. And over half the ensemble was

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­completely shitfaced from drinking all day. I mean, it was all a complete joke, but it was a great memory. (Mary S ­ herhart, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Seattle, May 20, 2015)

Lilia Dencheva, who in the Communist years worked at the Cartographic Institute in Sofia, recalled a similar incident when she and her colleagues were sent to weed a field of leeks. They were put to work without any instructions and by the end of a day of hard work realized that what they had removed from the field were in fact the leeks. “Why, it looked like grass! And nobody gave us any clue, a word of advice. We weeded it all out, acres of it!” she exclaimed, the annoyance with the situation still resounding in her voice so many years later.35 She said she stopped going to brigades at the end of the 1980s, when on one occasion she discovered that the large number of tomatoes that she and her colleagues collected the previous week were left to rot where they had deposited them.

Brigadiers: From Heroes to Rascals

I

t is no wonder that by the 1970s, any spirit of noble heroism, if it once existed, had vanished from the brigades. If the first years of the brigadier movement could be defined as its “serious” period, in which intense feelings were aroused and grand projects were developed, the following decades gradually came to reflect Zhivkov’s stagnation—

the steady but un-dramatic oppression of the regime and its commitment to minor objectives. Policies of the regime in general drifted further and further away from the stated ideals of equality. Proclamations of national progress had little to do with reality, and it became obvious things would stay that way. This hypocrisy, feeding on fear and opportunism, triggered a deep transformation in the value system of Bulgarians. The passing of time only intensified it. The youth of the 1960s and the 1970s was brought up on the cynicism of the era. The generation whose student labor was used from the late 1970s onward knew nothing of the possible early idealism. Cynicism was clearly evident in the brigades and often led to humorous insubordination among brigadiers. The atmosphere was rather one of secret violence, concealed mockery, cynical glee, silly mischief, and perpetual attempts at cheating. Kyosev’s recollections revealed the main difference between the late brigades and the earlier ones: the brigadiers were getting away with not taking the ideological aspects and the discipline appeals too seriously: I remember that I was once made responsible for the “cultural work for the masses.” And together with a friend of mine, who was in charge of the sports activ­ ities, we had to have a meeting session. And we mis­ behaved outrageously. The secretary of the primary

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Komsomol organization tried to restore some order.

I remember arguing with my classmates, because I’d

She told my friend Vlado: “Get out, or I will.” And we

been having a great time, while they thought the bri­

didn’t get out, so she did, and thus the meeting end­

gades were horrible. This greatly depended on your

ed. And later that same evening we sang a new song

ability to overcome circumstances. Many people

around the night fire: “Get out, or I will, she said…”

just couldn’t do it. To me it was great fun. We flirt­

(Kyosev, interview)

ed, we joked, and we partied fabulously at night… There were attempts to organize everything Kom­

Those who took part in brigades from the mid1970s on remember lasting disagreements amongst the brigadiers. People attended brigades for different reasons and with different expectations, which produced regular tensions and clashes. One group was the “eager volunteers.” They were often the elite of the Communist youth organization Komsomol, who assumed leadership positions in the brigades. Young social climbers, they were willing to demonstrate political zeal and loyalty or enjoyed dominating others. There was also a group of eager idealists, who, being young, anticipated enthusiastically their first brigade as a new adventure in the world of adults. They were usually quickly disappointed and joined the group of “un-eager volunteers.” This latter group was comprised of people who felt forced and unhappy. And finally, there was a group of “eagerly uneager volunteers”: people who went enthusiastically but had little desire or intention to work. To them, brigades were an opportunity to party away from parental control.

somol-style, which we firmly opposed... it was al­ ready 1977, resistant youth sub-cultures had already formed and would not tolerate any Komsomol inter­ ference. We had fun—one way or another, we lived in an alternative way, we misbehaved.

(Kyosev, interview)

In response to such treatment by the regime and by locals, brigadiers developed a broad tradition of mischief, mockery, and misdeeds. Called on by Zhivkov to show creativity, they did so, but in a different way, inventing endless fantastical mischief, a curious mixture of playfulness and resistance. Unrecorded brigade stories, which, like political jokes, made up a folklore genre of their own, often spoke of revenge. The children took revenge on fruit, vegetables, the APKs, and, eventually on canned food, or on whatever else went through their hands. Sadly, for Todor Zhivkov, the brigades did not instill ideological pathos into the participants, nor did they ever succeed in training them into a disciplined labor army. These periods of obligatory work did help educate the young generation

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though. To many young people they were an initiation into the regime’s value system—but the real one, not the official one. If their parents had previously taught them to be honest, to not take what is not theirs, or not to lie, the reality of life in the brigades quickly convinced them how meaningless such ideals were in the People’s Republic. Its youth was swiftly trained in a routine of commonly accepted deception and lies. For a start, brigadiers learned to disrespect jobs, their employer, and more generally the state. Vassilena Mircheva described the spirit as “a large, unattended barn, a crowd of teenagers, who are only busy inventing new mischief.”36 Then they learned to cheat: to do so was easy, certainly rewarding, and helped them get through a tough day, filled up by unwanted work. Virtually every person who worked in the agricultural brigades recounts passing through the weighing point with the same crate of apples, tomatoes, or grapes over and over again to achieve the elusive productivity goal. “We worked under a long open shed. Tomatoes were passing on a rubber line, and we had to arrange them in crates,” recalled Evgenia Manolowa her experience from the 1970s and the 1980s: Then we had to bring those crates for control at one of the three little desks. Of course, we—me and two friends—found a way to pass with one full crate through each of the three check points, and then

hand it over to the next among us to do the same. Now I think of it, the whole state was like this! We just didn’t feel like lining up fifty crates, or whatev­ er the task was, and of course, if you can avoid it, you do! Each of us by then spoke two languages, we had very different interests [than farming] … It as if the system was pushing you to do such things! On top of that, they would line us up in the night and read the names of those who reached the production target. And so we were often awarded for our deception! (Evgenia Manolowa, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014)

While on brigade, Bulgarian youth excelled in playful and quite brazen troublemaking: playing baseball with apples, throwing tomatoes at each other, jumping on plums and watching them burst. “There were these big cauldrons where tomatoes were processed. I remember how once we hurled these tomatoes at each other like in Spanish festivals,” recalled Vassilena Mircheva.37 Evgenia Manolowa suggested that the mischief was not only a group entertainment, but could also be individual retaliation: “The crates had these little wooden pegs in the corners. And from time to time, when we got pissed off, we would pick a nice tomato, jab it over a peg, and return it to the crate. We didn’t do it too often, but it happened from time to time.”38 Similar destruction went unpunished, not only in the fields but also in factories. “One of our brigades

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was in the canning factory in Shumen. We made compotes. We were opening the lids with our elbows, drinking from the jars as much as we wanted, and then fixing the lids back, sending off the jars to the delivery palettes,” said Maria Neykova.39

was always a lot of flirting on these brigades, we would put our dirty rubber boots on the production line. If the dirt gets washed off—great, if not—what­ ever… And no one was doing any selection of those tomatoes. Rotten or not, they all went into the jars. (­S toyana ­Georgieva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, March

“Never Ever Eat…!”. Why Bulgarians Didn’t Trust Bulgarian Cans

T

here is no known record of the damages that brigades must have caused in those years, and it is difficult to judge how far such routine mischief affected the quality of what reached Bulgaria’s markets. While many former brigadiers have stories of their pranks, they suppose that not much of the harvest was actually harmed in this way. On the other hand, many of them admit that their experience in canning factories in those years changed their consumer behavior for decades. They also remember regularly trading stories that started with: “And never, ever eat…!” “In the Seventeen Partisans factory the situation was definitely outrageous,” recalled Stoyana Georgieva her experience from the 1980s. There were production lines. Workers were taking tomatoes out of refrigerators that were supposed to be bottled. And as soon as we got bored, or may­ be just for fun or to attract attention, because there

25, 2013)

The witnesses, and even the perpetrators, later often traded their behind-the-scenes information. Vassilena Mircheva recalled exchanging such stories: “We would recount to each other: ‘Never ever eat glazed pork with carrots from Ruse!’ or: ‘I went on a brigade in Malchika. And you should at any price avoid… this or that.’ Or ‘I went to such and such factory. You should see how they work!’”40 Factories and cooperatives that used brigadier labor were aware of the risks. Documents in the national archive suggest that some of them resisted accepting the help of school and university students. Accommodating and feeding them cost money, and they were inefficient. “For this reason, a number of companies, despite their needs, avoided accepting youth brigades.”41 Notorious for their pranks, the youth at times were removed from the production lines when factories had to prepare deliveries for export. Witnesses recount instances in which factory staff replaced the brigadiers when a delivery had to be made for a Western country.

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We worked for several days on a production line with meat. They would bring basins with something uniden­ tifiable inside. We needed to dig into it with a gloved hand, and put it in jars. Then someone else had to add carrots and jellied broth. They would entrust us with this work, and there were situations, like, a piece from someone’s glove falling off in one of the jars, or you put only carrots, or only broth… the production was for the Bulgarian army and the Soviet market, so nobody cared. It was called ‘pork with carrots.’ And once when an order had to be made for the Greek market, we were asked to leave, and the factory workers replaced us.

According to Vassilena Mircheva, she and her schoolmates were not trusted enough to deal with the order.42 Yet, the authorities disliked the idea of giving up this “original form of labor training of the studying youth…The lack of such organized activity would leave 150,000 young men and women out of our sphere of influence during their summer holidays,” one report by the Komsomol’s leadership openly stated.43 While Communist leadership considered the economic and ideological effects of brigadiers’ participation in food production, it is not known if they ever addressed the actual quality of the food that reached Bulgarians as a result. Accounts of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s brigades suggest that many consumers were affected.

Bulgarian agriculture, which was so dependent on brigadiers’ labor even in the periods of acclaimed “massive technical progress,” fell victim to the clumsiness of intellectuals who were set on an unusual goal, to the stubbornness of teenagers, and to the resistance of newly formed youth subcultures. But the victims of this system were really the brigadiers themselves. Of the many negative lessons they learned, one was the need to compromise their own dignity. They learned to live with coercion and humiliation on a daily basis, a fact of life in those days, and one that later affected the post-socialist period in Bulgaria. Last, but not least, consumers also paid the price for the controversial Communist practice of using brigadiers in food production—often deprived of their family land and forced to live in the cities, dependent on the state for food, they had little choice but to consume these products.

Notes 1 Georgi Markov, Zadochni reportazhi za Bulgaria [In absentia reports about Bulgaria] (Zurich: Georgi Markov Fund, 1980). 2 Report by Dimitur Popov, Chairman of Sofia City Council before the Politbureau of the Bulgarian Communist Party, November 1957, CSA (Central State Archives), Protocols of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1944–1989), November 1957. http://archives.bg/politburo/. 3 Kina Neykova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014. 4 Ibid. 5 Markov, Zadochni reportazhi.

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6 The regime’s own account reports 2,000 deaths, but historians estimate between 15,000 and 20,000. 7 Brogan, The Captive Nations, 196–99. 8 A decision from July 21, 1948 of the Politbureau reads: “to undertake more specific espionage measures amongst youth brigades.” Reshenie 132 [Decision 132] by the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party, July 21, 1948, CSA 1Б-6-520, 16. 9 Boris Boev, Georgi Slavov, and Nasko Petrov, Mladezhkoto brigadirsko dvizhenie 1946–1985 [Youth’s Brigadier Movement 1946–1985] (Sofia: Narodna mladezh, 1986), 24. 10 Ibid, 3. 11 Bilyana Raeva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, March 25, 2013. 12 Bilyana Raeva, “Detsvoto i brigadirskoto dvizhenie (1946– 1950)” [Childhood and the brigadier movement (1946–1950)], in Detstvoto pri socialisma: Politicheski, institucionalni i biorafichni perspektivi [Childhood under Socialism: Political, institutional, and biographical perspectives], ed. Ivan Elenkov and Daniela Koleva (Sofia: Centre for Advanced Study/Riva, 2010), 147. 13 Kina Neykova, interview. 14 Boev at al., Mladezhkoto brigadirsko dvizhenie, 28. 15 Ibid, 55. 16 Todor Zhivkov, Dvizhenieto za udaren komsomolski trud – dvizhenie za cyalata mladezh [The Komsomol movement for achievement of high labor goals is for the entire youth] (Sofia: Narodna ­mladezh, 1959), 5. 17 Gerald W. Creed, Domesticating Revolution: From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent Transition in a Bulgarian Village (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1997), 18. Creed wrote that “villagers were arguably the stepchildren of socialism, abused by a paternalistic state in difference to its ‘real’ proletarian offspring.” 18 Creed quotes data on the village of Zamfirovo, stating that it reflected the situation across the country. Creed, Domesticating Revolution, 50–51. 19 Ibid., 60–61. 20 Todor Zhivkov, Agrarnata Politika na BKP [The agrarian politics of the Bulgarian Communist Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1985), 114. 21 Creed, Domesticating Revolution, 68. 22 Official statistics as quoted in “Informatsia otnosno nyakoi vuprosi na ikonomikata i finansovoto sustoyanie na TKZS” [Information on some issues of the economic and financial

state of the cooperatives], unsigned official report to the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Sofia, 1961, CSA 1-6-4357. 23 “Informatsia otnosno nyakoi vuprosi” CSA 1-6-4357. 24 “Informatsia otnosno nyakoi vuprosi” CSA 1-6-4357. 25 David A. Kideckel, The Solitude of Collectivism: Romanian Villagers to the Revolution and Beyond (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 66. 26 This data is reported as achieved in the area of Plovdiv. Boev et al., Mladezhkoto Brigadirsko Dvizhenie, 73. 27 Zhivkov, Dvizhenieto za udaren, 7. 28 Alexander Kyosev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 11, 2014. 29 Kyosev, interview. 30 Maria Neykova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014. 31 Raeva, interview. 32 A report of first secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol Ivan Panev before the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party in June 1970. Ivan Panev, “Dokladna zapiska.” Report before the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, June 10, 1970, CSA 1-35-1458, 72–78. 33 In Bulgaria, primary and secondary education share common numbering of the grades, with the first starting at the age of 6 or 7, and the last one being grade 12, at the age of 18 or 19. Ninth-grade students corresponds to the third year of secondary education. 34 In Bulgaria (and across the Communist world), there was a popular conviction that powders containing bromine were added to the food of students on brigades or camps or soldiers, to suppress their sexual desires. This has not been confirmed, but has also not been researched. In any case many people believed that this was the case. 35 Lilia Dencheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, May 2, 2015. 36 Mircheva, interview. 37 Mircheva, interview. 38 Manolowa, interview. 39 Maria Neykova, interview. 40 Mircheva, interview. 41 Panev, “Dokladna zapiska,” 73. 42 Mircheva, interview. 43 Panev, “Dokladna zapiska,” 74.

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Chapter 4

Shopping The Experience of Food Procurement

Today at 12:45, I came to buy cabbage. I asked to have it weighed but they [the shop tenders] ­informed me that they do not sell cabbage, because it is Saturday.

—Excerpt from a shop’s complaint book

I

fig. 26.  The opening of a new supermarket

in the village of Benkovski near Sofia, 1986. Photo O. Popov, Pressphoto-BTA.

n 1971, the central Bulgarian weekly Anteni published an article titled “The Big Trick: To be Out of Something Available.” Both the title and the content—a description of a walk through Sofia’s food stores, featuring absurd dialogues and scenes—drew a colorful and truthful portrait of what shopping looked like to Sofianites throughout the Communist era. When the journalist asked why there was no halva, one of the shop-tenders said that every time she ordered it, she had to pay a fine—the halva was delivered in scratched and dented tin boxes that she was later supposed to return looking like new. The unavailability of white sheep cheese was likewise explained by the producers’ requirement that each shipment be ordered with two shipments of cow cheese. “And my store is full of cow cheese!” exclaimed the shopkeeper.1 Many other examples followed, revealing a lack of equipment; inconsistent deliveries; doubtful integrity of the producers, deliverers, and traders; and unfeasible plans—the many features of the spectacular failure that was the Communist market between 1949 and 1989. Unlike agriculture and the industrial production of food, retail is the

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one area that today is uniformly remembered as bad in Bulgaria and evokes no nostalgia. Domestic trade arrangements were not a top priority for the early socialist state. The retail network was among the last acquisitions made by the state during the nationalization of the late 1940s, and its restructuring was not rushed. Between 1949 and the 1970s, most Bulgarian food was sold in bakalii (the local word for grocery shops), plod-i-zelenchuk (fruit and vegetable shops), meat shops, and in some cases bakeries and local pastry shops. The bakalii were the main grocery shops. They carried a basic variety of products: dairy, eggs, industrial-made bread, cookies, canned food, cereals, beans, spices, and cooking oil. They were simply furnished places, usually with plywood shelves along the walls and an island in the middle that displayed the same products in long rows. Freezers were introduced towards the end of the 1970s, one per shop, to accommodate the few frozen foods produced by national industry. The scale and cash register were mechanical. The floors were covered with a cement mosaic sometimes coated in oil paint. In the bakalii, the customer was served by the grocer who selected, cut, and measured some of the products, produced the bill, and collected the payment. This meant long queues. It also prevented the clients from having a good look at the products they were purchasing. There was always a risk

that the bag of milk would be leaking, the yogurt expired, or the eggs broken. The grocer, typically unceremonious, discouraged customers’ attempt at being selective. Grocers did not have a particularly high status, yet they were positioned to be masters of their customers and in the totalitarian society, authorities tended to be undisputable from below. Today, many people remember the bakalii as illustrative of the oppressive atmosphere of the era. “There was always somebody placed there to give permission or not. It seems like there was a need to install an authority, whose approval was needed in order to do whatever you wanted to do,”2 recalled Tamara Ganeva. Even so, the bakalii are remembered as the friendliest of the shops—even six-year-olds were regularly sent alone to buy a pack of sugar or a bottle of sunflower oil, though they were rarely entrusted to go to the fruit and vegetable shops, and never to the butcher. Parents were always worried that the child would be tricked into buying lesser quality or rotten fruits or vegetables. The plod-i-zelenchuk were rougher places, which often put out their produce on to the street or into unkempt green spaces, building small mountains of watermelons or pumpkins. “These [shops] were amazingly untidy and in the winter usually cold places… They sold the vegetables unwashed, which was particularly evident with the root and tuber produce, which came caked in mud… The fruits

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fig. 27.  A vegetable stall at Sofia’s historical Women’s market, 1979. Pressphoto-BTA.

were not separated according to quality, good and rotten came together,” remembered Rayna Gavrilova.3 Tamara Ganeva recalled how her grandmother tried to introduce her to the art of shopping when she was a child. She wondered how it worked: how could her granny tell bad vegetables from good ones if they all came coated in mud and one could not even see their color?

Yet, the most inaccessible type of shops were the butchers, where the customer could barely see the meat and was entirely dependent on the benevolence of the person behind the counter. Shopping there required social skills more than knowledge. Iva Roudnikova recalled that as a child, she was never sent to buy meat because “it was sold with connections. My grandmother, with a deep neck-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 28.  A food store in the district of

Nadezhda, probably in the 1980s. Photo T. Simeonov. From the private archive of Nikola Mihov.

line and freshly dyed hair, went to negotiate with the butcher to make sure she bought no bones, fat, or tendons.”4 Until the 1970s, the butchers cut the meat themselves from the whole carcasses and customers had to remain extraordinarily vigilant to not be stuck with poor quality meat. However, this was usually unavoidable. “The butchers were the masters of the food market and were able to skilfully wrap 100–200 grams of lard even in the leanest of cuts. The purchaser stared attentively at the butchers’ hands, but they had cut the meat in advance in one kilo pieces, hiding in them less valuable parts,” remembered Rayna Gavrilova.5 After the 1970s, the meat was cut in meatpacking factories, but the quality did not change significantly. Even though meat was claimed as one of the

sources of pride for modernized Communist food production, hardly anyone recalls making a satisfying meat purchase. Tatyana Dimitrova said that her mother and grandmother “always said about lamb and beef that they are from old animals. That they found lard, bones, tendons hidden in them. I don’t remember them once buying a piece of meat [in the Communist period] and being happy with it.”6 The alternative to these three types of shops was the neighborhood market, though there were not many of them, and thus they were not a daily option for most people. They had a greater variety of goods, and bolder customers were even able to select what they wanted. Gavrilova remembered the markets as places to buy better quality products and also items not sold in the state shops, such

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as fresh herbs, wine leaves, dried peppers, parsnip, and horseradish. Despite these advantages, the markets were also integrated into the Communist lifestyle and were notorious for their inventive ways of cheating customers. Iva Roudnikova told of her childhood experience of living near two Sofia markets that she was regularly sent to purchase vegetables. Once I was nearly beaten up [at home] because I was sold anise instead of dill. They [my parents] always instructed me to be careful not to be cheated with the weight. It was very risky to shop and I really hat­ ed it. Once my mum asked the pharmacist to mea­ sure for her what she had bought in the stalls. She was sure that she was cheated. And she was. But I felt embarrassed, ashamed that she made an issue out of it.

(Roudnikova, interview)

In the centers and in some neighborhoods, there were bakeries. Many of them offered handmade bread, all baked on the spot. The aromas they gave off still evoke tender memories. Their products were often sold within minutes and the end of each baking cycle was awaited impatiently by crowds of adults and schoolchildren. A quarter kilo of warm bread was a common student lunch. Every neighborhood also had its own pastry shop. In fact, these were among the most widespread forms of trade in Communist Bulgaria in

the 1980s, more common than restaurants.7 They sold an assortment of Oriental and European-style desserts—everything from chocolate-butter petit fours and eclairs to baklava soaked in honey. The drinks from the 1970s on were also eclectic. Schweppes and sometimes Coca-Cola was offered along with draft boza, a brown, thick, sweet drink made of lightly fermented rye, panicum, or wheat.

Restructuring the Urban Centers

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he system of specialized food retail stores remained predominant in the urban areas of Bulgaria throughout most of the Communist period, but between 1955 and 1965, the central zones of the large cities underwent restructuring. They saw their first large department stores, and soon afterward retail food also began to change. In the capital, the first step was the radical transformation of the covered market, Sofiyski hali. The impressive building was raised in 1911 and featured metal construction inspired by the industrial style of Gustave Eiffel. It contained nearly 170 separate shops renowned for their Turkish delight and the much favored sofiyski banichki.8 Early in the twentieth century, it saw the first installation of a refrigerator. But small food shops and stalls in the Sofiyski hali all became history, as the Communist administration decided to transform the building into one large single food store.

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Opposite that building was the first department store in Sofia, TSUM (Central Department Store), built in 1956. It faced a large hotel on the other side of the square. The twin buildings were placed like some gates to the historic yellow-paved plaza and to the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Designed in a Stalinist style and with a red star perched above it, it was the visual culmination of the square. After these two pilot projects, the construction of a series of large stores began in Sofia: in 1966, 1001 Stoki, a store for household and renovation goods was opened, followed in 1969 by the gift shop Sredets. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the idea that the commercial network of the capital needed restructuring gained momentum. An analysis of the Ministry of Domestic Trade in 1966 identified an “excessive concentration” of commercial venues in the city center, arguing that “25 percent of the food shops are in the center, but they cater only to 19 percent of the residents.”9 To clear the way for their modernization plans, strategists leaned on ideological arguments: the current state of affairs in downtown Sofia was a legacy of the old bourgeois lifestyle and had to be corrected. But the intended rearrangement also followed the logic of the planned economy, which nominally excluded the idea of competition. The same report argued that “The current location of shops

and restaurants along the commercial streets is inherited from the capitalist development of the city in the past. It was the large number of proprietors, the hard competition between them and their drive for higher profit that brought the long lines of shops.”10 The Communist idea of modernity entailed a new hierarchy in which all things industrial and mass-produced were valued over all that was handor tailor-made. This change in values affected the commercial map of Sofia. Planning large-scale, industrial state stores, the strategists banned many craft workshops from downtown locations and sent them to the outskirts. Piano repairs, picture framing, photo developing, or stuffing of hunting trophies moved out to the urban hinterland together with fireplace building, repairing cabbage barrels, or dressing wine bottles in reed. Another concern was the “excessive division” in the existing food retail, which “forces people to visit numerous shops and waste time.” The general conclusion of the Domestic Trade Ministry experts was to “gradually eliminate the excessive concentration in the central city zone,” “to reduce the level of specialization of the shops,” and to “radically consolidate them.”11 This reasoning was supported by the state-owned press: “the existent concept of trade service contains something very old and conservative, and we have had enough of it,” announced the newspaper Anteni.12

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The Supermarket Race

B

y the beginning of the 1970s, the idea of consolidating retail food into general food shops was ripe enough for Bulgaria to start experimenting with supermarkets. Established as a dominant form of retail in the United States in the 1930s, supermarkets were introduced in Western Europe with the Marshall Plan in the 1950s, and by the 1970s were beginning to be replaced by hypermarkets (the first one in 1963 in France). The culture and lifestyle that produced these shops and which these shops were supposed to facilitate were fundamentally foreign to the social life of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Everything from the expected levels of trust to hygiene standards was strange to the society of that period. The contrast between the shopping world that was being imitated in Western Europe and the one that existed in Bulgaria (for there are many indications that the idea of supermarkets was not self-conceived but borrowed in a competitive spirit) was made clear when the first supermarket opened in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian supermarkets differed from those on the other side of the Iron Curtain in almost every respect. Witnesses who recalled their first-time experience in the new Sofia food stores described them as “super big and entirely empty!”13 Reports in the following years expressed experts’ despair with the contrasts, pointing at the bad and

insufficient equipment, the poor organization and awkward management of the space, among many other issues. But perhaps the most striking contrast was the lack of goods to display. The scarce selection was apparent on the long shelves in the ambitiously planned commercial halls.14 In their rush to align the country with what was seen as the standards of modernity, the Bulgarian administration had preferred to ignore the warning signs coming from across the western border. Only a few years earlier in Yugoslavia, an ambitious experiment by the United States to export a supermarket had failed quite spectacularly. In 1957 the United States government made an offer to open a real American supermarket in the center of Belgrade, and Josip Broz Tito accepted with interest. One thousand square meters of commercial space was constructed and filled with an assortment of 4,000 products. At first the organizers planned to use local produce but then decided that it was not shiny and representative enough and ended up importing many of the items found on the shelves.15 The agreement between the Americans and Tito was that the introduction of supermarkets would modernize the production of food and food retail. But when customers came through the sliding doors, they stepped into an unknown reality, carrying their own points of reference. As one example, the pre-packaged meat section was imme-

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diately regarded with suspicion. The customers insisted on monitoring the cutting and wrapping of the meat, fearing all kinds of fraud. Tito himself was at first enthusiastic, and after visiting the American supermarket, he dramatically declared that Yugoslavia was opening towards the West. In 1958 he announced plans for 60 such stores in the Federation. But soon enough the actual state of Yugoslav industry and agriculture, which lacked the necessary capacity and infrastructure, brought these plans back to reality. As historian Shane Hamilton notes, supermarkets are tightly integrated technological systems: “[B]oth users and producers had to accept not only the artifacts of the supermarket (the refrigerators, the retail box, the cash registers, and the shopping carts) but an entire technological system of production and distribution… that was largely absent in 1957 Yugoslavia.”16 Bulgarian state ambitions did not differ much from Tito’s a decade earlier. The production of foodstuffs was quite industrialized by the 1970s, but the key elements of the necessary infrastructure were either absent or suffered from systemic defects. Having supermarkets functioning was only a little less problematic. Unlike Tito, the Bulgarian state did not abandon its plans. In the 1960s, Bulgaria started constructing supermarkets and did so on large scale. New superstores were planned in Sofia in five locations, and by 1974, a report of the Scientific Center for Domestic Trade stated that nearly 100 supermar-

kets were open in the country.17 Another document claimed that by the end of 1975, 15 percent of food products were sold in supermarkets.18 In 1974, the Scientific Center for Domestic Trade created a recommended product list for Bulgarian supermarkets, using the production of the entire food industry, which added up to 965 types of goods—less than a quarter of what the experimental US supermarket in Belgrade had contained 15 years earlier. But even these 965 goods hardly correlated to the few items actually available in the stores. For example, while the list contained 28 different kinds of bread, most people remember only three of them. The same was true of cured meats, canned foods, and dairy products. The group of goods that best corresponded to the list was sweets with long shelf lives. While the state advanced with its plans, experts in domestic trade looked on these developments with a critical eye, and in 1976 they warned that the scheduled serial construction of supermarkets in the new residential zones in the outskirts of Sofia seemed like they were failing. These new venues often ended up opening in low-population areas and functioned far below capacity. Their poor assortment of products was also criticized by experts.19 The criticism and recommendations had little influence on the industry. Even if there is evidence that efforts were made to take them into account and many attempts to develop a greater

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fig. 29.  Sofia’s historical Women’s market, 1989. Photo Bozhidar Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

variety and assortment of products, ultimately the end result for consumers did not change much. In 1981, another attempt to evaluate and diversify the supermarkets’ assortment indicated that the situation had not evolved greatly since 1974. The recommended list of goods had grown from 965 to 1,356 items. One novelty was the small section of the stores with ready-made food.20 Otherwise, most of

the “new” items on the list were older products in new packaging. For example, dough-based products increased from 33 to 55 items, but more than half of the new ones were just variations of the old ones by weight and salt content. By 1981, the experts seem to have abandoned their zeal to compete with the capitalist world: “Typical for the current capitalist economy is the

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fig. 30.  A supermarket in the expanding residential neighbourhood of Lyulin, Sofia, 1982. Photo Petur Zhekov, Pressphoto-BTA.

hypertrophy of the assortment, which is excessive,”21 they asserted. The report further criticized what was, in the authors’ opinion, an unreasonable abundance of brands in the United States, pointing to the herbs and spices for salads which alone amounted to 3,400 different varieties. Their own list of spices and herbs of any kind was a grand total of 16 items. The experts also drew comparisons between the Bulgarian supermarkets and those in the USSR

and GDR. They showed that, at least on paper, the standard in Bulgaria was the poorest. A large supermarket in Leningrad was expected to sell 2,000 different items, and in the GDR 2,250.22

Angry Dispatchers of Bounty

S

upermarkets might have become a showcase for many of the systemic faults of the communist economy, but there was at least one issue where

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they were able to make improvements: the mistreatment of customers. One of the first challenges acknowledged by the Communist state management after nationalizing the shops was the disastrous work ethic of employers and employees. The problem highlighted the need to fundamentally reconceptualize the relationship between the two in the new egalitarian economy. Declaring the old model obsolete, Communism strove to construct a new perception of the worker as an honored builder of the national economy and not as a servant of the wealthy classes. The influx of the rural population to the cities had a significant influence on urban culture. The enforced collectivization and nationalization of land and centrally planned industrialization provided for a dramatic reshuffling of social layers and people, many of whom were inexperienced in urban culture but nonetheless became dominant within it, and even came to define it. This greatly changed the quality of urban social relations, specifically the relations between buyer and seller. The shopkeepers from the past, who had to treat the customers well to succeed in their business, were replaced by employees of the new Communist state. In this new situation, the sellers did not need the customers’ approval to keep their jobs. It was the other way around. In a market riddled with shortages, the customers depended on their benevolence. The shopkeepers were also managed

from a distance by an administration equally inexperienced in trade and urban culture. Unsurprisingly, their respect for the customer quickly dwindled, and “serving the customer” was considered to be humiliating and contradictory to the promised social equality. These circumstances formed an entirely new style of commerce in which there were some positive exceptions due to specific shopkeepers’ cheery personalities, but which in general spread hostility, rudeness, disregard, and incompetence. To be kind to the customer became a matter of choice rather than a condition for successful commerce. Such attitudes proliferated in all service domains and remained resistant to any attempts for improvement throughout the regime. The Communist leadership quickly realized the problem and did try to address it. But instead of considering systemic changes, they looked instead to their familiar method of problem solving: ideology. Addressing the shopkeepers in emotional, metaphoric language, statesmen promised them a place in the pantheon of Communist working heroes. In the 1950s, Bulgaria once more borrowed from Moscow, where posters appealed to shopkeepers’ politeness and the press turned the friendly shopkeeper into a role model.23 The retail strategists decided to apply the Soviet “Gusin and Voroshin’s initiative,” in which employees volunteered to maintain state businesses “excellently” to ensure

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quality of service. Balkantourist’s archive tells of the creation of such “exemplary brigades” for the historic Hotel Bulgaria in Sofia. Six brigades were formed for the different restaurants, and another three for “excellent washing of dishes,” “excellent washing and ironing of the bed linen,” and “excellent maintenance of the heating system.”24 Even if considered voluntary, these units were formed by the decision of the Balkantourist director. The unexpected effect of this initiative was that adding “excellent” to some employees’ job descriptions by default liberated all the others from having to do excellent work. Unsurprisingly, service remained problematic in the following decades. Besides being demotivated by their position in the system, the shopkeepers also became the face of the rather unsatisfactory state of Communist production and commerce in the eyes of consumers. The constant shortages made them both the bearers of bad news and the key dispensers of available goods, and therefore they held extraordinary power over the wellbeing of customers. None of this helped reduce the mistreatment of clients. In the 1960s, as attention to consumers increased, the Bulgarian state made another effort to improve the situation. In a 1961 speech, Zhivkov promised “a better cultured service,” echoing the latest promises of the Soviet Communist Party.25 A few months later the newly elected minister of domestic trade

and services, Peko Takov, offered an overview of the situation and suggested solutions. But he did not attempt to revise the system and instead relied on ideology. Appealing to the sellers’ loyalty to the state, he urged them to take initiative and perform their work with love.26 In 1962, a manual published by Takov’s ministry qualified politeness to customers as moral and tried to refine the idea of the proper Communist salesman/saleswoman. “The striving for pure, Communist morality and new methods of trade27 now fertilize the skills, will, and labor of the salesman in cities and villages. Trade has long thrown into the the debris of the old life any laziness, coolly calculating, routine… Willful and relentless salesmen in an unstoppable race to what is beautiful in our society put enormous effort into accomplishing major changes in improving the retail shops and in their communication with the buyers,” informed the manual in a lofty voice.28 Egalitarianism was one of the founding principles of Communism, yet the Communist state created a pronouncedly hierarchical society. At the bottom of it were people working low-skill jobs. Both struggling with this view and confirming it, the manual tried to elevate the status of the salesperson by presenting the profession as requiring excellent education: “Who can master such a broad range of goods? The answer is clear—the well-educated seller. The one who has good general knowledge in physics,

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Shopping FIG. 31-32. A newly opened supermarket in the central Leninski district of Sofia welcomes its first visitors, 1982. Photo Zhivkov Angelov, Pressphoto-BTA.

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chemistry, and other sciences.”29 To further imply equality, the customer was presented as a peer, sharing the interests of the seller: “The customer is a person, close to the seller. Just like him, he is a worker. Nothing divides them. The interests are common. One can see the dawn in the trade practice. Fellow eyes meet in the shop, and this fact alone demolishes any walls or secretive thoughts in their relation… An entirely new figure was born and matured in our shop: the contemporary, socialist salesperson.”30 Sadly for the authors of these words, the birth of such socialist salespersons remained wishful thinking. Apart from individual exceptions, the typical shopkeeper in the Communist period remained notoriously unfriendly, quick to anger, a cheat, and inefficient. “There were always goods behind the counter,” recalled Evgeniy Todorov, echoing the memories of many others. “Everything was redistributed. My, food was a source of influence! It gave the salesmen unusual powers!”31 “The salesmen were always impolite. There was always someone who felt like showing off his power. The shoptender was the master in the shop, and the buyer was expected to beg. And there were always goods put aside,” pointed out Tamara Ganeva.32 The pervasiveness of such accounts is also confirmed by documents from experts. In the 1970s, an article in the newspaper Anteni quoted the State Inspection of Trade and Services, which reported widespread practices of shopkeepers bribing dis-

tributors for goods that were in high demand and neglecting the storage and sales of foodstuffs.33 In 1977, another newspaper, Pogled, wrote that the editorial office had received “hundreds of letters to the editor in which citizens rightfully protest against the low level of service culture in many of our shops.”34 The publication quoted numerous examples of impolite and inappropriate behavior from all corners of the country. An analysis by the Scientific Center for Domestic Trade from 1978 similarly reported that salesmen were routinely absent from their workplaces “for 10–15 minutes for no good reason: to just take a break, talk to colleagues, or make a phone call on a private matter.”35 The neglect of customers and professional tasks remained pervasive and became the trademark of Communist retail. If there was one innovation that slightly improved the situation for customers, it was the (rather late) introduction of self-service.

Self-Service as Coup and a Lesson

T

he idea of self-service reached Bulgaria in the 1950s, but the state did not hurry to introduce it. The authorities’ and retail management’s doubts about the integrity of sellers and buyers made them reluctant to push for its implementation. The formula was first tested in 1956 in the Narmag store—an abbreviation for Naroden maga-

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zin, meaning people’s shop—in Sofia, but it failed to mitigate retailers’ concerns that self-service was eccentric and risky.36 The experiment was not repeated for another five years. The political leadership of the country, eager to modernize commercial practices, tried to reason with the tradespeople. The trade minister Takov presented arguments to pacify their anxiety. “It was thought that in the village of Smolyantsi in the region of Mihaylovgrad, people were thievish. But this suspicion proved to be unjustified when an open-display shop opened. The more we credit the population with trust, the more it responds with honesty,” Takov argued.37 Eventually a solution was found not through persuasion, but coercion. In 1961, the government simply decided to impose the reform. Theoreticians published manuals, the first self-service shops were opened, and toward the end of the year there were 950 self-service commercial outlets in the country.38 Planning to transform half of the entire national commercial network by the end of 1962, the government foresaw the financial means to compensate five to ten percent of the turnover should it be lost to theft. But in many places there was no need for compensation: “The new forms [of trade] are a mighty instrument to discipline the working people… The new initiatives make the consumers feel the people’s fortune as their own, to treat it with honor and respect for the great trust which our

Party and state have in them by displaying before their eyes this enormous treasure. This is an easy and accessible way to discipline,” philosophized Takov.39 The same message was used in the professional literature that promoted self-service. Treated as a sign of trust, it was believed to morally engage the consumer and turn him into a “debtor to society.”40 But more importantly, the transformation was seen as soothing the problematic relationship between the seller and the buyer: “Gradually the tension between the salesperson and the client is eliminated.”41 Indeed, self-service put a distance between the two and made it harder for the seller to hide goods behind the counter or trick the customer into buying poor-quality food.

Shopping as a Shell Game

H

owever, the selective benevolence of shopkeepers was only one of the troubles. In addition to that and the limitations of industry, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria’s distribution system also added to the troubles of consumers. Distribution was considered so unpredictable that it was often likened to a conman’s shell game, where one practically needed magical powers to guess when he would be able to purchase a product he needed. “‘We don’t have it’ and ‘we’re out of it’ made up 90 percent of the vocabulary of salespeople,”42 Georgi Markov wrote of the situation in Bulgaria before 1965. The cause,

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fig. 33.  “The success of Pleven’s workers lies in the scientific principles of the economic management. There are five industrial research centers in the municipality, two in the area of agriculture, and three centers for development and implementation [of the scientific research]. The connection between science and industry steadily grows and is of importance to the improvement of wellbeing.” The unsigned photo shows the section for tea and coffee in a local supermarket. Coffee, which was a rare commodity, is not visible on the shelves, which are instead filled with what looks like cookies, cosmetic products, and sauces. Photopanorama, a publication of the regional center for photopropaganda, Gabrovo. From the private archive of Nikola Mihov.

it seems, was not in the permanent inability of one or another element in the production or distribution chain to make the right decisions, but more in the complex and inflexible system where the mistakes and the limitations of multiple players intersected. Markov’s impressions were shared by many Bulgarians who lived under Communism in the following decades. “If I remember what was found in the shops? I rather remember how nothing was found in the shops!” exclaimed Kina Neykova.43 “There was simply nothing: vegetables, fruits, even olives were missing, the choice was horribly ­limited,” said Rosa Radichkova,44 and Gav­ rilova remembered that “Any intention to cook something different from the everyday routine required planning and running around to numerous shops.”45 Imported goods such as cocoa, coffee, bananas, and ­citrus fruits were only some of the shortages. But if the scarcity of such non-essential products could be

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justified as fitting the Communist framework of sober consumption practices, basic goods were also regularly absent from the market. This included anything from a mid-season shortage of fruit and vegetables widely grown in the country, to yogurt, vinegar, and sunflower oil. Even the staple food of the Bulgarian table, bread, was at times challenging to find. Some interviewees recalled the eternal queues in front of Sofia’s bakeries, and especially the tension on Saturday afternoon, when people bought more than one loaf of bread for the weekend. “Scandals erupted,” Gavrilova recalled, “because the queue witnessed how the bread that was just taken out of the oven was instantly sold.”46 The situation was even worse in the countryside, where many people depended on homemade bread until the late 1950s. The bakeries that opened in the following years often failed to produce enough, and buying bread was a real challenge for rural people. Many Sofianites, who were then children, visited their grandparents in the countryside. Some recalled particularly well the periods when price of cattle fodder grew, and farmers bought startling amounts of bread to feed their animals. Then the lines for bread stood “in three rows” remembered Tatyana ­Dimitrova.47 Boryana Gencheva, who as a child on holidays was regularly sent to queue for hours, recalled once fainting while waiting.48 Perhaps one of the most revealing summaries of the Communist shortages is a report by a

group of experts at the Ministry of Domestic Trade from 1972. After examining one of the best-supplied shops in the capital, the research identified three groups of goods according to the regularity of their supply. Regularly missing from the shelves were “meat, cured meats and sausages, soft cheese, fresh fish, fresh fruit, or 42.6 percent of the products.” In a second group, occasionally missing were chocolate-based products, alcoholic drinks, certain types of sausages, vegetables, special sorts of bread and others, or another 29.3 percent of the [provisioned] products.” Only 28.1 percent of the products, such as bread, milk, yogurt, sugar and sweets, were regularly supplied.49 If the report reflected the situation in the center of Sofia, shops in the outskirts, smaller towns, and in rural areas were certainly worse off. The chronic shortages were always combined with almost comical efforts to keep up the appearance of Bulgaria as a wealthy state, which only made the impotence of the national economy clearer to the local population. Todorov recalled the props organized around the yearly technology trade fair in Plovdiv to demonstrate the development of the national food industry: I remember at one of the openings how they arranged two meat shops packed with dry-cured hams, cured rolled meats, and similar unheard of things. We were eying them from the night before the opening, sali­

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vating, but the shops stayed closed. When the mo­ ment of the opening came, a crowd was standing in front of it, waiting, asking: “when?” “Wait until Todor Zhivkov passes!” They wanted him to see how much of everything there was! …They were trying to de­ ceive even Todor Zhivkov!

(Todorov, interview)

Todorov recalled that after the opening, everything instantly disappeared and one could see engineers fleeing the fairgrounds, dragging sacks of red peppers.50 Todor Zhivkov was certainly well aware of the shortages, as he was regularly sent the industry reports and often personally gave directions on how to improve the situation. In speeches at working collectives and Party congresses, he advised producers in detail, in the style of a well-informed corporate manager. From breeding silkworms to installing refrigerators, he posed detailed production requirements to his audiences. Lines from his talks read: “To process and stabilize around 150 million liters of wine in 1965”; “To produce 680 thousand tons of grapes in 1962”; “To construct by 1965 around 120 thousand square meters of refrigeration space for the meat-processing industry,” and so on.51 But production and trade were managed on at least a five-tiered hierarchy. Under Todor Zhivkov, the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party discussed reports and issued recommendations concerning regulations, volumes of pro-

duction, prices, and other economic issues. The government followed with its ministries and committees, which were supported by research, science, and strategy centers. The centralized management of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria meant that one administrative unit was charged with managing a vast network of entities spread across the country, and devising strategic plans for the coming decades. For example, in 1972, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Services prepared general requirements for the supply of foodstuffs and other goods in a plan intended to last until 1990. This practice was an attempt to calculate statistics such as how many liters of milk the average Bulgarian will drink in twenty years, or how many kilos of fish or flour he or she might consume in the following year. This data was then used as a basis to prepare production plans for different industries. They, in turn, had to adapt production to the state’s orders and, to some extent, to commercial demand. Industries were also frequently divided into multiple levels of organization with several factories of the same type being managed by a master organization or union. Considering the many hours that the state invested in managing commerce, its failure may seem surprising. But the complexity of the system meant there were many controversial interests, overlapping powers, and dispersed responsibilities that compounded the numerous problems of the state.

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Shopping fig. 34.  Strawberries transported in an adjusted passengers airplane, from the album “15 Years of Socialist Bulgaria” (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na otechestvenia front, 1959)

The state’s constant lack of convertible currency produced shortages in two ways: it prevented the purchase of goods from abroad to cover for fluctuations and shortages in local production, and it forced the economic leadership to prioritize exports, creating shortages of even widely produced goods. The relationship between commerce and industry also created problems. The central planning of

production left little space for factories to respond to demand, and shops often received too little of what they requested and too much of what they did not need because long-term distribution plans had been made in advance. The monopoly of industrial units further contributed to these problems as it allowed them to put various kinds of official and unofficial pressure on commerce: neglecting or confusing orders, imposing

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puzzling terms and conditions (like the one to purchase two kilograms of cow cheese for each kilogram of sheep cheese), delivering spoiled or defective goods, all of which impinged on the shopkeepers’ jobs and reputations, while the producers got off scot-free. At the bottom of the chain, the shops were relatively indifferent to their commercial success. The underdeveloped trade network of Communist Bulgaria meant that customers streamed into every shop. The salesmen were hardly interested in fighting for good supplies as this did not much affect their payment and only created more work for them. Accumulating excess stock that might spoil could get them fined. While solving this problem was not a top priority, state management was still concerned with it and looked for solutions. In 1962, the Minister of Domestic Trade wrote that there were reportedly shortages of goods that warehouses had in sufficient quantity. “To maintain good levels of trade, we need to organize the constant provision of goods from one warehouse to another, from one trade unit to another, from one shop to another,” Takov suggested.52 However, it was not only the lack of coordination and mismanagement that was responsible for the problems consumers faced, but the very nature of Communist planning itself. One striking example of this was the division in the 1970s of the country into zones based on population. The most populated areas had access to the greatest diversity

of products, while the least inhabited received only the basic staples. Local circumstances like the quality of infrastructure or the particularities of geography and production were not taken into account, meaning that remote mountainous areas that could only grow potatoes and tobacco had to survive on an extremely limited diet. The study that claimed that even the best supplied supermarket in Sofia only received 30 percent of the goods intended for it regularly,53 quoted reasons from across every level of the food production and retail system. One of the problems was found in the logistical arrangements. The transportation companies, the experts explained, were interested in making larger and less frequent deliveries in order to be more efficient. For the shops, however, this increased expenses to store greater stocks, and hindered their response to fluctuations in consumer demand. Larger and less frequent deliveries made shops accumulate items that they did not have enough space to store. The experts also blamed the poor equipment of the supermarkets, particularly, the limited refrigerator space.

“People Got to Fly in Outer Space, and We Have No Carts!”

R

egarding refrigerators, the situation in Bulgaria in the 1960s was like the times before freon: blocks of ice were placed in pastry shops in the

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summer to cool and preserve the products. Rosa Radichkova remembered that in her childhood ice was unloaded straight on the sidewalk and before the workers in the shop were able to take it in, the neighborhood children succeeded in cutting from it chunks to lick.54 Even when refrigerators were introduced in the shops, their number and quality remained problematic until the very end of the regime and state-run trade. In fact, all of the equipment in the commercial network lagged significantly behind Western Europe and most of Eastern Europe as well. There is much evidence for the lack of even basic technology in shops. As a saleswoman quoted in Anteni summarized: “People got to fly in outer space, and we have no carts!”55 This article and expert analysis from 1974 confirm that between 1944 and the 1970s, there was very little progress in the commercial equipment in Bulgaria.56 Only in the 1980s was there visible modernization of the equipment. To what extent the problems of the Bulgarian food retail resulted from the limitations of the centralized economy and to what degree they were due to the poor administrative, political, and everyday culture can probably never be fully determined. But it does seem that the Communist state’s economic arrangements could have produced better results, for they did so in other Eastern European countries. Bulgarian analysts have frequently sought comparisons to them, and when it came to management

fig. 35.  Crates with grapes are loaded on the international train to Budapest. From the photo album “15 Years of Socialist Bulgaria” (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na otechestvenia front, 1959).

efficiency, the Bulgarian state was always at a disadvantage. For instance, the supermarket supply study quoted earlier stated that retail in East Germany was two to three times more efficient than in Bulgaria, the speed of product turnover there was calculated to be ten days instead of thirty days, and the average frequency of deliveries to supermarkets was three times a week instead of only once.57 It seems that at no point were the interests of the consumer a top priority of the Bulgarian Commu-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 36.  The opening of the sea fright line between Bulgaria and Cuba. Varna, 1974. Cuba became one of the main sources for the import of bananas. Photo: LostBulgaria.com

nist state. State management made many erratic, half-hearted attempts at reform, but its unhelpful macroeconomic decisions pushed the country into one crisis after another, holding the domestic market hostage. The logic of how the state operated gradually produced a society of remarkable cynicism, in which the perceived (and actual material) success in life was based on political opportunism, lowlevel corruption and small-scale theft. The situation got so out of hand in 1985 that, following a secret

report made by the head of state Todor Zhivkov, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a document “To Decisively Fight the Negative Phenomena in Our Life.” It gave a concise description of the state after forty years of Communist rule and contained explanations for many of the observed problems, including in commerce: We need to organize a broad-scale attack against theft, abuse, and waste; against the irresponsibility towards socialist property and the violations of the

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working discipline. Against corruption in its most di­ verse forms. Against the dishonesty in recruitment and management based on connections and protec­ tions. Against the silencing of any honest and con­ structive criticism. Against the withholding, and sometimes the falsification of unfavorable infor­ mation about the actual state of affairs. Against the inclination to alcoholism, especially among the younger generation. Against bribes, tips, and ­other forms of demoralization and decay. Against phe­ nomena foreign to the essence of the socialist so­ cial system, which, as a cancer, began to spread ... (Todor Zhivkov, Na reshitelna borba sreshtu otritsatelnite yavlenia v nashia zhivot [To decisively fight the negative phenomena in our life] [Sofia: Partizdat, 1985], 1–59)

Proudly Presenting… What There Wasn’t

T

wo kinds of shops in Communist Bulgaria epitomized both the limitations of the centralized economy and the hypocritical attitude of the state towards consumers: the premium pokazni shops, which were meant to present the glory of Bulgarian food production and trade, and the Corecom shops, where goods could only be purchased with US dollars. The pokazni (which literally means “exemplary”) shops were created toward the end of the 1960s and, as their name suggests, were meant to display the advances and abundance of Bulgarian

food. Situated in prime locations in the biggest cities, they were supposed to sell the best produce of local agriculture, including the novel greenhouse-grown vegetables, premium canned goods, and a rich assortment of imported foods. In reality, the greenhouse-grown produce rarely reached the shelves as its export to the West for hard currency was a priority. The variety of goods was poor at all times and even advertisements from the period showed endless rows and towering piles of the same couple of products. The imported goods, which mainly came from fellow Communist regimes in Africa and Latin America, were so infrequent that the pokazni are best remembered for the monstrous queues that formed in front of them with each delivery. Thus, ironically, these stores became a genuine display of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria’s trade as it really was, and not the image the state wished to project. Instead of a consumers’ paradise, they demonstrated Communism’s inability to deliver it. The endless, grueling lines that formed on the sidewalk in front of the pokazni became for many people a sort of generic memento of the poverty of Communist existence. A poverty dramatically emphasized by being so close to a desired product that you could see it and smell it, and by the awareness that it might be out of stock by the time your turn came. Svetla Vasileva, a contributor to the collective memory project I Lived Communism,58 described a

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painful scene from her childhood in which many Sofianites will recognize their own experience:

new husband. Suddenly they saw a line of people and realized that the shop was selling bananas:

It is winter. The snow is half a meter deep. We get

We queued and waited, and when it was our turn,

up very early, around half past five, we dress warm­

the saleswoman shouted: “Do not queue any more,

ly, and walk to the pokazen store on the corner of

the bananas are gone, only four–five kilos are left!”

Malyovitsa Boulevard and Graf Ignatiev in Sofia.

But the people didn’t leave, they only muttered a

We queue because the day before we’d learned

bit. Without thinking, I said: “Pack the rest for me,

that there will be bananas. Everybody is waiting

I’m buying it!” The first person to react was the

for the dreamed of fruit. Most resignedly we are

man that I had married the previous day: “What

waiting in silence: elderly people, mothers with in­

are you doing? Leave some for the other people!”

fants, children, sent alone. Everyone is cold, but re­

(Gospodionov, Az zhi­vyah socializma, 203–204)

mains standing. Nobody protests; it is simply not done. The shop is closed, but everyone is waiting. (Gospodinov, Az zhivyah socializma, 223)

She recalled how she and her brother stood the entire morning waiting and not talking to each other, so that the other people in the line would not figure out that they were together and each of them could take their portion according to the determined quota. “Finally, we got through the door and each bought a bunch of bananas.”59 Oranges and bananas were usually released around the New Year, and they easily attracted lines of 200 people. These particular Communist social forums brought out extreme behaviors and emotions. Another storyteller in I Lived Communism wrote how she, just married, was walking on the evening of December 23, 1985 in Sofia with her

She described that from that moment on the tension between the couple only grew and they very soon divorced. “And to think that all started with a few bananas!” the author bitterly concluded.60 The banana lines brought about many ugly passions, but also love and care. The generations of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s well remember how their parents, seeing the joy in their childrens’ eyes when the bananas were brought home, suddenly would “lose their appetite.” In the same mysterious way, mothers and fathers stopped eating strawberries and chocolate, or fancying Coca-Cola. If the pokazni store exposed perfectly the demagoguery of communist rule, there was another kind of store, which arguably succeeded in doing so even better. In Bulgaria it was called Corecom. The first Corecom shops opened in the 1960s, but they were

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not a national invention. The prototype, Torgsin, dated from Soviet Russia in the 1930s. There these shops existed between 1931 and 1936, and their main goal was to gather the golden rubli, the silver, and the precious stones that were still in the possession of the population.61 Amidst general undernourishment and poverty, Torgsin shops opened with shelves overflowing with food and other rare goods. A scene from Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita describes their excess: “Hundreds of bolts of cotton in the richest assortment of colors could be seen in the pigeon-holes of the shelves. Next to them were piled calicoes, and chiffons and flannels for suits. In receding perspective endless stacks of shoeboxes could be seen…”62 The grocery and confectionary departments that the two macabre characters of the novel ransack and then set on fire, are filled with “weeping, plump pink salmon” with its “snake-like, silvery skin,” a pyramid of mandarins, an “Eiffel Tower” of chocolate bars in gold wrappers, a barrel of “Choice Kerch Herrings,” baskets of fruits, almond cakes, and so on.63 The Torgsin chain, a consumer’s heaven whose entrance was guarded by a porter and which never offered more than hungry looks through the shop windows to most people, fulfilled its mission in five years. By 1936, it was estimated that the chain had collected 95 percent of the precious metals and valuable jewelry that the impoverished population possessed, and the chain was consequently closed.

fig. 37.  A poster by Mechkuev advertising the foreign currency shops Corecom. Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

At the end of the 1950s, the concept was resurrected in the USSR, when shops called Beriozka began trading with convertible currency or checks. They aimed to gather the foreign currency that had been earned by Soviet citizens who were increasingly working abroad on bilateral interstate contracts. The model quickly spread across the Eastern Bloc.

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fig. 38.  A market day at Sofia’s historical Women’s market, 1979.

Photo E.Baydanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

By the time Corecom opened, most Soviet republics and Eastern European countries already had their own version of these shops. Tuzex (Tuzemský Export, meaning Domestic Export) opened in Czechoslovakia in 1957, and Intershop gained popularity in the GDR after opening in 1962. Only Poland was late to follow suit, and opened Pewex (Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego) in 1972, after the Bulgarian Corecom. These shops sold a selection of goods in short supply, which varied from country to country. In Bul-

garia they included blue jeans, Western alcohol, toys, cigarettes, and electronic appliances: TV sets, audio and video players, and kitchen mixers. Car parts and even cars, which people otherwise waited years for, were available through their network. In some countries these shops also sold basics such as flour and ham. A catalogue of the Russian Beriozka from 1975 showed the vast assortments of a well-stocked grocery store, which looked like a hedonistic celebration of the Soviet Union and the close cooperation with the non-Soviet socialist countries. It also featured many imported Western European goods. The Polish Pewex reportedly sold even toilet paper for dollars when it was not otherwise available. The Corecom shops, just like the rest, tried to collect as much convertible currency as possible that ended up one way or another in the hands of Bulgarians. Airplane crews, drivers on international passenger and freight lines, custom officers, and engineers and construction workers who were returning from the Arab world, Western Europe, or elsewhere were the potential clients of these shops. Also Bulgarian diplomats, foreign diplomats, and foreign travelers purchased goods at Corecom that they could not find elsewhere in the country. The shops provided extra opportunities for those in the top echelons of the state too, even though diplomats and political establishment also had access to another channel of goods in short supply, the Special Supplies system.

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Common people were in any case not supposed to shop in the Corecoms as they were not supposed to have foreign currency. Every person who made a purchase with US dollars needed to prove the official origin of the foreign currency or risk punishment. There were indeed criminal cases against individuals who were found to illegally possess USD while shopping at Corecom. As result of this policy, people who had the right to possess currency were usually subject to a great deal of unwanted attention. Friends and relatives often begged them for favors such as a pair of blue jeans for the graduating son, or coffee for their wife’s birthday, and so on. Most American travelers who were interviewed for this book recalled repeatedly doing such favors for their Bulgarian friends. These specific shops of the Eastern Bloc functioned according to a principle entirely antagonistic to the propagated ideology of egalitarianism. Their concept was also incompatible with a free market economy, and after the end of Communism, they either disappeared completely or were reformed. In Bulgaria they proved to be quite resistant, settling in the duty-free border zones and were eventually closed a full decade after the end of the regime, under pressure from the European Union.

Notes

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9

10 11

Epigraph source: Ivan Slavov, Tupizmi i psuvizmi [Dumb and swearing phrases] (Sofia: Arhimed, 2009), 28. Complaint Book was the name of a book that all public enterprises and delivery services were obliged to have. It was an official document, which was supposed to be kept in a place accessible to customers where they were entitled to write impressions from the services and suggestions on how they could be improved. These books were occasionally subjected to inspection by central authorities and therefore some public enterprises, anticipating their customers’ discontent, tried to keep the books out of reach. To write a complaint in such a book, one often had to request it explicitly. However, many such books actually functioned. After the end of the communist regime, philosopher Ivan Slavov collected such documents and published a book that contained some of the funniest examples. Stefka Popova, “Golemiyat homer da nyama, kogato ima” [The big trick: To be out of something available], Anteni, no. 4, January 29, 1971.” Tamara Ganeva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Brussels, September 21, 2012. Rayna Gavrilova, interview by Albena Shkodrova (in writing), Sofia, October 16, 2012. Iva Roudnikova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 23, 2012. Gavrilova, interview. Tatyana Dimitrova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 19, 2012. According to the official statistics, in 1980, there were 3,866 restaurants and 4,759 pastry shops. The restaurants caught up in number at the end of the 1980s. NSI (National Statistics Institute), Statisticheski godishnik [State statistics yearbook] (Sofia: 1989), 319. (Available online at http://statlib.nsi.bg:8181/ bg/index.php (last accessed Dec. 20, 2020.) Banitsa is a type of filo pastry filled with eggs, cheese and yogurt—similar to burek—that has enjoyed enormous popularity in twentieth-century Bulgaria. Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Dinamichni normativi za zadovolyavane s hranitelni i nehranitelni stoki na edinica naselenie v razlichnite funkcionalni kategorii naseleni mesta do 1990” [Dynamic norms for supplies of food and non-food products per unit of population in the different functional categories of populated zones until 1990]. Sofia, 1972. Central State Archive (CSA), Sofia 707-1-211. Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Dinamichni normative.” Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Dinamichni normative.”

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12 Popova, “Da nyama, kogato ima.” 13 Olympia Nikolova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, September 14, 2012. 14 Lalka Deseva and Asparih Germanov. “Opredelyane na asortimentnata struktura na stokovite zapasi po tipove supermarket” [Defining the assortment structure of the stock in the different types of supermarkets]. , Sofia, 1974. CSA, 707-1-179; Lalka Deseva, Maria Kovacheva, and Oleg Dimitrov. “Aktualizirane na asortimentnata struktura na hranitelnite I nehranitelnite stoki, koito mogat da se prodavat v magazinite za hranitelni stoki” [Updating the assortment structure of goods, sold in food stores]. Center for Domestic Trade, Services and Local Industry], Sofia, 1981, CSA 707-3-52. 15 The historical episode is described in detail in Shane Hamilton, “Supermarket USA Confronts State Socialism: Airlifting the Technopolitics of Industrial Food Distribution into Cold War Yugoslavia,” in Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology and European Users, ed. Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 137–62. 16 Hamilton, “Supermarket USA,” 142. 17 Deseva and Germanov, “Opredelyane.” 18 Deseva et al., “Aktualizirane.” 19 Spas Karanfilov and Nikolay Portnih, “Osnovnie napravlenia perspectivnogo razvitia roznichnoy torgovoy seti” [Main directions of the development of the retail network], Sofia, 1976, CSA 707-3-3. 20 Deseva et al., “Aktualizirane.” 21 Deseva et al., “Aktualizirane.” 22 Deseva et al., “Aktualizirane.” 23 A. Shklyarova, “Brigada otlichnogo obsluzhivania pokupateley” [An excellent customer service team], in Iz opita raboti magazinov i stolovih Leningrada [Shop and canteen experiences in Leningrad] (Leningrad: Pishchevaya promishlenost, 1953), 20–22. 24 Balkantourist, “Dokladni zapistki ot 1977” [Report notes from 1977], Sofia, 1977, CSA 310-6-9 18. 25 Peko Takov, Za povishavane kulturata na obsluzhvaneto v turgoviata [Improving customer service culture in trade] (Sofia: Turgovia, 1962), 9. 26 Takov, Za povishavane kulturata, 6–10. 27 The reference is to the retail model based on self-service, as opposed to the one where all goods (or many goods) are behind the counter and the seller hands them over to people. 28 Mladen Alexandrov, Prodavachut i obsluzhvaneto na kupuvacha [The salesman and the service of the client] (Sofia: Ministry of Domestic Trade, 1963), 10. 29 Alexandrov, Prodavachut i obsluzhvaneto, 10.

30 Alexandrov, Prodavachut i obsluzhvaneto, 10. 31 Evgeniy Todorov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 32 Ganeva, interview. 33 “Otvorenite vratichki” [Cracks in the system], Anteni, April 13, 1977. 34 Nikolay Gavrilov, “Shte predlaga li turgoviata i nastroenie?” [Will trade also offer cheerfulness?] Pogled, February 28, 1977. 35 Nauchen centur po vutreshna turgovia (International Trade Research Center), “Otraslov standard za edinna technologia i organizatsia na turgovskata deynost v supermarketite na NRB” [Field standard for unified technology and organization of trade in supermarkets in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria], 1978, CSA 707-3-27. 36 Dzhendo Belchev, Samoobsluzhvane s hranitelni stoki [Self-service with alimentary products] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1962), 7. 37 Takov, Za povishavane kulturata, 24. 38 Such manuals included Belev, Samoobsluzhvane and Dzhendo Belchev, Magazini na samoobsluzhvane [Shops on self-service] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1961). 39 Takov, Za povishavane kulturata, 24. 40 Belchev, Samoobsluzhvane, 6. 41 Belchev, Samoobsluzhvane, 6. 42 Markov, Zadochni reportazhi. 43 Kina Neykova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014. 44 Rosa Radichkova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, September 11, 2012. 45 Gavrilova, interview. 46 Gavrilova, interview. 47 Dimitrova, interview. 48 Gencheva, interview. 49 Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Dinamichni normativi.” 50 Todorov, interview. 51 Todor Zhivkov, Za uskoryavane razvitieto na narodnoto stovanstvo [Speeding up the people’s economy] Speech before the plenum of the Central Committee of the BKP in January 1959 (Sofia: Partizdat, 1959), 74. 52 Takov, Za povishavane kulturata, 13–14. 53 Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Dinamichni normative.” 54 Radichkova, interview. 55 Popova, Stefka. “Kupuvach, stoka, vereme” [Buyer, merchandise, time], Anteni, no. 4, January 29, 1971.” 56 Deseva and Germanov, “Opredelyane na asortimentnata struktura.” 57 Deseva and Germanov, “Opredelyane na asortimentnata struktura.”

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58 I Lived Communism was a project initiated by a group of Bulgarian journalists and writers, that invited people to send their stories and memories from socialism. The best of the collected writing was edited by Georgi Gospodinov and published as a book. Georgi Gospodinov, ed., Az zhivyah socializma [I lived socialism] (Plovdiv: Zhanet 45, 2006). 59 Gospodinov, Az zhivyah socializma.

60 Gospodionov, Az zhivyah socializma, 203–204. 61 Anna Ivanova, “Shopping in Beriozka: Consumer Society in the Soviet Union,” Zeithistorische Forschungen no. 10 (2013): 244. 62 Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, trans. Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear (London: Penguin Books, 1997 [1966]), 495. 63 Bulgakov, Master and Margarita, 495–96.

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fig. 39.  Family photo from a private archive, probably dating from the

late 1960s or early 1970s. Imaginary Archive.

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Chapter 5

“Napoleon Blew It. Hitler Blew It. But Coca-Cola Pulled It Off!” How the Iconic American Drink Broke into the Eastern Bloc

I

n the summer of 1961, American film director Billy Wilder was in Berlin shooting the comedy One, Two, Three. In one scene, the main character, Coca-Cola executive C. R. MacNamara (James Cagney), claims that his company will be the first to breach the Iron Curtain: “Napoleon blew it. Hitler blew it. But CocaCola’s gonna pull it off.” Typically, the seeming absurdity of such an idea would have been enough to make people laugh. But that particular summer, not many people were laughing at Billy Wilder’s humor. On the morning of August 13, when the Hollywood crew showed up at the shooting location next to the Brandenburg Gate, they were astonished to find the set literally divided in two. Running through it, built overnight, was the Berlin Wall. The comedy was eventually completed after shooting was moved to a parking lot in Munich. When the movie finally hit screens in Germany and the United States, audiences found it unnerving rather than funny. It took another two decades before the brilliant humor could finally be appreciated—the film achieved box-office success only after being re-released in 1985. While the comedy may not have seemed very amusing back in 1961, it did prove to be prophetic. Audiences of course had no way of knowing this at the time, nor did the film’s creators. Though in retrospect, we can see that at least two of the movie’s fictional premises anticipated real historical events. In one scene, MacNamara is negotiating with three Russians. They offer him a Cuban cigar, explaining that they had signed a trade contract with Cuba: “We send them rockets, they send us cigars.” A year later, in October of 1962, the joke turned into reality—Russian missiles were discovered in Cuba, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Coca-Cola’s breakthrough was the other sarcastically suggested premise of the film that came true four years later—albeit not in the Soviet Union, as One, Two, Three’s main character anticipated, but in Bulgaria. One nuance mars the clairvoyance of the moviemakers: the development did not result from the corporation’s negotiating genius. It was arranged through the seemingly inexplicable, possibly erroneous, initiative of local actors. Billy Wilder’s film drew on the strong symbolic presence that Coca-Cola had established around the world, and in particular on the role it played in the Cold War. Coca-Cola was one of the most debated items in twentieth-century European commercial and popular culture. As British anthropologist Daniel Miller points out, it developed into a meta-symbol, representing everything from a capitalist commodity to imperialism, Americanization, and more recently, globalization.1 Its arrival in Europe in the twentieth century elicited strong responses, both positive and negative, in the West and the East. For economic reasons, and due to the fear of Americanization, ideology-based populism fueled opposition to Coca-Cola’s expansion across Western Europe in the early 1950s from Eastern Europe to France, Italy, and Denmark.2 But while some saw Coca-Cola as a threat both as cultural icon and as economic competitor, others perceived it as a greatly desired product and a carrier of cultural liberation. The postwar generation

in Austria was attracted to Coca-Cola and used the drink (as well as other symbols of US pop culture) to repudiate the values of previous generations.3 But while passions over the drink in Western Europe receded in the 1950s, the Cold War kept them alive in Eastern Europe until the 1980s. Within the East-West tension, Coca-Cola was seen (and used) as an ideological weapon by both sides.4 Also in the East, the drink became a symbol of freedom and modernity to many people.5 This made it unacceptable to Communist governments in the East, but at the same time so desirable that various domestic soft-drink industries were compelled to create their own versions of the forbidden drink. While Coca-Cola’s history in Europe is documented widely, arguably one of the most interesting moments of its history—its actual penetration of the Iron Curtain—has so far escaped international attention.

The “Accident”

I

n the past, the general public in Bulgaria was told that Coca-Cola arrived in their country in 1965 “by accident.” According to the story, in what could be labeled as one of the most astounding mix-ups in the history of Communism, at least as far as everyday life was concerned, food technologist Toncho Mihaylov brought Coca-Cola into the lives of Bulgarians.6 A brief moment of confu-

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Coca-Cola Pulled It Off fig. 40.  Toncho Mihaylov, who believes

that his honest mistake brought CocaCola to Bulgaria, in his living room with his Coca-Cola trophies. 2012. Photo Albena Shkodrova.

sion ­supposedly set in motion a series of events that eventually turned Bulgaria into the first country in the Communist Bloc where Coke—the modern world’s most ubiquitous soft drink and the popular emblem of its biggest ideological enemy—was produced and freely sold. Before its appearance in the local market, many Bulgarians believed that Coca-Cola was an alcoholic beverage. In the late 1940s, many European Communist parties, fearing Americanization, campaigned against the drink. In Italy, Unità warned parents that drinking Coca-Cola would turn their children’s hair white. Austrian Communists suggested that the bottling plant of the corporation could be surreptitiously transformed into an

atomic bomb factory. In France, Le Monde warned of Coca-colonization, and rumors spread of forthcoming advertisements of the drink on the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris.7 In Bulgaria, the state-run National Television showed inebriated American soldiers drunkenly stumbling around with Coke bottles in their hands and pockets. While the Communist parties in Western Europe subsequently changed their views,8 the drink remained unwelcome in the Eastern Bloc, where political leaders not only saw Coke as a symbol of their greatest ideological enemy but insisted on their own version of consumer utopia—even if, as historian Veenis noted, it often consisted of copying their opponents’ material world.9

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fig. 41.  Toncho Mihaylov and his partner Ani in the historical Café Bulgaria in the center of Sofia. 2013. Photo Albena Shkodrova.

Against this background, the arrival of CocaCola to the Bulgarian market in 1965 can certainly be seen as an unexpected and transformative turn of events. Indeed, the agreement to produce the drink in Bulgaria marked an opening, which led to more contracts for Coca-Cola in the Eastern Bloc and also opened the way to similar brands, such as Pepsi and Schweppes. But was it as accidental as we have been led to believe? According to the version of the story popularized in Bulgaria in the last decade, everything happened out of the blue in 1965. During food technologist Toncho Mihaylov’s first visit to Paris, he entered a bistro. Observing a world much more glamorous than the one he had known in Sofia, he

ordered a carbonated orange soft drink labeled as Fanta. He loved the taste, so he asked his hosts to introduce him to Fanta’s manufacturers.10 Mihaylov was in Paris at the invitation of the Cifal company, which had a connection to the French Communist Party. The company was to supply Bulgaria’s first soft-drink factory with an assembly line. Because he was responsible for setting up the factory Mihaylov had traveled in order to familiarize himself with the equipment. The new factory’s production line was supposed to include a carbonated orange drink and, to him, Fanta seemed like an excellent example. Two days later, Mihaylov’s request for an introduction—which, as the story goes, would turn not only his personal life but also the spirit of Bulgarian state socialism upside down—was granted. As he was on his way to the meeting that his hosts had arranged, the car left the center of Paris and headed toward the suburbs. When it stopped in front of an industrial office building, he saw Coca-Cola branded trucks lined up next to it. Startled, he took a closer look at the building, only to discover that its façade also bore the recognizable logo. “But I want to meet with the manufacturers of Fanta, not Coca-Cola,” he told his hosts.11 Their explanation cleared up his confusion—both drinks were manufactured by the same company. Mihaylov now says that the details of that day have escaped his memory, but it is not hard to imagine

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the horror that the then forty-year-old technologist experienced. At that point, he had already had some runins with the Communist authorities, both because of his mother’s independent thinking and his own history of disagreements with them, and as such, maintaining his reputation and his career demanded a delicate balancing act. Having been sent to the other side of the Iron Curtain only after his boss personally vouched for him, he had been instructed to make contact only with his hosts from the French Communist Party.12 And yet, on that spring morning, he found himself standing in front of the pop icon of “rotten capitalism,” and about to negotiate for its manufacture in Bulgaria. Despite the risk, he entered the building. “I wanted to make orangeade,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, although it was probably very difficult for him to take the next few steps.13 The horror of the situation finally dawned on him when he shook hands with the group of high-ranking employees who informed him that he was the first Eastern European ever to contact the ­Coca-Cola Company. Its representatives were ­undoubtedly just as disconcerted—after all, it must have been quite puzzling that a delegate from Bulgaria, known as the Soviet Union’s most loyal ally, was interested in ­Coca-Cola. In his autobiographical book Resisting Time, Mihaylov describes entering the offices:

[There were] already seven or eight people lined up and waiting for me, headed by Alexander Makinsky, the company’s vice-president for France. He shook my hand a little too heartily and asked what language we were going to speak in. “In Russian,” I answered. “Nu, horosho,” he said and embraced me. It turned out that he was a prince who had emigrat­ ed from Russia, and that his son-in-law was now the head of the Paris police! My God, what a pretty mess I’d gotten myself into! I felt faint—I realized I was the first person from the socialist camp who’d ever asked to visit the Coca-Cola Company. (Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 43)

Alexander Makinsky—a suave, multilingual White Russian émigré, as Mark Pendergrast describes him in his book For God, Country and ­Coca-Cola—had an important role at the time.14 The company depended on his diplomatic skills to soften the French Communist Party’s hostility to their brand, a struggle that the prince seemed to be winning by that point. The fact that Mihaylov was brought to the corporation’s offices precisely by these hosts suggests that the situation had already changed since the 1950s. This part of Mihaylov’s tale is filled with vivid exclamations of fear, shame, worry, and regret, suggesting he was not only aware of the explosive situation into which he had gotten himself, but also

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of the serious trouble that awaited him as a result.15 Now beyond his control, events quickly led to an unavoidable outcome. The prince offered to visit Mihaylov in Sofia, to which the embarrassed Bulgarian—subscribing to entrenched norms of politeness—had no choice but to accede. “There was no way a Bulgarian was going to say, ‘it’s not possible,’” recalled Mihaylov later.16 To top it all off, Makinsky also called the Coca-Cola vice president in Brussels, informing him that his friend Toncho had invited them to visit Bulgaria. Upon returning to the country, Mihaylov says that he tried to cover up the incident, hoping it would somehow get buried and “un-happen.” In the official report of his trip, he made no mention of his visit to Coca-Cola. But two weeks later, Makinsky called him at the Texim enterprise offices in Sofia and inquired about the visit. The call caused Mihaylov to march directly into his boss’s office and tell him the whole story. The boss in question was Georgi Naydenov, a notable figure in the history of Bulgarian Communism. Naydenov had already gone through a curious personal transformation from a partisan under the alias Geto to an arms dealer and industrialist (albeit relying on the resources of state capital). The Texim enterprise which he headed participated in the free international market on behalf of Bulgaria’s planned Communist economy. The soft-drink factory was just one of the large-scale businesses

that the company developed between 1960, when it was founded, and 1969, when it was shut down under pressure from Moscow. In 1965, Naydenov’s influence in the country was extraordinary. After hearing his subordinate’s story, Naydenov allegedly exclaimed, “One might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb!” then picked up the phone and requested a meeting with Todor Zhivkov.17 An hour later, with his terrified employee trying to hide behind him, Naydenov was standing before Bulgaria’s prime minister negotiating for the local manufacture of Coca-Cola.18 Pencho Kubadinsky, another famous partisan from the highest echelons of power, was also present at the meeting. “Hey, Geto,” he reportedly said. “You were supposed to make lemonade, and look at you now, talking about making alcohol!” His comment gave rise to a discussion of what the drink actually was, but even before the confusion over its alcohol content, or lack thereof, could be cleared up, Todor Zhivkov interrupted the conversation: “Okay, I agree! Invite them to come!” These words put an end not just to the misinformed argument but also to Toncho Mihaylov’s anguish. As unlikely as the story’s beginning seemed to him, its outcome was even more unimaginable.19 A contract was signed within a month. The first bottle of locally manufactured Coca-Cola (with a logo in Bulgarian!) was on the market in less than a year. That is how the country ended up as the drink’s

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first producer in the entire region, even before Greece and Yugoslavia, neither of which belonged to the Soviet Bloc nor had the same reasons to object to the sale of Coca-Cola in their markets.

Doubting Mihaylov’s Tale

A

lthough it is difficult to deny the entertaining drama of its plot, this account does not seem entirely convincing when viewed in the context of the history of Coca-Cola in France. Cifal, whose guest Toncho Mihaylov was at the time, belonged to the French Communist Party (PCF, Parti Communiste Français). The PCF were instrumental in the fierce fight in the late 1940s and 1950s against the admission of Coca-Cola to their national markets. The PCF’s newspaper, L’Humanité, formulated numerous fears of what the Communists saw as an American strategy to colonize France and Europe via the Marshall Plan, and Coca-Cola was seen as one of the spearheads of the US invasion. Historian Richard Kuisel wrote of the many ways in which Communists publicly opposed the expansion of the corporation into the national market, warning of dangers such as the decline of the French national drink (i.e., wine) due to the incursion of Coca-Cola, the use of Coca-Cola’s distribution network for espionage purposes, and the threat of destroying the balance of payments with the United States.

fig. 42.  A poster for the musical An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival by Tibor Déry. Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

The battle over Coca-Cola was gradually lost by the French Communists in the 1950s, and the corporation expanded its presence on the national market. However, the drink remained a symbol of Americanization, with many French continuing to find it “distasteful and possibly harmful”; in a 1953 poll, 61 percent said they did not like it “at all.”20

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Considering these circumstances, and even if the French Communist Party later changed its position, it seems unlikely that Toncho Mihaylov’s hosts would have taken him to negotiate with Coca-Cola without a word of warning or at least an expression of surprise. It seems improbable that they did not mention to their guest that the sparkling orange drink he liked so well was produced by Coca-Cola, as Mihaylov explicitly said in our interview in 2012. As members of the French Communist Party, even if they were no longer concerned with what Coca-Cola stood for, they must have been aware that the Eastern Bloc still considered the United States to be its ideological archenemy. It is difficult to imagine that those responsible for putting Mihaylov in touch with the producers of Coke were unaware of the strangeness of his request, and of the blunder they were (possibly) helping him to make. One might speculate that the representatives of Cifal hid from Mihaylov the identity of the producer because of the commercial interests of their company in connecting Coca-Cola and the Eastern markets.21 While this is a possible explanation, Mihaylov’s minor position made him an improbable candidate to carry out a major breach of the Iron Curtain. Besides, even if the blunder recalled by Mihaylov is true, it is difficult to believe that it fairly presents the circumstances leading to Coca-Cola’s

breakthrough in Bulgaria. Further doubts are cast by the economic and political context in Bulgaria at the time of the described events.

Reaching Out to the West in the 1960s

T

he 1960s experienced a gradual softening of the entire Communist Bloc’s previous hardline attitude toward economic cooperation with the West. The Eastern European countries had already given up on creating a supranational trade institution through their Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, which led its member states to individually seek out ways for strengthening trade relations with Western Europe. The death of Stalin was followed by relative liberalization and by growing attention to consumer goods and the goal of “catching up and overtaking America.”22 Bulgaria, considered to be the most loyal ally of Moscow in the Bloc, followed suit. Many post-Communist researchers describe the period as one of attempted “corruption” of the nation: rule by fear was replaced by a search for compromise between ideology and the realities of life. A strategy of bribing people with promises and concessions was developed in order to buy obedience and to reach a “consensus of hypocrisy,” to use the words of economist Martin Ivanov.23 An important element of liberalization was the growing effort by the state to improve economic

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exchange with the West without abandoning its representation of the West as an ideological enemy. Beginning in 1959, the Communist leadership of Bulgaria plunged into an unprecedented economic experiment. While maintaining the façade of a centrally planned national economy, they launched business activities to bypass it. They did so in the hopes of improving their negative payment balance regarding foreign trade in hard currency. They also aimed at reducing shortages in consumer supplies, though this was a less pressing goal for them. Texim was the first company created as part of this policy in 1960. Although its official mandate was to seek “import and export activities with capitalist countries,” its initial task was to supply arms to the National Liberation Front of Algeria. Founding a shady arms-trading company of this sort was not a Bulgarian innovation. It followed a Soviet model, tailored to serve the needs of national military defense and other strategic operations, such as trade of nuclear materials and related equipment.24 This trade was naturally considered sensitive and to be performed covertly. Texim was established by a highly confidential order of the Council of Ministers. To better serve its purposes, the new company was given extraordinary decision-making autonomy. It was exempt from the rules applied to all other players in the state economy and was granted significant tax reductions and enormous financial support.

It also abused its privileged position and was frequently blamed by the financing body, the Bulgarian National Bank, for lacking financial discipline.25 The head of the company, Georgi Naydenov, was himself a senior secret services official who was trained in Yugoslavia and had been given assignments in Egypt and Turkey before assuming the new management tasks.26 Some of his contemporaries described him as a daring “man ahead of his time”27 with strong instincts for trade, which helped further the rapid development of the company. The success of his activities was boosted enormously by generous state support. The company’s exchange with other trade entities and institutions in the state was arranged to be highly advantageous and enormously profitable for Texim.28 Starting in 1960, Texim quickly accumulated assets and in 1965, its scope of activities was broadened and restructured. The company created a marine trade fleet; expanded its land transportation capacity to a thousand trucks; acquired passenger airplanes suitable for transatlantic flight; founded soft-drink factories; and created a fashion and cosmetics sales network. Most importantly, Texim solved, at least for a while, the greatest problem of the regime: the negative balance of convertible currency. Incoming currency in 1968 surpassed outgoing currency by 5.5 million dollars.29 Almost simultaneously with Texim, two more companies were founded to operate as free-mar-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 43.  Soft drink factory “Stoyan Sulemezov” in Sofia, 1985. The original caption states that the factory has achieved the targets of the five-year plan and is committed to produce additional 3 million liters of soft drinks. Pressphoto-BTA.

ket entities: Bulet and Rodopa. Bulet is particularly interesting as, together with Texim, these were the first two business entities to import Western commodities to be sold to Bulgarian consumers.30 Bulet imported Renault products, and Texim, in addition to Coca-Cola, imported goods ranging from underwear and stockings to pharmaceuticals. Like Texim, Bulet enjoyed exceptional fiscal advantages.31 The negotiations with Renault began in 1959, six years prior to the contract with Coca-Cola, and were initiated by the French car company. By the end of the 1950s, many Western car producers attempted to gain a share of the emerging Eastern European car market.

The first communication by Renault with the Bulgarian authorities was met enthusiastically by the country’s trade representative in France and coldly by the Communist political bureau in Sofia. The initial letter of the trade representative from 1960 formulated the lucrativeness of cooperation in reaching non-European Communist markets: “It is commonly overlooked that with these sorts of cars, we will have certain markets in the Middle East from which the French are banned.”32 The negotiations proceeded uneasily and a contract was not signed until 1966. Two of the main attractions—the French party’s consent to partial payment “in kind” and its permission for exten-

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sive re-export—were meticulously described in the agreement papers. Bulet was entitled to sell Renault cars, produced in Bulgaria, to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and also to Vietnam, Mongolia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, and the United Arab Republic. Export, and especially re-export, seems to have constituted the Bulgarian Communist state’s core economic hope for profit in the 60s. There are many indications in the history of both companies that their ultimate objective was to profit by brokering deals between Western European companies and otherwise inaccessible markets in non-European communist countries. Arms deals were part of that plan and were not insignificant by any means: Bulgaria was one of the first and largest exporters of weapons in the Eastern Bloc and by 1988, it ranked thirteenth in the world, ahead of much more powerful economies, such as West Germany, for example.33 The trade, which was supplemented by regular nonprofit financial and arms support for a wide range of African, Asian, and Latin American regimes, was naturally seen as a sensitive affair that had to be well concealed. The commodities trade at first covered the actual activities of the related companies. The deal with Coca-Cola was within this context. One might argue that it all too conveniently fit the trends and purposes of Texim and the political establish-

ment to have resulted from an honest mistake. The money made via arms deals needed to be legalized one way or another. Mihaylov’s account of his professional life contains several indications that different players were involved in considering the production of Coca-Cola for sale to third parties. In his memoirs, the technologist, who later became the director of the first soft-drink factory, recalls how he suggested that Bulgaria be assigned royalties from the sales under any contracts that the corporation would sign with other Communist countries in the future. “They [Coca-Cola] accepted, but when I brought the draft to Georgi Naydenov, he crossed it out, saying: ‘Are you mad? They will imprison me! How could we ask royalties from the Soviet Union?’”34 Later Naydenov was indeed imprisoned, Texim was disbanded, and in 1975, Mihaylov was sent to Cuba. According to his own account, he was supposed to organize the production of Coca-Cola, but the Cubans “showed no interest whatsoever.”35 In 1980, Mihaylov was sent to Iraq, where Bulgaria had started the construction of a bottling factory to produce Pepsi Cola. The building was launched and overseen not just by specialized companies but by the Bulgarian state. Upon his sudden return to Bulgaria, prompted by the outbreak of war between Iraq and Iran, Mihaylov says he was asked to report to the deputy prime minister.36

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It seems that after Texim was shut down, the same priorities were pursued in a different way. Thus, in 1965 the contract with Coca-Cola must have not looked like an enormous surprise— at least not to those involved in the international trade activities of Bulgaria. According to Boris Hadzhiev, who was an advisor in the Foreign Trade Ministry during the later years of the regime, Zhivkov’s answer had already been decided by earlier conversations between him and Naydenov. Hadzhiev believes that what was at stake was much more than trade considerations: What the late Georgi Naydenov told me… was that he had traveled to the United States, I think, where he’d had some preliminary talks—without telling anyone about them, of course, since he was not authorized to do such things. So, he came back and told Todor Zhivkov that this was of great interest, that Coca-Co­ la could be used as a basis for political cooperation [because of the company’s influence on American politics]. . . . Yes, Todor Zhivkov was thinking about political cooperation.

(Boris Hadzhiev, interview by Albena

Shkodrova, Sofia, November 27, 2012)

The national archive contains evidence of Bulgaria’s coinciding attempts to intensify its trade with the United States since 1959 and the controversies within the state concerning the liberalization efforts. In 1959, Sofia initiated the restoration of its diplo-

matic relations with Washington, which were severed a decade earlier. It tried continuously to activate the trade exchange. The process, though, was neither smooth nor was it pursued in agreement. In a document from 1960, the Bulgarian minister to the United States, Petur Vutov, listed numerous benefits of a possible economic cooperation. Its advantages seemed obvious to its author. He wrote of the possible immediate start of trade relations with “a number of companies.”37 Despite the enthusiastic spirit of the document, the person responsible for external relations at the Central Committee agreed with one of Vutov’s proposals and disagreed with six others.38 Amid what must have been serious internal controversies, Bulgaria continued its attempts to expand its commercial relations with the United States. A document from 1966 speaks of an uneasy climate in which a list of requests by the Americans, such as to stop silencing the signal of Radio Voice of America and to grant multiple entry visas to their diplomats, were refused. However, trade interests remained a priority. Clearly seeking a way to balance between such interests and loyalty to Soviet political ideology, the Politburo suggested a combination of concessions and delays. They also advised softening the tone of the ideological opposition: “Without violating the principles of our foreign policy, avoid extremeness during demonstrations before the American legation.”39

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The discrepancy between a tougher policy when it came to politics and greater openness toward economic cooperation outlines what constituted Zhivkov’s position: a well-guarded ideological façade masking economic opportunism. As the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade, Abraham Ribicoff, sarcastically noted while pleading against restrictions on trade with the Eastern Bloc, there were “many paths to Socialism.”40 Indeed, the Coca-Cola story, as part of the economic developments in the 1960s and 1970s, is a good illustration of how Bulgaria and its leadership in particular, negotiated its own path to socialism. It shows both the clash of ideas over how to develop a sound modern economy and Zhivkov’s style of managing the situation and the country. Throughout his leadership, he both balanced and exploited the controversies between Communist hardliners, for whom loyalty to Moscow and ideology was of prime importance, and the more profit-oriented factions in the high echelons of power, which were eager to make use of the state-run economic potential. Although the Prague Spring of 1968 resulted in Moscow strengthening its control over the Eastern Bloc and forcing Zhivkov to dismantle Texim and Bulet, the controversies between the two camps remained until the end of Communist rule. At all times, Zhivkov’s manner of handling the conflict was to avoid open confrontation while keeping all doors open. Arguably personal and political (and

physical) safety had priority for Zhivkov over principles, state interests, and loyalties. While the history of Coca-Cola implies that Zhivkov must have been personally involved in the decision-making process concerning the activities of Texim, when encountering the criticism of Moscow at the end of the 1960s, Bulgaria’s head of state avoided trouble by repeatedly instigating legal actions against Naydenov. This eventually led to a twenty-year prison sentence for the former boss of Texim41 and the removal of all his supporters from positions of power. In light of the developments described above, Coca-Cola’s breakthrough in Bulgaria being accidental appears highly improbable. It seems much more likely that the events, presented today as an honest mistake by Mihaylov, were in fact orchestrated by Texim’s mastermind Naydenov, who either coordinated them with Zhivkov or anticipated the positive results given the context of the economic developments in the country and the support he enjoyed. Mihaylov was either misled, selected to be sacrificed in case of serious conflicts over the deal, or might have agreed to play along. It is also misleading to dub the incident a breakthrough. Clearly it was the Bulgarian Communist Party that saw Coca-Cola as an opportunity, rather than the Coca-Cola Company taking the initiative to open a crack in the ideologically fortified Iron Curtain.42

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That local actors were of prime importance is further confirmed by a closer look at how the concerns that motivated opposition to the American corporation in postwar Europe resonated in Bulgaria. This perspective offers a better understanding of why the agreement was reached and why Bulgaria became the frontrunner in Eastern Europe.

Economic and Ideological Anxieties

I

n Western Europe, the opposition to Coca-Cola in the late 1940s and early 1950s was triggered by varying levels of the same anxieties: fear of Americanization, which was often raised or bolstered by the Communist parties, and the need to protect domestic interests in the same economic sphere. Very similar combinations of concerns were at play in Eastern Europe. After the end of the Second World War, the Eastern Bloc was in the grip of a firm ideological opposition to anything capitalist and American. This was evident ever since the aftermath of the war, when Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, a man of significant power and influence in Joseph Stalin’s empire and a ­Coca-Cola addict, had to ask for help from the American president to be able to indulge his addiction. To help him hide his passion from Stalin, which would have been seen as a betrayal, Truman arranged for the delivery of a small quantity of colorless Coca-Cola, poured into bottles with a different shape and sealed with caps

stamped with a red star to be produced secretly by Coca-Cola for the Soviet marshal.43 While the taboo over Coca-Cola in the late 1940s and early 50s was entirely ideologically motivated, throughout the 1950s it was gradually strengthened by growing economic interests. To remain distinct from the American company, many countries launched alternative projects to develop carbonated beverages made of herbs and containing caffeine, which specialists collectively labeled as “cola drinks.” The Slovenian version was the first to make an appearance. Initially named Yugo-Cola, the drink was quickly renamed Cockta, which was intended to hint at its potential use as a cocktail ingredient. Cockta’s first official rollout took place in the winter of 1953 at the Planica resort in southwestern Slovenia, where it was served by girls dressed in red vests.44 Czechoslovak Kofola was conceived in 1957 when the government commissioned the creation of a beverage to substitute Pepsi and Coca-Cola, known as the imperialist cola drinks from the West. Developed at the Research Institute of Medicinal Plants under the guidance of Zdeněk Blažek and released in 1960, the resulting drink contained a mixture of fruit and herbal extracts with added caffeine. Initially, the idea was to name it Kofokola, but eventually the shortened version Kofola won out.45 In East Germany, consumers had been familiar with Coca-Cola since 1929, but after the Second

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these copies. One of the scenes shows MacNamara having the following exchange with some Russians: Peripetchikoff: “No formula, no deal!” MacNamara: “Okay, no deal!” Borodenko: “We do not need you! If we want Co­ ca-Cola, we invent it ourselves!” MacNamara (replying with his typical arrogance and scathing sarcasm): “Last year you put out a cocka­ mamie imitation, ‘Kremlin-kola!’ You tried it out in the satellite countries, but even the Albanians wouldn’t drink it. They used it for sheep dip! Right?”

fig. 44.  A poster of the theater play “Archangels Don’t Play Pinball” by Dario Fo, played at the Youth Theatre in Sofia. The theatre was named after Lyudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the state leader. Dimitar Tasev/Collection Socmus (www.socmus.coc).

World War, they no longer had access to it. Perhaps for this reason, a particularly plentiful choice of nearly twenty imitations was offered by 1960.46 One, Two, Three, with its plot was based upon a Hungarian play by Ferenc Molnár, ridiculed all of

MacNamara’s words were an exaggeration and many of the “cockamamie imitations” were accepted. Some, probably improved, are still for sale. But back then they were indeed considered by many Eastern Europeans to be a bad imitation of the desired original. Most brands shared the common faults of Communist production, which Vennis summarized as “dull looks and unpredictable taste.”47 As she noted, they were saddled with the same shortcoming of all goods produced by Communist industries—being defined not by ideas, but by (limited) resources. However, in contrast to other Eastern European countries, in 1965 Bulgaria lacked even a bad copy of Coca-Cola. The country did not even have a softdrink industry; when Toncho Mihaylov traveled to Paris, it was only beginning to be developed. When

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it came to business interests, at that time the situation in Bulgaria was the opposite of that in most other countries. Bulgaria was not interested in protecting its own products and know-how; rather, it was looking to establish them.48 Consequently, it was mainly the symbolic meanings of Coca-Cola that posed a problem. But how big of a problem was this by the 1960s? The end of the 1950s in Eastern Europe was defined by changing culture. The military, ascetic lifestyle and rhetoric under Stalin were abandoned and replaced by concern for the material well-being of the people under Khrushchev. Communism was revamped, its focus shifting from social revolution to modernization. As many scholars have noted, this was never a straightforward process. It contained what historians Bren and Neuburger defined as the “ideological juggernaut” of Communist consumption: “it was both necessary, given the pursuit of a Communist utopia, and endlessly problematic.”49 Instigated by the declarative promises of the state leadership, consumer expectations in Bulgaria grew, but so did the efforts, stated in official public discourses, to discipline and tame any potential consumption frenzy. Prosperity grew, claimed state-controlled media, officials, and Zhivkov himself, and consumers were taught to be moderate, modest, and sober in their demands.50 Trade and industry were advised not to inform but to educate proper Communist consumers.51

This ideologically legitimized consumption left space for the Bulgarian state to start negotiations with Renault early in the 1960s. Compared to those negotiations, the decision to let in Coca-Cola must have seemed a small step. After all, even if the United States was still their chief ideological enemy, the Bulgarian Communist state had already decided to abandon its extreme rhetoric, of which the defamation of the Coca-Cola brand could have been seen as a part. Curiously, it was the contract with Coca-Cola, and not with Renault, which survived the tightening of ideology after the Prague Spring. The contract with the French car producer was suddenly abandoned, in part because of Soviet plans to build a facility for the assembly of their own car, Moskvich, in Bulgaria.52

Consumption above Ideology

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oca-Cola’s entrance into Bulgaria was quite the opposite of what it was depicted to be: a whim of fate, an accident. On the contrary, the case is a good illustration of the agency of the local Communist leadership in the general process of building consumer expectations in Eastern European societies. It indicates that while the popularity of the drink and its symbolic meanings mattered to consumers in the Eastern Bloc, the actual breakthrough was not determined by the pressure this created, but by other, unrelated interests and considerations of state leadership.

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In the aftermath of the Cold War, the irresistibility of the Western material world was thought to be responsible for the crumbling of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.53 But this idea was gradually discarded, as the active role of the ruling Communist class in the process came under focus. The import of Western material culture to the Soviet Union and Bloc continued actively even under Stalin, where the Soviet food industry’s leader Mikoyan borrowed ideas for the Soviet food industry liberally from the United States.54 The intensive rhetoric after the 1950s focused on satisfying the material needs of citizens helped to legalize consumption and even luxury across Eastern Europe.55 After all, as Susan Buck-Morss insightfully noted, the two divided systems were competing “to excel in producing the same utopian forms.”56 Among the various forms of involvement of the Communist Bloc’s leadership in causing cracks in the Iron Curtain, the Bulgarian contract with Coca-Cola was a direct import of know-how and, with it, products for consumption. Sidelining the controversial symbolism of the drink in the process further strengthened the idea of legitimacy of consumption over ideology. The Coca-Cola case is yet another piece of evidence of the agency of Communist bloc leaders in constructing the consumption ideal and working to achieve it, and the often crooked ways in which this took place.

Notes

The first version of this study appeared as an article: Albena Shkodrova, “Revisiting Coca-Cola’ s ‘Accidental’ Entry into Communist Europe,” Gastronomica 18, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 59–72. 1 Daniel Miller, “A Black Sweet Drink from Trinidad,” In Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, ed. Daniel Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 170. 2 Richard F. Kuisel, “Coca-Cola and the Cold War: The French Face Americanization (1948–1953),” French Historical Studies no.17 (Spring 1991): 96–117 Nils Arne Sørensen and Klaus Petersen, “Corporate Capitalism or Coca-Colonisation? Economic Interests, Cultural Concerns, Tax Policies and CocaCola in Denmark from 1945 to the Early 1960s,” Contemporary European History 21, no. 4 (2012): 597–617. 3 Reinhold Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 4 Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Unauthorized History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It (New York: Collier Books, 1993). 5 Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization; Milena Veenis, “Cola in the German Democratic Republic: East German Fantasies on Western Consumption.” Enterprise and Society 12, no. 3 (2011): 489–524. 6 The account of this historical incident was first brought to light through the journalistic work of Evgenia Atanasova and Irina Nedeva. They authored the anniversary booklet “40 godini Coca-Cola v Bulgaria: Tuk sme za da ostanem” [40 Years of Coca-Cola in Bulgaria: We Are Here to Stay], published by the Coca-Cola Company in Bulgaria. The booklet does not contain a date of publication, but considering the title it must have been released in 2005. The main product of Atanasova and Nedeva’s work—the one that reached broad audiences in Bulgaria—was their film Edna studena Coca-Cola prez studenata voyna (A Cold Coca-Cola in the Days of the Cold War) (2006), broadcast on Bulgarian National Television. The story was also extensively described by the main actor, food technologist Toncho Mihaylov, in his autobiographical book Da ustoish na vremeto [Withstanding time] (Sofia: Bulgarska Knizhitsa, 2008). There are no essential discrepancies in the interpretation of the events offered by Atanasova and Nedeva and by Mihaylov, whom I interviewed in 2012 for this book. 7 Kuisel, “Coca-Cola,” 101. 8 Ibid.

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9 Veenis, “Cola in the GDR.” 10 Atanasova and Nedeva, Edna studena Coca-Cola; Mihaylov, Da ustoish. 11 Mihaylov, interview. The same information is presented in different words in Atanasova and Nedeva, 40 godini Coca-Cola, Atanasova and Nedeva, Edna studena Coca-Cola, and Mihaylov, Da ustoish. 12 Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 43. 13 Mihaylov, interview. 14 Pendergast, For God, Country and Coca-Cola, 242. 15 Milhaylov, Da ustoish, 44. 16 Ibid. 17 Atanasova and Nedeva, 40 godini Coca-Cola, 9. 18 Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 45. 19 Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 45–46. 20 Kuisel, “Coca-Cola,” 115. 21 According to different sources, such as Wolton, Le KGB en France and the website of the Cifal Group (http://cifalgroupe. com/), the company was involved commercially with the Eastern Bloc since the 1950s, trading know-how, technology, and equipment for the agriculture and food industry, consumer goods, oil and gas. 22 Susan E. Reid, “‘Our Kitchen Is Just as Good’: Soviet Responses to the American Kitchen,” in Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology and European Users, ed. Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), 85. 23 Rashko Ivanov, “Narodnoto stopanstvo prez epohata na socializma 1949–1989” [The state economy during Communism 1949–1989], Dialog (2007): 235, https://www2.uni-svishtov. bg/dialog_old/2007 /4.07.RI.pdf (accessed June 12, 2013). On promises and concessions, see Znepolski, Bulgarskiat komuizum, 221–50. 24 Hristo Hristov, Imperiata na zadgranichnite firmi [The empire of foreign companies] (Sofia: Ciela, 2009), 17–20. 25 Daniel Vachkov, “Vunshnite zadulzhenia na Bulgaria v usloviata na izvurshvashtite se ikonomicheski promeni v socialisticheskata obshtnost, 1964–1973” [Bulgaria’s foreign debts within the context of the economic changes in the Socialist Bloc, 1964–1973], In Istoria na vunshnia durzhaven dulg na Bulgaria 1898–1990 [History of Bulgaria’s state foreign debt 1898–1990], part 3, ed. Martin Ivanov, Cvetana Todorova, and Daniel Vachkov, 147–181 (Sofia: Bulgarian National Bank, 2008), 180. 26 Hristov, Imperiata na zadgranichnite firmi, 18. 27 Georgi Karamanev, ed., Chovekut, koyto izprevari svoeto vreme: Spomeni za Georgi Naydenov-Geto [The man who was ahead of his time: Remembering Georgi Naydenov-Geto] (Sofia: IK Zahari Stoyanov, 2001), 12.

28 Vachkov, “Vunshnite zadulzhenia,” 181. 29 Borislav Gardev, “Aferata Texim 40 godini po-kusno” [The Texim affair: 40 years later], Argumenti, October 20, 2009, 30 Martin Ivanov, “Socialisticheskoto blagodenstvie i konsensusut na licemerieto” [Socialist welfare state and the consensus of hypocrisy], Sociologicheski problem, no. 1–2 (2011), 240. 31 Hristov, Imperiata na zadgranichnite firmi, 24; Nadya Filipova, “Bulgarskata vynshna politika v Arabskia Iztok ot kraya na 40-te do nachaloto na 70-te godini na XX vek” [Bulgarian foreign policy in the Arab East between the 1940s and 1970s], Istoricheski Pregled, no. 3–4 (2014), 113. 32 Irina Grigorova, “Vuvezhdaneto na proizvodstvoto na automobile Renault v Bulgaria: uspehi i provali” [Introduction of Renault automobile production in Bulgaria: Successes and failures], Istoricheski Pregled no. 1–2 (2013): 183. 33 “Eastern Europe’s Arms: Biting the Bullet.” The Economist 22 (October 1994): 78. 34 Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 47. 35 Mihaylov, interview. 36 Mihaylov, Da ustoish, 106. 37 Protokol A N 181 by the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party (1960), CSA 1-6-4248. 38 Protokol A N 181. 39 Protokol A N 82 by the Politburo of the Bulgarian Communist Party (March 3, 1966), CSA 1-6-6192. 40 Abraham Ribicoff, “The Role of the United States in East-West Trade: Report to the Committee on Finance,” August 10, 1971 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1971). 41 Hristo Hristov, “Todor Zhivkov gotov da razstrelya Georgi Naydenov pri skandala s purvata zadgranichna firma i Texim” [Todor Zhivkov ready to shoot Georgi Naydenov during the scandalwith the first foreign-registered firm and Texim] desebg.com, April 7, 2016 http://desebg.com/razsledvanee/2712-2016-04-07-06-41-23 (accessed February 9, 2018). 42 A similar conclusion was reached by Sørensen and Petersen, “Corporate Capitalism,” according to whom local actors, not American ones, defined the position of Coca-Cola in Danish markets. 43 Pendergrast, For God, Country and Coca-Cola, 215. 44 Adela Ramovš, “Cockta – zgodba o pijači vaše in naše mladosti” [Cockta: The story of the drink of your and our youth], in Cockta, pijaca vase in nase mladosti, ed. Adela Ramovš, Franc Smrke, David Limon, and Marko Habič (Ljubljana: Slovenski etnografski muzej, 2010), 56. 45 Martin Přibyl and Jitka Veselá, “National Branding in Post-Communism Country: The Case Study of Kofola,” (unpublished paper, 2014), 10, https://www.academia.edu/1088836/National_

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branding_in_post-communism_country_The_case_study_of_ Kofola_a._s (accessed May 2, 2017). 46 Veenis, “Cola in the GDR,” 496. 47 Veenis, “Cola in the GDR,” 50. 48 In fact, a local Bulgarian version of Coca-Cola named Altai was only made in the 1970s, when the state limited the import of Coca-Cola. Even when Coca-Cola was produced in the country, it remained a rare, almost luxurious commodity. 49 Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger, eds., Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 6. 50 Ivan Elenkov, “Ideologicheski poslania kum vsekidnevieto na 60-te godini na XX vet prez pogleda na pametta za drebnite neshta” [Ideological messages for everyday life of the 1960s through the perspective and memory of little things]. Sociologicheski problemi, no. 3–4 (2011): 145–46. 51 Mila Mineva, “Razkazi i obrazi na socialisticheskoto potreblenie” [Narratives and images of socialist consumption] Sociologicheski problem, no. 1–2 (2003): 143–65. 52 Grigorova, “Vuvezhdaneto na proizvodstvoto na automobile Renault,” 191. 53 An early example is how the American national exhibit at the Moscow fair in 1959 was portrayed in the US press. See Shane Hamilton, “Supermarket USA Confronts State Socialism: Airlifting the Technopolitics of Industrial Food Distribution

into Cold War Yugoslavia,” in Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology and European Users, ed. Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), 137–162 54 Jukka Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia (Oxford: Berg, 2003); Irina Glushchenko, Obshchepit: Mikoyan i sovetskaya kuhnya [Obshchepit: Mikoyan and the Soviet cuisine] (Moscow: Economy High School, 2010). 55 Gronow, Caviar with Champagne; David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, “Pleasures in Socialism,” in Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, ed. David Crowley and Susan E. Reid (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010), 3–52; Susan E. Reid, “Destalinization and Taste 1953–1963,” Journal of Design History 10, no. 2 (1997): 177–201 on the Soviet Union; Paulina Bren, “Women on the Verge of Desire: Women, Work and Consumption in Socialist Czechoslovakia,” In Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, ed. David Crowley and Susan E. Reid (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010), 177–95, on Czechoslovakia; and Ivan Elenkov, Kulturniat front [The cultural frontline] (Sofia: Ciela, 2008); and Elitsa Stanoeva, “The Organization of Socialist Trade in Bulgaria,” Sociologicheski problem, no. 1–2 (2015): 111–33, on Bulgaria. 56 Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworlds and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 7.

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fig. 45.  A restaurant dinner. Private photo, Imaginary Archive.

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Chapter 6

Dining Out The Communist Restaurant in the Making and the Experiences of Its Visitors

In the pizza, which I was just served, I found a hair. When complaining at the cashier’s desk, I was given the useful advice to take the hair out and eat it. It was followed by a couple of examples how other visitors happened to find not only hair but also pieces of glass and nails. —From a restaurant’s complaint book.

I

n his book Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia, Jukka Gronow writes that while it is problematic to “combine some elements of ‘good life’ with the ideas of socialism,” a Communist worker had more opportunities to “dine à la Parisienne under a crystal chandelier and enjoy the services of a butler in a tailcoat” than his counterpart even in the most developed capitalist societies in the same period.1 This insightful observation, slightly nuanced, could be applied to the situation in Bulgaria in the 1960s as well. Wageworkers in Bulgaria might have had better chances to dine in spacious dining halls over white tablecloths and served by butlers with bow ties. It is another matter if such experiences could indeed be categorized as the “good life.” Dining in a Communist Bulgarian restaurant was not necessarily a pleasant experience. The tailcoated waiters would regularly humiliate customers while seeing them to their table. They would delay endlessly to take their order, only to inform them that most of the menu was unavailable. They would disappear from the hall for half an hour or more, they would serve food left by the previous customer. The food was regularly old, dried out or cold, the drinks thinned, and the bills fattened. In many ways, dinner in a Communist restaurant was more reminiscent of a meal in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers than a luxurious experience. Unlike Stalin’s policy in the 1930s, the Bulgarian Communist leadership did not pursue what Gronow called “plebeian luxury” for their nation.2 Even in the 1960s when consumption came more into focus, the

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Communists’ stated goal of higher living standards rarely amounted to luxury. When the state launched the development of the obshtestveno hranene (public nutrition) system in 1944, its intention was not to offer opulent dinners under crystal chandeliers. High life, entertainment or style were not considered the Communists’ priorities when it came to common people. The goal was to ensure the efficient and dedicated work of the masses for the state economy, for which they had to be well fed and not overly occupied in their private households. One of the aims of obshtestveno hranene was to liberate women from what Lenin, and before him Engels and Tsetkin, called “slavery in front of the stove,”3 and thus secure human resources for the state’s ambitiously planned industry. But the “liberating” alternative did not envisage gastronomic experiences and entertainment; it was rather a no-fuss arrangement to provide nutrients. Just as in Soviet Russia, where the obshchepit state system of canteens and restaurants was launched within 24 hours of the October Revolution, in Bulgaria obshtestveno hranene was formed with no delay. Quoting Engels, its strategists aimed at liberating two thirds of the workers previously engaged in home food preparation to allow for their relocation to the state workforce.4 In the following years, the Communist state opened restaurants in large numbers. It subsidized the process, lowering the prices of food, p­ articularly

in canteens, and in the period between the 1950s and the 1980s, an increasing number of people made use of their growing network. This policy meant many more people were eating outside their homes than in most developed industrial countries. In Eastern Europe generally there were more opportunities to eat out than in Western Europe, but it was easier in Bulgaria than in any other country— at least, if one trusts the estimates of Bulgarian officials. According to their statistics, by 1968, 40 percent of all food sales occurred in restaurants, which was more than double than in the USSR (18.9 percent) and significantly more than in Romania (27.6 percent) or Hungary (33.3 percent).5 However, the results of this policy were not entirely anticipated—if any time was saved in the households, it was not spent on work. Instead, it was passed in long conversations over restaurant tables, where a nation practiced escapism with no worries for, or dreams about, its future. Even worse for the regime, some restaurants became forums for low-key political criticism. They grew into a symbol of the slightly miserable, but guaranteed, lifestyle of the period, one of the icons of the Communist dolce vita in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria—futile entertainment, especially popular with some urban people. The Communists took power in Bulgaria on September 9, 1944. In January 1945, the new council of ministers issued a decree obliging all employ-

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Dining Out

fig. 46.  “For several days now, red and yellow neon lights have been shining on Ruski Blvd., opposite the People’s Assembly. The new restaurant

‘Berlin’ has been opened. With its beautiful appearance, the restaurant attracts the attention of passers-by. Inside it is comfortably furnished, divided into two parts - a restaurant and a pastry shop. The walls of the restaurant are lined with light walnut paneling. A large display case with German ceramics connects the restaurant with the confectionery. Three columns lined with black marble tiles separate the stage of the orchestra composed of German musicians. Visitors are served by German and Bulgarian waiters. The restaurant serves German dishes and specialties. Pictured: Exterior of the Berlin restaurant in Sofia.” Photo Vladimir Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

ers to organize canteens for their employees. Twenty-four thousand locations selling restaurant food by the end of the Second World War were labeled “instruments of robbery of the working class” and

were nationalized. The Bulgarian nation bid farewell to its prewar lifestyle.6 Balkantourist, the state tourist organization, played an active role in the remaking of the restau-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 47.  The orchestra of Restaurant

Berlin, 1961. Photo Veselin Seykov, Pressphoto BTA

rant scene in the following years. It was founded in 1948 to take over the successful prewar enterprise Railways Bureau Balkan. The new company also assumed the responsibility of creating representative hotels and restaurants, and soon started planning its expansion. Rapid urbanization and state

ambitions to develop tourism provided the main arguments for growth. In the first fifteen years, the state financed monumental construction of public catering places: from 8,827 of them in 1952, this number grew to 18,535 in 1967. The growth was even more significant given

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Dining Out

that it was concentrated in the urban zones. Later the expansion continued at a slightly slower speed, and by 1987 public nutrition locations numbered 26,738 of various categories, including 6,646 canteens, which were attached to factories, institutes, and schools.7 Regardless of these statistics, the public nutrition network never came close to its target. The state aimed to have 50,000 restaurants by 1980, which were supposed to feed “around 75 percent of the population, or around 7.2 million people” and to become “the dominant way” of feeding the nation.8 In order to reach this goal, in 1966 strategists proposed reworking the network of restaurants in Sofia. They deemed the concentration of restaurants in the city center excessive, resulting from “chaotic urban development in the past.”9 Ninety years of urban planning were scrapped to adapt the city to the new social and economic model. Having appropriated practically all the trade and services in the country, the new state had no interest in maintaining competing units that would offer the same goods and menus at the same, regulated prices. Experts insisted that the number of upscale restaurants be reduced to make space for more places that would cater to “the masses.”10 Pointing at the entire cooking process taking place in restaurant kitchens, they criticized it as artisanal and contradictory to the principles of modern public catering, which needed to be economical and mechanized. Indeed, the restaurants in that

period counted mostly on manual labor, and many were forced to even prepare preserves for the winter. The experts proposed the centralized preparation of food to be organized gradually. Eating places should receive half-prepared or ready-made dishes, which they would only have to finish and dress up, to make them look as if just prepared.11 Such organization, the specialists argued, could save as much as twenty per cent of the cost of opening new locations and ensure the planned growth of public catering.12 In the following years, these ideas were developed and several models of consolidation and production designed according the population in the respective regions of the country. In the center of each territorial unit the construction of a highly mechanized kitchen-factory was envisaged, which would provide prepared or semi-prepared food for the entire network of public catering: from pastry shops and snack pavilions to school canteens and local kebapchiynitsi, typical Bulgarian joints that serve grilled meat. These kitchens were also designed to have their own restaurants and, depending on their location, to deliver warm food to agricultural workers in the fields.13 The plan was never realized. It was far too ambitious for the country, where in 1965 barely 13.1 percent of professional kitchens had machines for peeling potatoes, 0.2 percent had juice presses, and the installation of dishwashers was planned for the end of the 1980s. But the idea of centralizing

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and mechanizing cooking was never abandoned. Experts kept recommending transferring parts of the process to specialized factories. One idea from the mid-1970s was to use the kitchens of empty sea resorts in the winter to prepare deep-frozen food.14 Another interesting (and failed) project was the early 1980s idea to create a pan–Eastern European chain of restaurants. Experts from the GDR, Poland, the USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria discussed a “new type of restaurant, which would increase sales, the number of customers served, and economic efficiency.”15 These restaurants, which in concept were not unlike McDonalds, were to offer a standardized choice of dishes that would be “liked in most countries.” Such plans illustrated the general tendency to search for universal solutions and to make the catering services in the country uniform in appearance and content. However, these ideas were rarely realized. The restaurant scene of Communist Bulgaria remained shaped most of all by the Balkantourist restaurants.

Balkanturistissimo

B

alkantourist was created in 1948 to manage the expropriated international railways transport services and several key hotels in the larger towns of Bulgaria.16 Its manager, Yacho Kabaivanski, swiftly announced an ambitious five-year plan to pave the way for international tourism to the country. He

wanted to use 225 million leva from the income of the new company and 300 million from the state budget to build forty-one hotels and fifty restaurants ­ ogether with those across the country in five years. T already owned by Balkantourist, that would make sixty-two restaurants by 1953.17 Kabaivanski’s plan was stunningly detailed. It aimed to serve 32,191,000 visitors in the period and a total of 96,573,000 meals for 8,338,036,000 leva. But despite its precision, it quickly proved unrealistic. Already the first hotel, constructed in the area of Saint Elena and Konstantin (near Varna) in 1949, was ridiculed by the press, which described it as “a prison” or “a large barn,” rat-infested and lacking water. Enraged by what he considered an unfair attack “against a construction site of national importance,” Kabaivanski filed a complaint in the local court. The document argued that the hotel was “constructed according to all the modern requirements” and offered comfort such as “a telephone and running water in every room...”18 It is difficult to say today who was right, but the memories of Petur Doychev, who personally participated in the construction, shed some light on how the construction must have looked. Further Doychev’s recollections show both the enthusiasm and fear of the era and the amateurish approach to building what was to be the first Bulgarian sea resort for mass tourism, justifying both Kabaivanski’s defensiveness and the journalists’ sarcasm.

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Dining Out fig. 48.  Restaurant Balkan in Sofia, 1953. Trainees from the School for Public Catering at the Ministry of Trade practice in the kitchen. Photo G. Vikentiev, Pressphoto-BTA.

“The first floor was built of stone, with wooden walls inside, isolated with padding and aluminum dust, applying Finnish knowhow… The second floor was constructed entirely from wood, which was faster and cheaper. But it also looked nicer!”19 The technology was adapted, and the builders were nonprofessional. Let me mention that, for example, the water installation was finely done by our former boxing champion Stavri Butchvarov, who had never worked as a ­professional plumber. And all of us, employees of Balkantourist in Varna, after eight hours of work in pastry shops, hotels, restaurants, volunteered extra hours at the construction site to speed up the hotel’s completion.

(Doychev, Zhivot, 25)

Completed in 1949, the hotel must have been quite nice, at least by Bulgarian standards, as Petur Doychev described with feeling: “It resembled a ship, and each room a cozy cabin.” Hotel Terpeshev, as it was officially called after a party leader, was later renamed Beach Hotel Rose, and according to Doychev was an atmospheric and beloved place.20 However, the hasty construction, lack of resources and professional skills, dependence on volunteers, unrealistic planning, and the general lack of attention to detail become a trademark of tourism in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Despite the rush, Balkantourist did not come even close to fulfilling Kabaivanski’s five-year plan. In 1957, the organization took over another state

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fig. 49.  “Our capital is growing nicer and friendlier. Along the multi-storey apartment buildings gleam massive stores, overflowing with household goods and groceries, cafes, pastry shops and catering establishments. Recently, a modern Rodopi Food Complex opened on the corner of Al. Stamboliyski Blvd. and Hristo Botev Blvd.—a snack bar, a catering kitchen, a confectionery workshop, a coffee shop and a tavern. On the photo: The tastefully furnished tavern. Special traditional cuisine attracts the lovers of delicious food and aged red wine. The melodic folk songs, performed by a folk ensemble under the direction of Yordan Vlaev, create an even better atmosphere for the visitors.” 1963. Photo Vladimir Ivanov. Press photo-BTA.

company that was running the “people’s restaurants,” and so ended up acquiring 46 restaurants rather than building them. But international tourism was scarce in those years; it only began to take off at the end of the 1950s. In 1957, just 16,800 foreign tourists visited Bulgaria, and in 1961, their

number reached 120,000. From then on, the numbers soared. In 1965 tourists reached one million, in 1970, two and a half million, and in 1975, four million. That Balkantourist coped with this rapid growth at all could already be considered an achievement. In the mid-1970s, though, the orga-

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Dining Out

nization was thrown into a crisis that reverberated across Europe and beyond.

Rebellion by Mail and a Broken Shop Window in London

T

he Bulgarian Black Sea paradise must have looked like hell to some foreign tourists. Expecting to relax on the golden sands of Bulgaria’s beaches, they reported confused reservations, the shifting of guests from one resort to another, and appalling service. Judging by the archives, attempts to cheat restaurant goers were endemic— they gained such notoriety that the chairman of the Yorkshire miners, Arthur Scargill, took up the defense of British tourists. In a vexed public speech, he called the Bulgarian tourist industry’s treatment of customers robbery fit for the mafia.21 In 1975, a Bulgarian diplomat reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party that “thousands of angry letters and telegrams arrived at the embassies and in the offices of the Committee for Tourism.”22 He mentioned a case of forty-five French travelers sent from an Albena resort on the northern seacoast to Ruse on the Danube because of overbooking, only to be moved again to a hotel in Burgas, on the southern seaside—a tour of about 300 km, easily two days on the bus in the 1970s. The diplomat also referred to an incident in which a fifty-year-old man broke the shop window

of the Committee in Tourism’s bureau in London. “The same individual threw in an envelope with newspaper clippings related to Scargill’s complaint,” wrote the diplomat. According to data submitted by the British Foreign Office, in the summer of 1975 alone 2,000 tourists filed complaints about their Bulgarian holidays.23 The situation persisted at least until 1977, when the Esco Reisen travel agency, a partner of Balkantourist in Western Europe, reported that interest in voyages to Bulgaria had sharply dropped. The agency complained about the services offered its clients by Balkantourist and listed problems with the food service: multiple attempts by restaurant employees to overcharge tourists (“these lies have increased in the last two years”); a lack of local fruit and no exotic ones; monotonous side dishes; and food shortages (“instead of coke they had to drink bitter lemon, and instead of beer, mineral water; of five wines on the menu only one was available”).24 Waiters also tried to get tourists to order the most expensive items on the menus, the complaint claimed, as they received a commission based on the size of the bill.

High-end Hotels, Communist Style

A

s Balkantourist continued to struggle under the pressure of the growing number of tourists and their demands for Western style facilities, the government decided in 1977 to form a luxuri-

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ous hotel chain.25 Called Interhotels, it was meant to run only high-end enterprises. Using the knowhow of established international chains and enjoying the financing of advantageous credit contracts with other nations, the new hotels quickly materialized.26 Bulgaria was not a pioneer in this business model. A similar chain with the same name was opened a decade earlier in the GDR in 1965. The East German Interhotels, much more numerous, were divided into five-star ones for guests from non-Communist countries and four-star ones for those from partner countries. The Stasi used hotel employees to spy on guests and observe them with cameras installed in the rooms.27 In Bulgaria, according to professionals from the Communist hotel business, the practice was not much different. Interhotels were also seen as an attempt to attract individual and business travelers. A Japanese Hotel from the chain New Otani was built in Sofia with a highly beneficial credit from Japan on a central plot of land granted by the state for free. A Swedish Hotel was constructed on a hill above the beautiful coastline north of Varna, and a French Novotel opened near the old town of Plovdiv. Gradually Interhotels took over twelve properties in the country. The chain was granted extensive rights to import goods, products, and equipment to be able to provide better quality service. The Interhotels were also allowed to open casinos and to retain 30 percent of their income to

finance their own development and maintenance.28 This meant that the Interhotel restaurants were better equipped and had access to foreign delicacies and Bulgarian products in short supply. As the new pet project of Bulgarian state tourism, Interhotels were well situated to steal the talent of the not very sophisticated hotel and restaurant industry. Some of the hotel employees were also sent for training in the international chains of the respective hotels. Communist Bulgaria began creating ambitious hotel restaurants with class and character. Among the Interhotels, the most important and privileged was Sofia Hotel Balkan, which became part of the Sheraton chain. This hotel was personally supervised by the then vice-prime minister Andrey Loukanov, the only man with a reputation as a foodie in the entire history of the Bulgarian Communist Party until 1989. “His idea was that Sheraton in Sofia should train professionals, that people will learn good standards there,” recalled his wife Lilia Gerasimova, who as a journalist also promoted Bulgarian tourism. The privileges and freedoms that the hotel obtained surpassed those of any other in the period between 1986 and 1989. The Sheraton became the closest point of contact between Bulgaria and Western European luxury. Its management, led by a Swiss and a German, hired the best of the best of industry professionals. Trained in standards well above the highest in the country, the per-

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fig. 50.  “Behind the beautiful, glittering windows of the pavilion for fruit juices at the Rodopi food complex in the capital, you will find bottles of fragrant apple, strawberry, lemon and other juices. Milka and Maria, lovers of fruit juices, are regular visitors here.” Photo Vladimir Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

sonnel was also free to import rare ingredients, fresh fish, and similar luxuries on a daily basis.29 “We travelled around Greece to buy the best juice, olive oil, salad. All was delivered by Lufthansa: we were sup-

plied with fresh fish from Greece and Frankfurt,” recalled Vasil Iliev, who worked for Sheraton before and in the years after its opening. He said the hotel also scoured Bulgaria for precious supplies such as goose liver and fresh peas.30 With its opening, Sheraton became the star of Sofia, an island of capitalism in the center of a Communist capital loyal to Moscow. It featured a gourmet restaurant, one with Bulgarian national cuisine and a wine list, in which the wines were no longer simply “white” and “red” but were listed by variety and region. It also had a pastry shop with a French pastry chef, and even, according to some tourists who visited, “the only restroom in Bulgaria that doesn’t smell bad.”31 As Vasil Iliev argued, the Sheraton was located within the Communist Bloc, but was a genuine capitalist endeavor. While those working in the Sheraton still speak affectionately of the first years of this economic and cultural miracle, not all employees of the former Balkantourist were equally enthusiastic. Petur ­Doychev, who worked in the company for many decades, recalled with skepticism the creation of Interhotels. He believed it was an irresponsible, possibly malicious act, which drained the resources of Balkantourist. In any case, it was not the luxury of Sheraton or other Interhotels that shaped the face of the typical Bulgarian restaurant. The reputation was set by the average Balkantourist places all over the coun-

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try, which were the basis of the memories for many tourists of what the Bulgarian People’s Republic looked like.

The Experience of Dining in a Communist Restaurant

W

hen recalling the past now, many people who lived under Communism remember it as tourists recall one or another experience, some good, some bad. Some of these memories are rich and nuanced, others quite stark and rigid. Still it seems that there is a general agreement about what constituted a generic Communist restaurant. When describing it, Bulgarians most frequently employ the word “common.” It is a common place, equipped with common chairs, common tables, serving common food by waiters who behave in a common way. None of this was really universally common, it was just that these restaurants were so similarly unremarkable in every way, that they were perceived as the natural state of the generally miserable Communist material world. The foreign visitors confirmed this impression by often describing the Communist restaurants as “institutional,” “lacking in character,” “in no way fancy,” or “grey.”32 When questioned about the service, they sometimes reply with the question: “What service?” and they almost always have at least one negative anecdote to tell.

The cheap eateries are mainly remembered with disgust. The American Kristine Kalazs, who spent 1980–1981 on a student budget in Plovdiv, recalled visiting an eatery frequented by workers, Rhodopi Café: “Terrible! Terrible! Terrible, terrible! Mystery meats. You had no idea what you look at and eat, you can’t tell what kind of meat it is! Not very good, but very cheap.”33 Another American, Alexander Epler, who spent some five years in Bulgaria in the 1970s studying folk music and instruments, described a place called Chuchuligata (The lark): “It was just a primitive workers canteen with basically bread, maybe kebapche, beer, rakia, and there’s actual waiters there who kind of hate you unless you become friends. They just shove it in front of you and it’s just luck of the draw if the cook’s in a good mood or not. Very primitive, very sloppy.”34 New Yorker Lauren Brody, who lived in Bulgaria between 1971 and 1973 and eventually married a Bulgarian, similarly said about such places that they were “pretty sterile. And the portions were completely uneven, and it seemed like there was a teeny bit of meat and a lot of grease. But it was cheap.”35 One of the cheaper places that is unanimously remembered positively was a vegetarian restaurant located on Garibaldi square in Sofia. In a country where the restaurant menus were overwhelmingly dominated by meat, this place was seen a breath of fresh air. “If you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t find it.

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Dining Out fig. 51.  Restaurant Prostor in the

outskirts of Sofia, 1969. Photo Simeon Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

And it was a gem,” says Carol Silverman, who visited Bulgaria every summer in the 1970s. “I have the fondest memories of that restaurant,” similarly said Lauren Brody. “First of all, you got seated quickly. Second of all, the service was quick. And usually they had everything on the menu if you got there on time. Very, very exceptional... It was all very tasty actually.”36

However, the restaurants where foreigners often found themselves were those run by Bakantourist, which aimed at being stylish by serving a Bulgarian Communist version of international and national foods in a formal manner with prices significantly above those in canteens, but still very low by Western standards. “Balkantourist, it’s like the

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 52.  Restaurant Orfei in Sunny

Beach Resort, 1959. Photo Simeon Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

joke they make in Western countries about tomatoes,” remarked Epler. “They have all the harmful and dangerous flavors removed for your safety and comfort. So Balkantourist was highly Europeanized, vaguely Bulgarian-esque.”37 Swede Kjell Engelbrekt, who for a period of time in the 1980s worked as a guide to Bulgaria for Swedish tourists, noted that Balkantourist, which tried to align all its restaurants to the same standards, offered an artificially constructed idea of the national cuisine that disregarded regional culinary traditions.38 “The Bulgarian [restaurants] were very formal: white tablecloth, flowers in the middle, the waiter would come with a very serious expression,

there was no talking and joking, they were serious. I think they were trying to maybe stretch very upscale, and it was a little comic, because they were trying so hard to be sophisticated,” Kristine Kalazs said of the same restaurants.39 One of the cultural shocks that some foreign visitors experienced in Bulgarian Communist restaurants was the decorative function of the menus. Typically, they were quite extensive, offering a significant variety of food and demonstrating cosmopolitanism by offering dishes from French, Central European, and other cuisines. But usually only a few items were available, typically grilled meat. “The menu was science fiction rather than an actual menu,” recalls Bel-

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gian Raymond Detrez, who came to Bulgaria as a student in 1972 and later married a Bulgarian. “It looked as if many things were on offer, but in fact only kyufteta and kebapcheta [round and stickshaped grilled meatballs] were available.”40 “Menus didn’t mean anything in that period,” said Carol Silverman. “No matter what was on the menu, you only ordered one thing, because that was all that was available.” The words “nyama, nyama, nyama” [not available, not available, not available] were traded as a joke when travelers shared stories from their trips to Bulgaria. “It was ‘nyama, nyama, nyama, nyama’… ‘So what do you have?’ ‘Kebapcheta...’ It was back to square one. So why look at the menu? Ok, that we learned: just order kebapcheta and salata.”41 The strategists’ plans of centralizing the cooking process may have never taken off, but to many it was as if they did. “We all made a joke that there was one central kitchen, Balkantourist kitchen, where they cooked everything and just shipped it out to all the restaurants because you can only get skara [grilled meat] at night... Never any hope of getting anything else,” said Lauren Brody.42 Recalling his efforts to treat his group of folklore dancers with different tasty dishes that he had tried, Canadian Yves Moreau recalled a funny situation in a restaurant in the seaside town of Nessebur when he encountered a waiter who was very eager to help. “The guy was so happy to host us, and he said some-

thing like ‘The specialty of the restaurant is mussaka.’ ‘Okay, that sounds good.’ ‘But alas, we have no meat.’”43 Moreau pointed at different items on the menu and each time encountered the quick enthusiasm of the waiter, which immediately turned into an excuse that one or another product was not available. Another side of the experience, which often shocked, angered, and later entertained travelers, was the quality and the spirit of the service. “Well, I mean, I don’t recall any service,” says Epler. “They were just very pissed off. They were damn rude... So I kind of was in amazement. How come they don’t have black eyes? Or a broken nose? Because… if you just met someone on the street and acted like that... there wouldn’t be a long discussion.”44 Long waits, aggressive staff, and swindles are the three most common and painful memories that recur in travelers’ recollections. “During Communism in general the service was terrible. Horrible!” exclaimed Silverman. She recalled that getting the attention of the waiter was very hard and could take up to half an hour. “They couldn’t care less if you are hungry or not, if there is one person or a hundred, they are just waiting for their next break. And most of the time they were in the back, smoking.”45 Brody described the attitude of the waiters as passive-aggressive. Most foreign visitors found the rudeness with which they were often treated to be shocking. It was experienced everywhere: the bus, where the driver would slam

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the door in your face; the shop, where the shopkeeper might inquire if you are blind should you ask to have a better look at one or another item for sale; the restaurant, where the waiters ignored and humiliated their customers. “You’d come in and you’d say ‘I’d like bread.’ And they’d say, ‘We are out of bread.’ ‘But there’s one up there!’ ‘We are out of bread,’” recalls Martin Koenig, who travelled to Bulgaria regularly between 1959 and 1970.46 To add insult to injury, rudeness was often paired with deception. Or in some cases cheating came without rudeness. To most Bulgarian waiters, the foreigner was both a source of much desired (and possibly more generous) tips, and naive prey to be cheated. “As the saying went, the date was added to the bill,” noted Detrez.47 “Usually when the waiter knew he was getting a tip or if you were a foreigner, they were very gracious towards you,” recalled Moreau.48 Though he remembers “a lot of cheating.” He recalled one incident when he and his friends decided to order the specialty of the restaurant, shashlik flambé (a sort of large skewer, in Russian), and mastika (a local type of anise drink). As the shashlik was the most expensive item on the menu, they were wondering how the waiter would take advantage of them. When the bill arrived, it listed three extra glasses of vodka, and Moreau thought “I’ll get you there!” He insisted that they didn’t have any vodka. To this, the waiter replied: “Yeah, and what about the flambé, to do the shashlik?”

The service is remembered as being even worse in the mehani. This type of folk restaurant, aimed mainly at tourists, served food and drinks in clay dishes, hung carpets on the wall, and used tablecloths, all designed to evoke a rural Bulgarian lifestyle. It featured live folk music and dancing and sometimes “nestinarski” dances, performed bare foot on hot coals. While mehani were generally considered entertaining, the waiters were, according to some, “much worse bandits than in regular restaurants.”49 “They would just do it in their head, make the tabulation and go try and follow it. And if you don’t have the language... it’s typical tourist stuff. And you didn’t complain most of the time. Because if you complained, you would wait another hour,” recalled Lauren Brody.50 Despite these negative memories, travelers in general considered the food at the time to be edible and cheap, and many of them had other, better experiences as well, mostly after they became familiar with the Communist society’s practices. “There were also nice and pleasant restaurants,” says Detrez, giving the example of Sofia Hotel Balkan, which in 1986 became Sheraton, and some clubs that were closed to the general public belonging to the higher-ranked professional guilds. “But Bulgarians couldn’t afford these places... There was no consistency in quality either—once you go and you are happy and a month later—not any more.”51 Engelbrekt, who was known as a returning customer with his tourist groups, said he remembered

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some better, trustworthy places. He pointed out though that Sofia was the most variable in what its restaurants delivered, and while sometimes the experience was good, other times it was a fiasco.

The Impressive Chaos of Central Planning

J

ust as with the food production industry, the restaurant network in Bulgaria was designed with good intentions, and there were plausible attempts to construct a complex, orderly food service system. However, the Communist food industry as it was imagined never came to be. Its ideas proved either impossible or unsustainable, as too many things kept going wrong. The incapacity of centralized planning to create an efficient system for public catering became clear early on. The Bulgarian regime was well aware of the problem, one it shared with other Communist states. Efforts to improve service in restaurants included training, regulation, and control, together with ideological appeals to enthusiasm and responsibility. These appeals were, unsurprisingly, borrowed from the Soviet Union. An early example was the Gusin and Voroshilov initiative mentioned above, urging workers to show excellence in their jobs. Through the years, members of the government and the Party, and even Todor Zhivkov himself, repeatedly appealed, urged, scolded, and advised. But ideological pleas and regulatory patches were not enough

fig. 53.  “The work for today is over. Now the cooperators can gather for sweet talks and relax with a glass of plum brandy in the modern rural restaurant in Gavrailovo, Sliven region.” Photo Veselin Seykov, Pressphoto-BTA.

to correct systemic failures. The archives of Balkantourist and the press from the period contain ample evidence of the disarray that affected the business from the start and, as it turned out, was there to stay. A decade after the creation of the organization and four years after the construction of its first seaside hotel, an administrator inspected the work of the new seaside resort in Varna. His worried report describes multiple problems faced by Balkantourist with employing, motivating, and training its person-

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nel, but also with internal communication, human relations policy, and shortages of equipment and supplies.52 He reported that one restaurant manager tended to get into fights with customers; that there was not enough cutlery and little means to wash what there was; that there were problems with paying personnel for holidays on the basis of a directive from the previous year that never reached its addressees; and so on. Noting a shortage of workers on Saturdays and Sundays, the administrator wrote: The waiters from the first shift who were free did not want to work because there was no permission to pay to them. The kebapche-maker Velko refused to work at night, when he preferred only to cut meat. The butcher also refused to work because the pay­ ment was too small. The kebapche-maker made the same scene. Probably due to heavy drinking and ill­ ness he didn’t show up at work for an entire week. (Grigorov, “Doklad” [Report])

In the following year, an inspection of restaurants across the country reported “waiters and musicians drinking during their working hours,” a “lack of daily financial accountability,” poor treatment of customers, bad hygiene and chaos; employees were regularly late or absent for no good reason, and many other troubles great and small throughout the Balkantourist network.53 Judging by a report from 1955, things only got worse. Besides mishaps

and chaos, the reports mention “regular larceny and misuse” of resources.54 There is evidence, however, that over the years, the Balkantourist management tried to create some order in its system. In 1953 it developed detailed guidelines and invested in administration. Apart from the kitchen and serving personnel, the Communist restaurant was provided with a manager, a doorman, a cloakroom attendant, an accountant, and a general administrator. Everyone’s tasks were described in the typical style of the period with much revolutionary language and calls for “struggle.”55 A long list of rules of Balkantourist was meant to reduce the chaos and the mishandling of resources in the giant organization, which was run centrally. As the system did not fall apart and was serving an increasing number of tourists, it seems that the initial chaos gradually gave way to a certain kind of order. Sadly, it was a vicious one. It was a system in which waiters, cooks, managers, and customers learned the opportunities and the limitations of their roles, and many used them as well as they could for their own interests—often against the interests of the customers.

Comrade Chef

E

galitarianism is at the very core of the Communist ideology. In Communist Bulgaria, workers were supposed to earn as much as managers. Whether they were painters, drivers, or lawyers,

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i­ ndividuals had to be treated with the same level of respect. But it is debatable whether the Communist society was really any closer to this ideal than the capitalist one. With a new social group in power, society was restructured, but mostly by stratifying it in another way. And cooks, it turned out, came at the bottom of the social ladder. The reputation of the profession was as low as ever, if not the lowest it had ever been. The cook belonged to the working class and was subjected to the same disrespect as any miner, farmer, or lowly factory worker. The low status of this professional occupation became a problem for Balkantourist as soon as the organization started to grow towards the end of the 1950s. The state, eager to develop tourism, opened vocational schools to secure a workforce with a certain level of skill and knowledge. These schools, however, mainly attracted those who were unable to pursue any other career. “People who couldn’t enroll anywhere else or were unsure what to do with their lives applied to the tourism vocational school,” said Petko Tsigularov, who taught for thirty-five years at the specialized school in Varna and had worked previously as a waiter in Balkantourist resorts. Ivan Zlatanov, director of the Varna High School for Tourism confirmed his recollections: “It was a school for children who had lower grades. It had no prestige. I should say that people looked down at these professions at the time.”56 Seeking to increase the amount of hard currency from Western tourists, the state tried to train

hotel and restaurant personnel in international standards. But the system was cautious about following these standards openly. Tsigularov said that the first teachers at the specialized school were sent to France in the 1960s and bought back professional literature. It was translated and used by later generations of Bulgarian students, but never officially published. The practices of the hospitality business in France, as understood by Bulgarian teachers and as adapted to the local Communist reality, were the standard for serving foreign tourists, both in service and in cuisine. The rules were used as a general framework, which was adapted in detail at the local level. In the late 1960s, when the entire Communist Bloc underwent a period of tentative liberalization, a new initiative was launched to build vocational schools that combined theory with practical training in a real restaurant. However only one of the three pilot projects was finalized, in the remote town of Gabrovo, one of the least visited tourist destinations in Bulgaria.57 Disarray in the complex administration, lack of funds, and the inability of the teachers to update their knowledge of practices in Western Europe left even the premium level of Bulgarian tourist service quite far from the international standards it sought to emulate. If the situation of those years had one advantage for the personnel, it was that many members of the seasonal team were also offered a job in the winter. Some of them in the later years were sent

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to hotels and restaurants in Eastern Europe, most often in the GDR. Others were engaged in manual work such as weaving baskets or sewing linens for the hotels, which probably explains the strange quality of the linen in Bulgarian resorts at the time. “The people were happy: they got their salaries, and learned something new,” Tsigularov recalled.58 In general, Tsigularov thought it was material resources that determined the differences between an average hotel or restaurant in the West and one in Communist Bulgaria. But there seemed to be more wrong with Balkantourist than its equipment; the system provided all the wrong limits and motivation for its personnel to deliver quality service.

Cooking in a Communist Restaurant

T

he centralized management of the Communist restaurant meant, among other things, that the same recipes were used everywhere. Two lengthy publications, popularly known as The Red and The Blue Cookbook contained the obligatory set of recipes that had to be followed by every professional cook in the country. The Red Cookbook was an earlier edition, a manual for all public canteens and restaurants. The Blue Cookbook was a later version, which supposedly better addressed culinary interests and the needs of the growing number of tourists. To professionals the two books are still known as “the Bible” of the restaurant business, al-

though their strictness was more reminiscent of the Talmud—any deviation from the detailed regulations was discouraged and might be punished. The sheer volume of the two manuals spoke of their ambition to serve as professional cooking encyclopedias that would help the cook smoothly deliver anything from exquisite European dishes to simple local staples. But a closer look at the over 1,300 recipes59 shows that the variety is not as great as their number implies. At times the manuals quite literally matched the popular joke in which a Communist waiter presents his customer with a choice: “a steak with mushrooms or a steak without mushrooms.” The Blue Cookbook, for example, offers “567: Tea without lemon. 568: Tea with lemon.”60 Another interesting innovation, probably resulting from the persistent food shortages not only in the market but in the Balkantourist kitchens, was an extensive chart listing the best replacements for a number of ingredients. What is most striking about the list is the nature of the products for which replacements are suggested: it showed that even the most ubiquitous cabbage, potatoes, canned green peas, vinegar, and potato starch might become unavailable and need replacement. Despite being compulsory, The Red and The Blue cookbooks were not the only possible sources of recipes. Cooks could also develop their own recipes. But to be allowed to prepare them in the restaurants, they had to follow an administrative protocol and have

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fig. 54.  The first pizzeria in Sofia, 1976. The original caption reads: “A specialized restaurant opened in Sofia, offering the national

Italian dish ‘pizza.’ Many citizens visited it on the first day of its opening.” Photo Plamen Petrov, Pressphoto-BTA.

them approved. The system of public catering required submitting documentation, specifying the nature, the method, and the quantities of the products. This was followed by a multi-level administrative procedure, at the end of which the cook might be granted permission to include his or her recipe in the menu. Unsurprisingly, according to professionals from those years, cooks very rarely made the effort. In fact,

they did not make an effort even to use well the recipes in the two manuals. Despite the many recipes the Communist Bulgarian cooks had access to, customers were always offered a narrow and monotonous choice of dishes, mostly ones that were quick and easy to make. In this group, the most popular were several versions of scrambled eggs and meat. While in the early 1960s the cookbooks still reflected the misery of the post-war

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fig. 55.  Dining out. Private family photo, Imaginary Archive.

period and culinary purism, containing no dishes that could be linked to the “bourgeois” past, in the 1970s many French recipes appeared on restaurant menus. Many of them were impossible to actually make, given the persistent shortages in the country. They were so often repeated in the menus, however, that they became a symbol of the preposterous pretension toward cosmopolitanism characteristic of late Bulgarian Commu-

nism. As food philosopher Raycho Pozharliev argued, they were a clear sign of the provincialism of a closed society.61 Whether one was in a luxurious dining hall with a 360 degree view of Sofia or a grimy eatery by the highway, one could count on finding “Tournedo Rossini” or “Chateaubriand for two” on the menu. Apart from these pretentious French classics adapted to the reality of state socialism, grilled

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minced meat was still the centerpiece of the Communist restaurant. The omnipresent kebapcheta and kyufteta had two advantages: they did not require top quality meat cuts and were fast to prepare. As such they were so prevalent that even the state-controlled press criticized the restaurants for their over-abundance. “Currently most roadside restaurants… offer hardly anything but grilled meat. The local management does not pay enough attention to the assortment and quality of the dishes, there are no efforts to break up the routine even if the demand has in the meantime changed,” wrote Nikola Ivanov, head of the Organization of Tourist Catering in Balkantourist in 1975.62 By the end of the same decade, new dishes were added to the mainstream menu, expanding it slightly. And those dishes were based on meat. The trend started from the newly open resort of Pamporovo in the Rhodopa mountains, where the local manner of grilling an entire animal by rotating it over an open fire, cheverme, quickly proved popular among tourists. Cheverme quickly went from a local attraction to a pan-Balkantourist style. Similarly, the growing importance of Bansko in the foothills of Pirin mountain as a tourist destination became the source of another set of dishes—meat with gravy and vegetables cooked in a clay pot. From a regional specialty, this heavy mountain food meat quickly became a new national culinary kitsch, particularly popular in the last years of state socialism and after its fall.63

Despite, or perhaps because of this obsession with meat, the supply of beef and even pork remained insufficient throughout the Communist period. By the end of the 1950s, when Western Europe’s recovery from the Second World War was turning into economic growth and abundance, Balkantourist’s restaurants reported trouble from all corners of the country. Complaints of inadequate supplies of meat, milk, eggs, and vegetables (even onions) poured in from Varna, Gabrovo, Pleven, Ruse, Samokov, and Borovets. In the mid-1960s, the management of the new and luxurious (by Bulgarian standards) sea resort Zlatni Pyasuci expressed despair because they had only received a third of the meat they needed.64 The management stated that to compensate for the shortage, the kitchens had to substitute good cuts of meat with poorer quality ones, ruining the dishes. The absence of meat could be problematic for any kitchen, but Zlatni Pyasuci without kebapcheta at that time was like Buenos Aires being out of steak. During the 1970s, Bulgaria significantly increased meat production, but those who worked in the restaurant business say meat remained difficult to find at all times. Even Interhotels, who had special rights and privileged access to provisions, experienced difficulties with the fluctuating supply. “It went in cycles. At times there was enough, at other times, not. The meat was not sufficient, neither were the vegetables… which was mainly due to the large-scale export,” remembered Interhotels’ director Kosta Angelov.65

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“The meat were totally insufficient back then, even if five times more cattle were raised in the countryside,” chef Asen ­Chaushev similarly recalled.66 In his opinion, the shortages were caused mainly by state exports. Meat shortages ruined the restaurant menus in many ways. They forced cooks to mince the meat to make it usable and also partially encouraged the tenderizing of meat cuts, making them as thin as possible before cooking them, although some professionals say that the latter was only due to Bulgarians’ “peculiar tastes.” 67 The insufficiency of meat supplies meant that restaurants higher up in the hierarchy or more resourceful and better connected could offer significantly more diverse menus than the average ones. The former could overcome the specific Communist problem of food shortages through the specific Communist practice of vruzki (connections). In this case, vruzki were not used directly for private benefit, but to better provide a public service, which would eventually improve one’s reputation and importance. “The supplies were our main, largest problem!” says Angelov of Interhotels. “We maintained close relations with the key suppliers. Everything was allowed: we invited them to spend nights in the hotels for free... [It was customary] to employ private connections, and they were created and maintained for professional purposes.”68 All of the restaurants that are remembered as exceptional in that period functioned in a similar way. “Vruzki

ruled! Connections were employed to get the best [produce, ingredients], which was usually prepared for export,” recalls Evgeni Todorov, a journalist and author of a popular blog on daily life under Communism.69 “Only with a note from comrade Kralev, manager of the agrarian unit Purvenets, do you obtain that wonderful draft muscat-ottonel.” Nikola Antikadzhiev, the legendary former manager of the club-restaurant situated on the top floor of the Ivan Vazov People’s Theater in Sofia, vividly described the negotiation process: As I was friends with many local managers, every week I received from [the meat factory in] Lovech a truck with [meat] fillets, chops, knuckles, intestines, tripe, tongue, and brains that were in short supply. We had no contract. I would just call, and they would just send it. It was only my restaurant, the Soviet and the Korean embassies that were supplied from Lovech, as well as the Balkantourist restaurants in the local area. Also the first Party secretary of Slivenska perla [the producer of a fine rakia, a Bulgarian type of brandy] was a friend. Entire trucks with Sliv­ enska perla were delivered!

(Nikola Antikadzhiev, interview

by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, September 12, 2012)

While many restauranteurs blamed the shortages for the uniformity of the menus, it seems that other circumstances also played a role. Balkantourist regulations required a minimum number of

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dishes on the menu. But apart from that, nothing motivated cooks to provide rich, updated offerings based on fresh ingredients. The restaurants’ position in the market did not depend on the approval of the customers. The cooks themselves had low social and financial status, which led to lack of good personnel and long shifts for those on the job. They did not own the restaurants, and they remained anonymous—neither an idea of authorship in the kitchen nor the practice of conversing personally with customers existed in the impersonal machinery of the industrially-designed Communist restaurants. It is not surprising that most cooks exerted the minimum effort they could without being punished. “The choice in many places was between meat with mushroom sauce and meat without mushroom sauce simply because this was easier,” admits Danail Danailov, who managed Novotel in Plovdiv.70 Many expert reports confirm the prevalence of this attitude. One in 1971 criticized restaurants for using canned vegetables even when fresh ones were available, in order to avoid the work of cleaning and processing them.71 To the state, the Bulgarian professional kitchen at the time had a different purpose from the French one, from which it borrowed dishes. The recipe was not a guarantee for good tasting food, but rather a box to tick on the way to the grand goal of improving public catering so that “in the future each cit-

izen of our country could receive ready-made and cheap food.”72 Speaking of professional training in cooking, Tsigularov recalled that while students were “now and then” expected to learn how to cook certain French dishes, they were mostly just taught to serve full plates.73 Many thinkers have pointed out that how the Bible is read depends not on its content, but the reader. The situation was similar with the culinary Bible of Communist Bulgaria—in the discrepancy between it and the reality of what was on the menu one could trace an entire portrait not only of the Communist culinary tradition, but of Bulgarian society.

Comrade Waiter

H

e excelled in ruining your day. He could slam the door in your face. Or he could make you wait for hours, leave you hungry, or hone his sarcasm on you. He could bring you food left by another customer, overcharge you and humiliate you in ­myriad ways. He could, and often he did. And by and large he went unpunished. Few roles in Eastern European Communist societies were more notoriously distorted as that of the waiter. Disproportionately empowered and able to evade control, waiters were elevated from servants to masters through a combination of ideology, system failure, and central management. How did the hum-

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Alexov serves breakfast at restaurant Casino, Zlatni Pyasutsi resort, near Varna. 1958, Pressphoto-BTA.

ble profession of serving in a restaurant acquire such extraordinary powers under Communism? If one could travel back in time and find oneself in 1975 Sofia, Varna or Plovdiv, the first and only bow tie one might see would most likely be on a waiter. Tamara Ganeva, who grew up in the family of a prosecutor in Sliven, recalled her father’s occasional outbursts: “Why must this most formal piece of men’s clothing be worn exclusively by waiters!?”74 People were not supposed to wear bow ties in Communist Bulgaria. Curiously, waiters were among the very few professional groups who were allowed to. Even if it was initially not intended to be this way, this accouterment was yet

another manifestation of the peculiar status that waiters had in Communist Bulgaria. The bow tie was seen as an obligation, but ironically it became one of their many special powers and privileges. Unlike the cooks sweating in the proletarian kitchens, waiters were among the more important people of the day. “Society did not think highly of waiters. But within the professional guild it was very prestigious to become a waiter in a good restaurant. I worked in a tail-coat and white gloves for twenty years!” said Hristo Kirilov, who four decades later still remained in the profession.75 Communist waiters typically wanted their job and would fight to keep it. They had likely applied

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their vruzki to get the job in the first place and embarked on the profession for life. They were familiar with the correct way of setting a table, and if they did not apply this knowledge, it was because they did not care to.76 Among a population that largely only knew some Russian, waiters stood out as knowing some basic German and sometimes even French. They were good with numbers and often polished stand-up comedians. Particularly those who worked in better restaurants had quite advanced professional skills. But why does this seem to contradict the impressions of the tourists and locals that they served? The main reason is that waiters were free to choose who to gratify with their benevolence, and they chose carefully and sparingly. Their bow ties, their access to products in short supply, their prerogative to change table reservations, and their extra income from tips all reflected the mundane, everyday corruption of Communist times. In most cases they learned to use their position ruthlessly and not only refused to tolerate criticism, but expected respect and even servility from their customers. Bulgarians well remember the extraordinary authority and importance of waiters. “It was crucial to know the waiters. They gave you access to restaurants and were by default hostile if they didn’t know you,” recalled Todorov, referring to the 1970s and 1980s in Plovdiv. “You might be a customer, but they are tsars and gods,” said Katerina Gadzheva of Sofia

in the same period. “You had to know the waiters. They cheated, and because they counted on being tipped, they sometimes did their best. On the one hand, it was a matter of ‘vruzki,’ on the other, they were violating the borders of formal communication. They were in a strong position,” said Tilko Petrov, who frequented restaurants across the country in the last couple decades of the Communist period.77 Waiters were also able to have up their sleeves a dish prepared with a rare ingredient or a bottle of greatly desired and always hard to find Coke. They could dilute your rakia or vodka, give you a smaller portion of salad than what you ordered, or cheat you on the bill. Every experienced client knew that friendships with waiters opened doors. For this reason, overly-friendly behavior such as being addressed with “ti” (the informal second person) instead of the more polite “vie” (the formal second person) by the waiter was not usually seen as disrespect but a sign of treasured intimacy. The gargoyle of a waiter of Communist times was produced by the system of public nutrition. Balkantourist tried to regulate the profession through a combination of prescriptions and control, just as it did with any other issue. And just as with any other issue, this approach failed to deliver results. It seems that no element of the chain functioned as designed. With or without the set of written rules, the restaurants of Balkantourist were overstaffed with unenthusiastic personnel who spent

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many working hours inventing ways to cheat customers and to avoid being caught by the controlling bodies of the organization and the state. If the personnel of Balkantourist was inefficient, so was the organization’s management. A good illustration of this was the evolution of tipping, usually considered a good way to motivate restaurant staff. Nominally, accepting tips was illegal. But the rise in international tourism led to the notion that tips might encourage waiters to treat their customers better. The state, however, did not legalize gratuities. It chose to deal with tipping like other countries do with euthanasia—tipping remained illegal, but when practiced, went unpunished. While waiters were not supposed to take gratuities, the state could not ban customers, especially foreign ones, from leaving them. Tourists, particularly those from the West, usually left tips. Due to the much higher living standards in the West, the amounts were more than significant to waiters who worked for 60–70 BGN (around 55–60 USD) per month. This situation made the atmosphere in restaurants charged and caused numerous fights between waiters and their notoriously poorly treated customers. “Some of the waiters worked with groups of tourists, mostly from the Socialist Bloc, and they only received their salary: 60–70 BGN per month, plus food,” recalled Tsigularov, who himself worked as a waiter in the seaside resorts.78 He said the wait-

ers competed for the opportunity to serve to people who would eat à la carte. But this also had its hidden traps. Many visitors, in particular those who came from the Communist Bloc, knew that tipping was illegal, even an offence, and did not do it. But most Western tourists would leave a tip, and thus the competition to serve them was merciless. They were usually treated with great respect and attention by Bulgarian standards of the time, unlike the customers from countries like Poland, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia who left no gratuities and were received with abominable rudeness. The advantages for waiters who served Western tourists were tremendous. Tsigularov recalls that their income from tips so exceeded their salary that some, himself included, did not even bother to collect their salaries for months. The arrogance of these well-placed servers was epitomized by the saying: “It will be so while the rich serve the poor.” The saying was popular with barmen and waiters, and according to Ivan Zlatanov, some of them earned so much that things got out of hand and the state militia had to interfere. Bedo Bedrosyan, who started his career in the 1970s in Grand Hotel Varna, quoted a typical exchange from the militia campaigns against the serving personnel on the seaside: “They would stop you and ask: these 20 leva, where did you get it?” “Why, I work!” He said militiamen would follow his colleagues and forbid them from talking to for-

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eigners. “And if a German customer starts talking to me, what, should I tell him, ‘I am not talking to you, you may be a spy!’?”79 The policy of the state towards tips was far from consistent and the nominally illegal tipping was tolerated probably in the hope that it would motivate waiters to maintain at least some level of quality service. In an interview given in the first post-Communist years, chef Asen Chaushev recalled a conversation that he had with Todor Zhivkov on the matter: “‘Comrade Zhivkov, I just served customers, foreigners, and was given a tip of 10 dollars. According to the law I should be imprisoned.’ To this he said: ‘Oh, is there such a law? I didn’t know.’ ‘Yes, there is,’ I say, and he replies: ‘Okay, has anyone gone to prison for such thing?’ I tell him, ‘No, nobody.’ ‘Well, so all is fine then.’”80 The issue was obviously discussed by the highest party and state officials. Danail Danailov, who directed a restaurant in Plovdiv for many decades, recalled a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Trade Andrey Lukanov in the 1970s: “He asked me what I thought. I told him that tips exist everywhere.” However, nothing changed officially for another decade and a half. Finally, in 1988 the state introduced the practice everywhere, with the restaurants taking a cut of the tips.81 As cheating practices were rampant, restaurants were continuously subjected to checkups. But former workers in the restaurant system testify that decep-

fig. 57.  Advertisement of the chain of top-end hotels Interhotels. LostBulgaria.com

tions were still committed constantly. “Money did not play a very important role. Doctors stole cotton pads; waiters stole food. All this was ruinous, and the state tried to prevent it with regulations and control, and yet it kept on happening,” explained Danailov.82 People from both sides of this everyday problem—waiters and the administrators trying to control them—argued that such ruthless behavior was partially due to the circumstances. The restaurant personnel were accountable for the supplied food and drink, which they had to transform into meals by the established recipes and sell. So, when customers failed to pay their bills, and this happened every once in a while, the personnel had to cover the losses. Usually they did so by cheating other customers.

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Another nuisance was the common practice of hiring on the recommendation of upper-level officials. Those who obtained jobs with someone’s support were expected to regularly reimburse their patron for the favor. They too raised funds for this by cheating clients. Deceiving customers was not a specifically Communist phenomenon in Bulgaria. Petur Doychev, who worked in restaurants in Burgas since the 1930s said that the waiters before the Second World War were even more unified in their deceit and would not let anyone into their circle who would not play along. He became painfully aware of this early on. After starting work at the Burgas casino, he was summoned by his colleagues and asked to follow them into the nearby underground bomb shelter. There they sewed a rubber pocket on the inside of his white silk uniform. “Here is where you put the slices of meat!” His career at the casino ended when he insulted an important customer by returning his change. The customer, who was trying to display his wealth, was angered by this unusual display of honesty, which he took as a humiliating repudiation of his wealth. After this embarrassing exchange with the client, Doychev was taken aside by his supervisor. When they were out of customers’ sight, his supervisor gave him a sharp slap and hissed in his face, “So you are the most honest guy, huh?” and sent him away without pay.83

fig. 58.  Advertisement of Interhotels. LostBulgaria.com

After 1944, Doychev recalled the shift in the atmosphere when the communal spirit quickly fell apart under the pressure of political purges: “People were getting killed. Everyone was afraid. People started spying on each other.”84 When Balkantourist emerged as the leading tourist organization, it had to deal with the old wicked practices of restaurant workers cheating clients which were adapted to the new system. The

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management struggled to impose strict financial control, and many professionals today recall it as harsh and uncompromising. “Inspectors would come with a set of weights and measures, they checked and leveled significant fines. For overcharging a customer two stotinki, I was once sent to labor in the Bumbarnika for three months!” Blagoy Danailov exclaimed.85 Many restaurant managers and chefs had similar stories. Nikola Antikadzhiev and Asen Chaushev spoke of different regulatory institutions constantly sending meticulous inspectors to examine the bills and the size of the portions, and severely punishing workers for even minor discrepancies. But corruption and political protection rendered some personnel untouchable, penalties were negligible in comparison to the gains from cheating, and fraud remained pervasive. Both the state and customers were deceived. Danailov described the restaurant kitchen as factories for surplus food. The excess food was sold unregistered and provided extra income for the personnel or was simply appropriated and used in private households. The practice of accumulating surplus food was discussed in an article in Anteni in 1977. After it investigated, the weekly paper reported that personnel regularly brought bottled alcohol from the shops to sell it for three times its price, pocketing the income. Alcohol was also regularly cut with water, and cheaper drinks were often sold as more expensive ones. The

paper noted that all the numerous investigations of the Shtastlivetsa86 restaurant reported such fraud.87 An internal Balkantourist report from 1977 stated that there were over 88 instances of critical coverage in the press that year, 44 percent of which concerned failures in tourist service, such as overcharging customers, serving smaller portions of food and drink, and so on.88 Doychev, who supervised workers in Balkantourist, insisted that regular checkups prevented most of the potential thefts. In the early years of the organization, he says he intercepted restaurant employees’ cars that had trunks filled with “kilos of lukanka”—a popular type of dried sausage, one of the most expensive cured meats. He also described stopping the dish washers as they were getting on the bus to go home after their shift: “I asked them to lift their hands, and entire packaged fillets would fall from under their armpits.” In another story, he recruited a group of waiters from Plovdiv to work at the seaside hotel he was managing. They brought their families along, and one day while walking through the employee’s residential building, he found their children engaged in a competition, rolling a disk of the popular yellow cheese kashkaval from the restaurant down the hallway. The amazing survival of Balkantourist in spite of this massive larceny suggests that overall it was the customers, not the institution, that were the most affected. “All these [thefts] were mainly surpluses,”

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Doychev explained, “When Russian tourist groups eat, they pay for three eggs per person, but how many people eat three eggs for breakfast? The waiters were throwing them like snowballs at each other!”89 Even more unsettling was the practice of re-serving leftover meat. “One portion included five kepabches and two kyuftes.90 Of course a lot remained [on the customers’ plates]! So they installed a small grill in the office. It was totally forbidden, but they threatened the accountant and the manager, and as soon as someone ordered one of these items à la carte, they would warm up the leftovers and serve them again.”91 Indeed, the reports rarely mentioned thefts from Balkantourist itself. It was customers that were cheated en masse. According to an Interhotels document from 1985, the organization opened judicial proceedings against 56 members of the staff in Veliko Turnovo for repeatedly amassing surpluses. Such surpluses of money in the cash register ­usually resulted from various illegal and/or unregistered sales, such as the sale of alcohol that the personnel bought in shops in private and sold to customers, or by serving smaller portions, reselling food and so on. A particularly blatant case was cited at Novotel Europa, where an audit established a surplus of 6,838 leva, accumulated over five months, and only a week later another audit was made, which found a surplus of 16,840 leva. The 10,000 leva the personnel had stolen in a single week was equal to the average monthly salary of 50 people.

Waiter 007

A

nother major contribution to the waiters’ notorious arrogance under Communism was their frequent involvement in intelligence operations that further enabled them to avoid regulation and punishment. Waiters were often hired by the secret services to carry out spying operations in restaurants. Restaurant managers remember having limited power over their staff.92 The long arm of Durzhavna Sigurnost (DS), the Bulgarian secret service, was omnipresent in the country, just as its cousins were in other states in the Eastern Bloc (and probably only slightly less than on the other side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War). The idea of an imminent imperialist threat, the fear that the secrets of the regime would be revealed, and worries that free communication between Bulgarians and Westerners might threaten domestic social peace turned hotels and restaurants into natural arenas for espionage. One of the consequences was that every waiter was carefully scrutinized before being appointed. “Nobody could be hired in our system without being vetted,” recalled Nikola Kyulhanov, who for many decades was the general manager of the luxurious hotel Trimontsium in Plovdiv.93 He says only members of the Communist Party were appointed to managerial positions. At the time, Durzhavna Sigur­nost controlled each hotel via a representative who often

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fig. 59.  Restaurant Kristal in the center of Sofia. The restaurant, along with its cafeteria and shake bar, gained instant popularity. In 1983, it was featured as a trendy place to hang out in the first Bulgarian jazz musical “Tomorrow at Ten” by Lyubomir Denev. March 28, 1976. Photo L. Stoyanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

installed an office in one of the hotel rooms. But the field tasks were fulfilled by various people, routinely by waiters. Not all members of the staff were informed about ongoing spying operations. The DS agent usually distributed the tables between the waiters to make sure the right person served a table of

interest. The assisting waiter was expected to set the table with plates, salt and pepper shakers, and ashtrays with built-in eavesdropping devices, Danail Danailov remembered from his years in Plovdiv’s Novotel. Judging by some evidence, waiters were not always entirely cooperative with the DS and sometimes

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fig. 60.  “For several days now, red and yellow neon lights have been shining on Ruski Blvd., opposite the People’s Assembly. The new restaurant ‘Berlin’ has been opened. With its beautiful appearance, the restaurant attracts the attention of passers-by. Inside it is comfortably furnished, divided into two parts, a restaurant and a pastry shop. The walls of the restaurant are lined with light walnut paneling. A large display case with German ceramics connects the restaurant with the confectionery. Three columns lined with black marble tiles separate the stage of the orchestra composed of German musicians. Visitors are served by German and Bulgarian waiters. The restaurant serves German dishes and specialties. Pictured: Exterior of the Berlin restaurant in Sofia.” Photo Vladimir Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

played ambiguous roles. Velina Mavrodinova’s parents frequented one of the posh restaurants in Sofia, The Russian Club. She remembers that some waiters did not hide that they were working for the secret services and presented it as a somewhat annoying obligation. If the customers they knew well launched into dangerous topics under the influence of alcohol, a waiter, whom Mavrodinova remembers as Stefan, would say: “Come on, come around a bit! You don’t want us to record all these things you are saying!”94 One challenge waiters in the more luxurious hotels had to deal with was catering state delegations. Sometimes several delegations would come together, and accommodating them could be very challenging. “Sometimes delegations from Africa, Asia, from Socialist and Western countries would come together and we would ponder where to put them,” recalled Kyulhanov from his experience at Trimontsium, “The Chinese, for example, they always wanted to sit somewhere hidden from all the rest...”95 Foreign diplomatic representatives were also regularly eavesdropped on during their dinners. Their reservations were made after the DS indicated which table they should be seated at. Rooms for them were also assigned by the DS. Whatever regulations Balkantourist and other authorities might have tried to introduce, the typical vice of state socialism was the prioritization of party loyalties and interests over common sense, eliminat-

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ing any positive effect the reforms might have had. The appointment of untouchable personnel demotivated and crippled entire teams, blocked prospects for advancement, and ruined economic motivation, shifting it out of the zone of legitimate professional activity. All this, combined with a general lack of sophistication in food and service culture, persistent shortages in supplies, and limited equipment made Communist restaurants what many remember them as: a mess of wasted potential and good intentions gone wrong; a model for a better lifestyle ruined by systemic flaws.

Notes

Epigraph source: Ivan Slavov, Tupizmi i psuvizmi [Dumb and swearing phrases] (Sofia: Arhimed, 2009). 1 Jukka Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin’s Russia (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 35. 2 Gronow, Caviar with Champagne, 35. 3 Vladimir Ilich Lenin, The Emancipation of Women (New York: International Publishers, 1966), 83–84. 4 Marx and Engels, Suchinenia, vol. 2, 531; Hristo Hadzhinikolov, Rabotnicheskoto Stolovo Hranene [Workers’ canteen nutrition] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1983), 9. 5 Hristo Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na centralizatsiata i koncentratsiata na proizvodstvoto na obshtestvenoto hranene v Bulgaria” [Problems of the centralization and concentration of production in public catering in Bulgaria] Institute for Scientific Research in Trade and Public Catering, 1970, Central State Archive, Sofia, Bulgaria (CSA) 707-1-30. 6 Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na centralizatsiata.” 7 National Statistics Institute (NSI), Statisticheski godishnik [State statistics yearbook] 1969, 273; 1979, 330; 1989, 320; available online at http://statlib.nsi.bg:8181/bg/index.php. 8 Georgi Vulchev, Vesela Danailova, and Hristo Yurukov, “Organizatsia, technologia i technika na tsentraliziranoto gotvarsko proizvodstvo” [Organization, technology, and equipment of the centralized cooked food production], Sofia, Ministry of Domestic Trade, 1965. CSA 707-1-114. Vulchev

and al. are quoting the decisions of the 8th Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1962. 9 Ministry of Domestic Trade (MDT), “Stopansko-ikonomicheska obosnovka za isgrazhdane na mrezhata ot zavedenia za obshtestveno hranene i zavedenia za uslusgi v centralnata chast na Sofia” [Economic argumentation of the development of the network of restaurants and services in the centre of Sofia]. Sofia, 1966. CSA 707-1-116. 10 MDT, “Stopansko-ikonomicheska obosnovka.” 11 MDT, “Stopansko-ikonomicheska obosnovka, 11–12. 12 Vulchev et al., “Organizatsia, technologia.” 13 Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na koncentraciata.” 14 The idea appears in the working papers of both theorists and practitioners: Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na koncentraciata”; Committee for Recreation and Tourism, “Programa za izpulnenie na osnovnite nasoki v rabotata na Komiteta za otdih i turizum za izdigane ravnishteto na komplexnoto turistichesko obsluzhvane prez Sedmata petiletka na 1976” [Program for the completion of the basic directions in the work of the Committee for Recreation and Tourism aiming at raising the level of the tourist service during the seventh five-year plans, 1976] CSA 310-6-8. 15 Nauchen centur po vurteshna turgovia (International Trade Research Center), “Reglament za suzdavane na rabotna grupa” [Guidelines for the establishment of a working group], May 14, 1980, CSA 707-2-163. 16 “Postanovlenie na Ministerski suvet ot januari 6 1948” [Regulation by the Council of Ministers from 6 January 1948], Bulgarian Council of Minsiters. 17 “Dokladni zapistki ot 1977” [Report notes from 1977], Balkantourist, Sofia, 1977, CSA 310-6-9. 18 Kabaivanski, Oplakvane, 21. 19 Petur Doychev, Zhivot, otdaden na turisma [A life, dedicated to tourism] (Sofia: Literaturen Forum, 1999), 25. 20 Doychev, Zhivot, 27–29; Petur Doychev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, November 4, 2013 and February 13, 2014.. 21 Stoyan Georgiev, “Signalna zapiska” [A problem report], 1975, Sofia, CSA 1230-1-40, 7. 22 Georgiev, “Signalna zapiska,” 4. 23 Georgiev, Signalna zapiska. 24 “Dokladni zapiski ot 1977” (Balkantourist) 25 Interhotels Balkantourist was created with Decision 88 of the Council of Ministers on September 1, 1977. 26 Significant parts of the information on Interhotels is based on the interview I conducted with Kosta Angelov (Sofia, March 30, 2013). 27 David Childs and Richard Popplewell. The Stasi: The East Ger-

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man Intelligence and Security Service (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), 86. 28 Angelov, interview. 29 The information on Sheraton Sofia is based on several interviews: with Lilia Gerasimova, the wife of the late communist vice prime-minister Andrey Loukanov (Varna, April 2, 2013), with Vasil Iliev, the first Bulgarian manager of Sheraton (Plovdiv, November 2, 2012) and with Kosta Angelov, the first executive director of Interhotels. 30 Iliev, interview. 31 Tim Rice, interview by Albena Shkodrova, San Diego, May 28, 2015. 32 These definitions came up in my interviews with Mary Sherhart (Seattle, May 20, 2015); Kristine Kalazs (via Skype, Vienna, April 5, 2015); Epler (Seattle, May 23, 2015); Tim Rice; Lauren Brody (New York, June 2, 2015); Carol Silverman (Oregon, May 23, 2015); and Martin Koenig (Seattle, May 21, 2015), among others. 33 Kalazs, interview. 34 Alexander Epler, interview. 35 Brody, interview. 36 Silverman, interview. 37 Epler, interview. 38 Kjell Engelbrekt, interview by Albena Shkdorova, Vienna– Stockholm (via Skype), April 11, 2015. 39 Kalasz, interview. 40 Raymond Detrez, interview by Albena Shkodrova Leuven, February 18, 2015. 41 Silverman, interview. 42 Brody, interview. 43 Yves Moreau and France Bourque-Moreau, interview by Albena Shkodrova, San Diego, May 29, 2015. 44 Epler, interview. 45 Silverman, interview. 46 Koenig, interview. 47 Detrez, interview. 48 Moreau, interview. 49 Brody, interview. 50 Ibid. 51 Detrez, interview. 52 Dimitur Grigorov, “Doklad za situatsiata v plazh-restoranta na Balkantourist vuv Varna” [A report on the situation in the beach-restaurant of Balkantourist in Varna] 1953, Sofia, CSA 310-2-14) 53 “Zapovedi” [Orders], Balkantourist, 1954. CSA 310-2-11 54 Ministry of Domestic Trade, “Zapoved 45” [Order 45] April 28, 1955, CSA 310-2-7.

55 Internal rules for the branches of Balkantourist (January 1957), CSA 310-2-14, 1–8. 56 Petko Tsigularov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, March 31, 2013; Zlatanov, interview. 57 Ivan Zlatanov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, March 31, 2013. 58 Tsigularov, interview. 59 The number varies in the different editions through the years. 60 Dimitur Moshlev, Pavlina Popova, Kiril Bozhilov, Nenyu Karaivanov, Panayot Penchev, Siyka Popova, Subi Nikolov, and Petko Nikolov, Recepturnik po gotvarstvo i sladkarstvo [Recepies for cooking and pastry making] (Sofia: Technika, 1970), xxxv. 61 Raycho Pozharliev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 21, 2014. 62 Nikola Ivanov, “Informatsia za otganizatsiata na krayputnoto obsluzhvane na tranzitnite i individual turisti” [Information on the organizaition of the service for transit and individual tourists along the roads], 1975, Balkantourist Archives, CSA 310-6-3. 63 Angelov, interview; Gavrilova, interview. 64 Vulchev et al., “Organizatsia, technologia.” 65 Angelov, interview. 66 Asen Chaushev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 19, 2012. 67 Danail Danailov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 68 Angelov, interview. 69 Evgeni Todorov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 70 Danail Danailov, interview. 71 Research Institute for Trade and Public Nutrition, “Model na organizatsia na proizvodstvoto na polufabrikati i gotova hrana” [Model of organization of the production of semi prepared and ready-made food]. 1971, Sofia, CSA 707-1-47. 72 The words of Todor Zhivkov in the introduction to The Red Cookbook. Zahari Zahariev, Stoil Vuchkov, Georgi Shishkov, and Stefan Boyadzhiev, Sbornik gotvarski retsepti za zavedeniata za obshtestveno hranene [Collection of cookery recipes for the public catering] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1960). 73 Tsigularov, interview. 74 Tamara Ganeva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Brussels, September 21, 2012. 75 Hristo Kirilov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 11, 2014. 76 “The service back than in many ways was more classy than in the post-Communist period,” argued Blagoy Danailov, who

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has run a restaurant in Plovdiv since the 1980s. “Serve a dish in a 19 cm plate instead of 17 cm, and you are punished! The waiters were better educated… But they disrespected customers indeed.” Blagoy Danailov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 77 Todorov, interview; Katerina Gadzheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 24, 2012; Tilko Petrov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 23, 2012. 78 Tsigularov, interview. 79 Bedo Bedrosyan, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, March 31, 2013. 80 Alexandrina Rokanova, “Gotvachut na socelita Asen Chaushev: Lyudmila karashe samo na chasha mlyako s dva kartofa, Bateto ‘vecheryashe’ whiskey” [The cook of the communist elite Asen Chaushev: Lyudmila was going by only on a glass of milk and two potatoes, Bateto “dined” on whiskey] Blitz.bg., March 20, 2012, accessed April 5, 2017. https://www.blitz.bg/article/29914. 81 Maria Grozdanova, “Doklad ot M. Grozdanova, predsedatel na Interhoteli- Balkantourist do BATO za prilagane na vremennata naredba na fond “Povishavane kulturata na obsluzhvane” v zavedeniata za hranene i razvlechenie” [A report by the chairman of Interhotels-Balkantourist, to BATO on the application of the temporary regulation of fund “Rising the service culture” in restaurants and entertainment places] (n.d., probably 1988), CSA 1016-2-15.

82 83 84 85

Danail Danailov, interview. Doychev, interview. Doychev, interview. Danailov, interview. Bumbarnika was a popular restaurant on the side of the luxurious hotel Trimontsium in Plovdiv, which served the signature dish “bumbar,” made of intestines. See also chapter 10, “Tripe Treats” on the restaurant. 86 A popular restaurant on the Vitosha mountain. 87 “Otvorenite vratichki” [Cracks in the system], Anteni, April 13, 1977. 88 Balkantourist, “Otchet na rezultatite ot izvurshenata rabota po kritichnite publikatsii v sredstvata za masova informatsia prez 1977” [Report of the results of the completed work on the critical publications in the mass media in 1977]. CSA 310-6-5. 89 Doychev, interview. 90 Kebapche and kyufte were the two most popular restaurant items. Both were made of ground meat and baked on the grill and they differed slightly in the added herbs and in shape. Kebapche is elongated and kyfte is a flat meatball, resembling a small burger. 91 Doychev, interview. 92 Kyulhanov, interview. 93 Ibid. 94 Mavrodinova, interview. 95 Kyulhanov, interview.

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Chapter 7

How One Man Could Spoil the Menu of Millions The Personal Influence of Todor Zhivkov on Bulgarian Restaurant Menus

“You give him two slices of bread and butter, and he is content. He never ordered his meal. Whatever he was brought, he consumed.” Chef Asen Chaushev on Todor Zhivkov

“I found it unbelievable how easy it was to cook for Todor Zhivkov. He voiced no complaints, no desires, no criticism…” Yordan Stoichkov, personal chef for Todor Zhivkov between 1970 and 1989

O

fig. 61.  State leader Todor Zhivkov

meeting an official Syrian delegation, 1966. Photo Bozhidar Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

ne of the most comic stories in Georgi Markov’s In Absentia Reports about Bulgaria is dedicated to Comrade Zhivkov’s favorite soup. It describes an episode that must have taken place before 1972. While on the road, the author decides to stop and have lunch. In the small town of Botevgrad, he enters a restaurant where, to his surprise, he finds unusually luxurious curtains and high prices. Nevertheless, he decides to stay and orders soup and roasted lamb. “As soon as I tasted the first spoon, I immediately knew that however hungry I was, I wouldn’t be able to eat any more. The soup had a heavy, unpleasant, stale taste and contained as much grease as could probably be found in an entire army cauldron,” Markov wrote. His claim to the waitress that the food was inedible offended her. She replied indignantly: “‘But, comrade’—and she pulled away from me as if to imply the importance of what she was about to say.

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fig. 62.  Todor Zhivkov among brigadiers in 1965. Photo Bozhidar Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

Then looking at me accusingly, she declared, ‘This is the favorite soup of Comrade Zhivkov! He is a frequent visitor here, coming especially for this soup, and we are very proud of it!’”1

The anecdote ended not so happily for Markov, who never got his roasted lamb and left hungry. But it offers an idea of the gastronomic tastes of the person who led the industrialization of Bulgarian food between 1956 and 1989. Unlike Tito, who is remembered as a food connoisseur, Zhivkov could hardly be described as a gourmet. Even by the standards of his time, the Bulgarian leader was unpretentious about food. The recollections of Zhivkov’s personal chef during his last two decades in power confirm this impression. In his published memoirs, brimming with loyalty to the former leader, the chef Yordan Stoichkov wrote about Zhivkov’s habit of eating the simplest “people’s” food: the Bulgarian type of polenta called kachamak, nettle pap, and a popular Bulgarian phyllo pastry called banitsa.2 Zhivkov also did not care much about the quality of his drinks: “Sometimes he would take a glass of rakia or red wine, but would keep asking us to add water. He liked to joke that he usually starts with drinking red wine, then it becomes rosé and finally water.”3 Many restauranteurs who served Zhivkov confirm his unpretentious and uncritical attitude toward food. Asen Chaushev, who cooked in the high-end Sofia hotel Vitosha-New Otani recalls that the leader was not only modest regarding food, he did not even choose it himself.4 Danail Danailov, who managed the Novotel and later a number of top restaurants in Plovdiv, has

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fig. 63.  Zhivkov meets diplomats in a agricultural cooperative in Brestovitsa, central Bulgaria, 1972. Photo Stefan Tihov, Pressphoto-BTA.

similar recollections. Once the state leader arrived in his restaurant, accompanied by popular Bulgarian actors after attending a theater performance. Danailov decided to challenge his guests by serving them rooster testicle stew. The state security representatives and Zhivkov’s bodyguards protested, scandalized by this choice. “But I served it!” Danailov said. He claimed that Zhivkov approved of his choice.5 According to some testimonies, the leader’s uncritical attitude was shared by all of his family, and in fact by the entire political elite. “Honestly, I don’t recall any extravagant demands by the ruling class at the time,” said Chaushev.6 In his book, Stoichkov repeatedly interprets Zhiv­ kov’s unpretentiousness as modesty: “Even when he

had reasons to complain, I had the impression that he felt uncomfortable doing so.”7 His positive portrait of the leader behind the scenes presents him as humble and restrained. He wrote of Zhivkov’s passion for hunting: he loved the chase, but was not interested in the trophies, which he gave away. It did not strike Stoichkov as immodest that, as he wrote, several nature reserves were kept and maintained to satisfy the leader’s hunting hobby. Born in the village of Pravets in 1911, Zhivkov grew up in a family whose history was connected to early forms of dining out in Bulgaria. His mother’s family was relatively well off and owned a hotel and a restaurant. Zhivkov himself did not have a privileged childhood and in the early 1930s was forced

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 64.  Gathering in the banquette

room of Strandzhata Tavern in Svishtov, North Bulgaria, 1968. Photo Simeon Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

to work as a waiter to support his studies. Despite finding himself repeatedly in proximity to professional cooking, he never seemed interested in food. He was even less interested in alcohol, and in high school he joined an abstinence organization. The image that he constructed for himself throughout his political career was as “one of the people.” Unlike the early Communist lead-

ers Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov, who did not deny themselves luxury and hired the chef of the dethroned monarch, Zhivkov stood away from any flashy demonstration of his power. His downto-earth appearance worked well for his political image, and so did his often awkwardly expressed humor, considered by many to be grossly unsophisticated. Stoichkov’s recollection of one particular

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incident offers some insight. The chef had put salt in a big bowl of salad, but had not mixed it, and the salt ended up concentrated on the plates of Zhivkov and a couple of important guests. “General Kashev summoned me and was just about to reproach me when Zhivkov interfered: ‘There is nothing to scold the boy for! We make million-leva mistakes, and who admonishes us for them?’”8 From a moral point of view, Zhivkov’s uncritical attitude and lack of pretentiousness regarding food should be viewed positively—it must have saved money for the Communist state. But it also had a downside. To a large extent, it was the leader of the county who determined the dominant lifestyle and culture of the political (and economic) establishment. And the establishment, in turn, determined the quality of the restaurants. At least until the end of the 1970s, Zhivkov was a dominant role model for many representatives of the new upper classes, the red aristocracy, which he had largely created and continuously supported. This social group, referred to pejoratively as nomenklatura, was formed on the basis of political loyalty and their interest in the privileges allowed to those trusted by the state. They enjoyed greater access to jobs and education, to travel in Western Europe, to exclusive hospitals, shops, clubs, resorts. But this class thrived in place of the financial and cultural elites, which were annihilated in the late 1940s, and advocated,

at least nominally, a simple lifestyle to oppose the “rotten bourgeois past.” Against this background, the leader’s style was seen to be politically correct. A  special catering system provided daily delivery of food for the upper echelons of the nomenklatura.9 This service though did not bring about refined tastes in food. Complying with the attitude of their leader, the red aristocracy nourished appreciation for what it called the “people’s” cuisine: a set of simple dishes that were popular to cook at home. The idea of a good meal was associated with a well-filled plate and generous quantities of red meat. In restaurants, the new upper class did not expect to be surprised by the inventions of talented chefs, they hoped to be fed well with enough familiar food. These habits may have been to a great extent shared by the rest of the population, but they blocked the way to innovation. Professional cooking for elites incentivized much of the culinary advances in nineteenth and twentieth century European cuisines,10 but had no such powers in Communist Bulgaria. It was particularly true because the red political establishment, which included the central and regional leadership of the Communist Party and the significant network of managers in state administration and economy across the country, made up the most important part of the state restaurants’ customers. Their organized events, comrade dinners, visiting delegations, and celebra-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 65.  President of France François

Mitterrand meeting Todor Zhivkov in January 1989. During his visit, Mitterrand invited twelve freethinking Bulgarian intellectuals for breakfast at the French embassy. Photo Bozhidar Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

tions of institutes, cooperatives, and factories occupied a significant amount of the restaurants’ time. Thus, their preferences set the standard for restaurant food. In this context, the monotonous and ubiquitous menus were at least partially a response to demand. It was only in the 1970s that this ethos began to be questioned, when a new generation of Communists—children of the establishment who were better educated and travelled—started to come to power. One name that professionals from the field repeatedly mention in this regard is Andrey

Lukanov, the first and only member of the Communist elite known as a gourmet. “He would always come and ask for roughly ground black pepper on his salmon,” recalls Sheraton-Balkan’s manager Vasil Iliev.11 He was a startling exception to the norm. As deputy minister of foreign trade in 1972 and vice-prime minister between 1976 and 1987, Lukanov was personally responsible for the creation of the Interhotels chain, which restarted the development of Bulgarian cuisine and sidelined the previously dominant influence of Zhivkov and his penchant for greasy soups.

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Notes

Epigraph sources: Rokanova, Alexandrina. “Gotvachut na socelita Asen Chaushev: Lyudmila karashe samo na chasha mlyako s dva kartofa, Bateto ‘vecheryashe’ whiskey” [The cook of the communist elite Asen Chaushev: Lyudmila was going by only on a glass of milk and two potatoes, Bateto “dined” on whiskey] Blitz.bg., March 20, 2012. Accessed April 5, 2017. https://www.blitz.bg/article/29914. Yordan Stoichkov, Az, gotvachut na Zhivkov [I, the personal chef of Zhivkov] (Sofia: Millenium, 2010). 1 Georgi Markov, Zadochni reportazhi za Bulgaria [In absentia reports about Bulgaria]. (Zurich: Georgi Markov Fund, 1980), 647. 2 Banitsa, the popular Bulgarian phyllo pastry, is similar to the Greek buretsi and the Turkish and Bosnian burek. It can be made with many different fillings, but when not specified, the word refers to banitsa with a filling of crumbled white cheese, such as feta, and eggs. 3 Stoichkov, Az, gotvachut. 4 Rokanova, “Gotvachut na socelita.” 5 Danail Danailov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012.

6 Rokanova, “Gotvachut na socelita.” 7 Stoichkov, Az, gotvachut. 8 Stoichkov, Az, gotvachut. 9 Gospodinov, Az zhivyah, 325. Some works revealing of the privileged position of the upper classes include: Markov, Zadochni Reportazhi; and Ivaylo Znepolski, Bulgarskiat komunizum [Bulgarian Communism] (Sofia: Ciela. 2008), 275–301; the works of Deyan Deyanov, “Obshtestvoto na mrezhite I socioanalizata na data” [Society of networks and socioanalysis of the gift] Sociologicheski problemi 1–2 (2003): 72–86; Andrey Raychev, “Genezis, mutacia i degeneracia na vrorite mrezhi” [Genesis, mutation, and degeneration of third networks] Sociologicheski problemi 1–2 (2003): 5–13; and Tchalakov, “Socialism as Society of Networks and the Problem of Technological Innovations,” Sociologicheski problemi (Special issue, 2006): 343–71, among others. 10 Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers, Eating Out in Europe: Picnics, Gourmet Dining and Snacks since the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 1–20. 11 Vasil Iliev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, November 2, 2012.

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Chapter 8

Sailing Academy for Waiters The Brief Firtation of the Communist Regime with Luxury Cruising

B

fig. 66.  An advertisement leaflet of

Balkantourist for cruises on Varna ship, probably dating from the 1960s.

edrosyan and Tsigularov are both veterans of the restaurant business. They spent their best years in Balkantourist working as waiters, barmen, and managers in the large Black Sea resorts of Bulgaria. After the state tourist industry fell apart, one of them embarked on a teaching career, while the other had to watch in sorrow as his employer, the Grand Hotel Varna, deteriorated in the rough post-Communist environment. What still unites the two men are the beginnings of their careers on the once majestic ship which, before being purchased and renamed Varna by Balkantourist, was called The Ocean Monarch. And this is what they are now recalling. On the inside she was paneled in mahogany, decorated with noble brass handrails, mirrors, and shining crystal chandeliers. Bulgaria bought the ship second-hand but in excellent condition from Falmouth in the UK, along with “all the serving dishes, the plates, bearing the coat of arms of the queen and the silver cutlery,” as Tsigularov describes. “They were silver, but they shone like glass! We didn’t dare to touch them… Stoyanov, the manager, said: ‘They’ll break, yo!’ ‘Why, where have we ever seen silver cutlery?!’” adds Bedrosyan, then crying out: “When she was built, she was the seventh in the world in luxury, hyper luxurious!”1 Why would a Communist regime, renowned for its rejection of luxury and for restricting freedom of travel, acquire a sailing vessel for deluxe

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tourism? The employees of Balkantourist have an explanation for this counter-intuitive purchase. “When German tourists came to rest on the Bulgarian seaside, they soon got bored and asked to travel to Istanbul,” explains Petur Doychev,2 who worked for Balkantourist from the founding of the company through the whole Communist period. According to him, at first three small ships were borrowed from the Bulgarian navy and were used to take the tourists on two-day round trips across the Borsphorus to Istanbul. But the state of these vessels made the journey quite perilous. “Our comrades liked the business with the ships as it provided hard currency. Therefore, we rented a Romanian ship,” Doychev added.3 Just one ship proved insufficient, and a second was rented from Russia, so finally the management decided to purchase one. However, the first acquisition was neither a Romanian nor a Soviet ship. The Communist administration chose a much more extravagant option—they sent representatives to Sweden, where they managed to buy the old, but impressive yacht of the Swedish king.4 It was probably the ship of Gustav IV Adolf, beloved by the Swedish nation for his modesty, and yet a monarch of a rich European state. So the ship reached the Bulgarian shores with a large set of “silver cutlery, fine porcelain dining sets” on board, and with food platters, which ­according to Doychev, were meant to be carried “by

four, suitable to serve an entire boar.”5 The ship was renamed the Nesebur 6 and begun to operate. The business kept growing. Another purchase followed in 1967, of the Ocean Monarch. Built in 1951 in Newcastle, she was meant to serve 440 passengers and 266 crew members. The Bulgarian state bought her for 550,000 British pounds. The delegation that negotiated the purchase reported: “all walls are covered with mirrors, with high ceilings and good light, but lack direct light; the service tables need to be refreshed with a hand of lacquer.” They wrote that the kitchen was “modern and well equipped.” The description omits the portable objects on the ship as “they were taken on shore and packed, so the commission was unable to examine their state.”7 Others described the elegant smoking veranda that had a floor covered with a “gorgeous carpet in excellent condition,” and two opulent bars. Two elevators were installed to transport passengers to the cabins on the upper decks. There was also a luxurious cinema for 136 people, the stage of which was also used for religious ceremonies—an interesting detail, considering that before being sold to the Bulgarian state, Ocean Monarch was grounded by the British for illegal gambling activities. The luxurious objects on both ships, portable and unportable, had the same fate, and vanished swiftly after the ships ended up in Bulgarian hands. The silver cutlery disappeared from Nesebur within

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Sailing Academy for Waiters fig. 67.  An advertisement leaflet of Balkantourist for cruises on Varna ship, probably dating from the 1960s.

a year, says Doychev. “I first boarded the Varna in 1967 for its first voyage,” recalls Bedrosyan. “And I did so three years later, in 1970, and there was nothing left of its luxury,” remarks Tsigularov. The state archives do not mention their loss or any related investigation, so there is no information on what disappeared or how. But whatever happened, “the German tourists didn’t get to eat with silver cutlery,” concludes Doychev with a sarcastic smile.8 At first the Varna took tourists from the Bulgarian Black Sea coast to Istanbul and Odessa, and for part of the year, it was rented out to the Western-

German company Touropa. But soon after, Bulgarian tourists also started using it. As the state severely limited movement across borders for any common folk, the political establishment preserved easy access for itself, while everyone else had to go through several levels of vetting. The serving personnel were also subject to severe scrutiny. “There was fear that the waiters would run away. And many of those [who were eventually employed on the ship] were probably reporting to Durzhavna Sigurnost.”9 Just like Bedrosyan and Tsigularov, many waiters in Balkantourist in the Communist period

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fig. 68.  An advertisement leaflet of Balkantourist for cruises on Varna ship, probably dating from the 1960s.

started their career on the Varna. “I spoke German and English, so I had chances to get selected. But I was not a party member, so they made enquiries about me with all kinds of institutions; I waited… They approved my application only after the director made my neighborhood supervisor sign that I wouldn’t run away,” Bedrosyan explains.10 Waiters today remember the ship as a place where many of their colleagues learned their profession. Less frequently discussed was that from the very start, most of them learned another thing: how the party establishment distinguished itself from others. Against the glorious, decadent back-

ground of the British sailing casino blossomed the style and ethics of the Communist leaders. “The first secretary of the party was Todor Stoychev. During one of the journeys, he came on board with some 15–20 people from the Regional [Communist Party] committee, and some bodyguards. To be able to pay each of them 20 dollars per day during the trip, they [the management] cut the number of waiters by half,” says Bedrosyan. According to him, a member of the staff was paid 1.30 USD per day for the period of the trip, on top of the monthly salary of about 70 leva (around 60 USD). “But the Lord avenged: during that trip

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many people escaped. From my own serving area alone, 13 people remained in Italy!”11 Many years later Bedrosyan still gets upset remembering the behavior of the political establishment, who according to him, dined with swagger in the middle of the hall, arrogantly manifesting their power by asking for special dishes and eating luxurious exotic fruit while the rest were served apples. But by then Bedrosyan should have been used to this behavior. His first voyage on the Varna was in 1970, when the entire Eastern Bloc celebrated the centenary of the birth of Lenin. Ironically, to mark the anniversary of the proletarian leader, well-established Communists from Bulgaria and friendly states were granted the chance to immerse themselves for a while in the luxury of the social classes that they themselves had previously annihilated. The route that the new red aristocracy took started in Varna and passed through Istanbul, Piraeus, Naples, Rome, Nice, Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Lisbon, Southampton (with a bus trip to London), Le Havre, and Copenhagen. After Stockholm, an icebreaker assisted their passage through the ice of the northern seas. Considering the restrictions of the Communist era, when even trips to Eastern Europe required an exit and entrance visa, such a route must have sounded more than profligate. Bedrosyan just shrugs and continues: “We were also supposed to go to Helsinki, but it was reckoned to be too dangerous. So, Leningrad was our last destination. The

party activists left the ship and took the train to Moscow, to be transported by plane to Sofia.”12 Chartering the Varna to Touropa was profitable for Balkantourist. But it was far from a smooth and carefree operation. The managers’ perspective offers a view quite different than Tsigularov and Bedrosyan’s. When Balkantourist’s idea of renting out the ship was formulated, it was criticized by the leadership of Balkanship, the national ship maintenance company. Its director Premyanov worried that the crew would not be able to meet the requirements of the Western tourists during the planned cruises.13 His fears soon proved justified. Doychev recalls one turbulent summer when he was suddenly summoned by the Committee for Tourism to travel to Italy, board the Varna in Naples, and impose order. A keen storyteller, Doychev recalls how in Naples, the captain of the ship waited for him anxiously. They opened the sealed envelope, which Doychev had been handed by his supervisors in Bulgaria, and read the order: the captain had to treat Doychev as a superior until the problems were solved. And the problems, Doychev says, were due to the tips. While the waiters had been receiving hefty tips by Bulgarian standards from the passengers and were happily using the money in the European ports of call, the rest of the staff was living on a pitiful allowance of one dollar and change a day. The two sides started fighting with such ferocity

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that the situation got out of control, and even the captain was unable to calm the animosity. Doychev goes on to recall the long list of flaws he had to correct, which according to him included ice cream served in primitive military-style aluminium bowls and embarrassing attempts to save on fruit by serving them in halves: half bananas, half oranges and so on. His account is confirmed by documents on the Varna in the national archive. According to them, after using the ship for two years, Touropa complained about the quality and quantity of the food and the level of service.14 It insisted on either chartering the ship without any crew, or at least providing its own personnel for the restaurant and the hotel. In response, a Balkantourist official stated that the contract with Touropa envisaged “world class service,” which was unclear wording and left space for unreasonable complaints.15 And all this hardly comes as a surprise considering Doychev’s recollections. One colorful story is the mystery of the disappearing porcelain sets. “Whichever port we would call at, they [the personnel] would come and say: ‘We need to buy porcelain!’ ‘How come?’ I’d ask. ‘It’s broken...’ they’d say. Entire restaurant sets?!” Resolved to figure out how such massive damage could occur so regularly, Doychev dressed in a diving suit borrowed from the captain and hid under the dishwashers. “And guess what I saw? Instead of washing the plates, three workers simply opened the portholes

and threw them in the sea! After the third round, I jumped out and shouted: ‘Arrest them!’”16 However, the dishwashers on the Communist cruiser were not just dishwashers. Doychev says they turned out to be drivers in one of the regional party committees, and therefore under protection. Doychev called them to stand before the captain, but the captain did not dare punish them. At this moment, Durzhavna Sigurnost representatives revealed their identity and said: “‘Are you mad? These are our people!’ I said: ‘Fine, I won’t punish them now, but I will send a radiogram to the minister of finance, who assigned me the task to raise the serving standards on this ship!’”17 Doychev remained on the ship for months and eventually witnessed a fire that the crew at first chose to ignore, as their desire to see Casablanca clouded any worries that the ship might sink. Finally, reason prevailed, and tourists and crew were transferred to another of Touropa’s ships. The ensuing life of the Ocean Monarch/Varna was not very long. For three years the ship was used in Bulgaria in the summer and chartered to Canada in the winter. Then came a contract with a company in Malta. According to Bedrosyan, shortly before the Varna was sold, prominent members of the political establishment, accompanied by popular singers, boarded her for a farewell party. This is his last memory of the ship before she was sent away to Greece, soon to perish in a fire.

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Notes 1 Bedo Bedrosyan, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, March 31, 2013; Petko Tsigularov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, March 31, 2013. 2 Petur Doychev, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, November 4, 2013 and February 13, 2014. 3 Doychev, interview. 4 Doychev, interview. 5 Doychev, interview. 6 Nesebur is the name of a historic town on the Black Sea, which is also a popular resort, in very close proximity to the large Sunny Beach resort. 7 Andrey Premyanov, Grigor Grigorov, and Boncho Bonchev, “Inspekcia na koraba Ocean Monarch” [Inspection of the ship Ocean Monarch] (May 1967), Bulgarian National Archive, ­Varna, 16-971-1.

8 9 10 11 12 13

14

15 16 17

Doychev, interview. Doychev, interview. Bedrosyan, interview. Bedrosyan, interview. Bedrosyan, interview. Andrey Premyanov, “Dokladna zapiska: Chartiraneto na nova putnicheski korai “Varna” to OTP Balkantourist” [Report of the director of Balkanship regarding the ideas of Balkantourist to charter the new passenger ship Varna] (September 16, 1967), Bulgarian National Archive, Varna, 16-971-1. Yordan Velkov, “Dokladna zapiska do glavnia direktor na Balkanturist Ts. Sthilyanov” [Note to the director general of Balkantourist Ts. Shtilyanov]. National Archive: Varna 16-971-1, ca. the end of 1969. Velkov, “Dokladna zapiska.” Doychev, interview. Doychev, interview.

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fig. 69.  Workers’ canteen in Sliven, South-East Bulgaria, 1958.

Photo Simeon Nenov, Pressphoto-BTA.

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Chapter 9

The Canteens: Chez les mères sofiannaises Ambition and Reality in the State-Subsidized Network of Canteens

I

remember the day Ani did not show up for our piano lesson. We were supposed to play Brahms’s Hungarian Dances for four hands, and considering her enthusiastic commitment, it was hard to believe that she was not there. I had to start the rehearsal alone. In the middle of my class, the phone rang; Ani could not come because she had lice. In the 1980s, this was thought to be very shameful, as if lice would only crawl in filthy hair. That explained her delay in delivering the news. Ani’s mother had to summon all her courage to break the news to our piano teacher. Later we found out that my friend did not have lice after all; something much stranger had happened. A day before the lesson, she had gone to eat in the school canteen. The dessert was plum compote and Ani hated it. One of the lelichiki (“aunties”), as children called the female canteen personnel, decided to discipline her. She threatened that if Ani did not eat her compote, she would pour it over her head—something parents often said. And then she really did it (as parents never did). Horrified, Ani locked herself in the school lavatory and waited until the compote dried. It was only after she was sent home humiliated when a routine check at school mistook the sugar crystals in her hair for lice that she admitted to her mother what had happened. Ani certainly lived through an extreme case of Communist child discipline. Not many people were force-fed in the state canteens of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Yet Ani’s story captures the spirit of these eateries: though they did not always evoke such Dickensian scenes, they were usually unceremonious and dehumanizing. Things were different of course between the university, school, factory, or institute

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and between different types of canteens—there were often complex hierarchies among the places. The canteens were much more than simply places to eat; they were social arenas where the stratifications of an allegedly egalitarian Communist society could be found. Canteens were the first and foremost democratic form of eating for the working population, begun by the Communist state to “liberate women” from house chores in order to use them as a workforce in the state economy. The network of canteens was established within weeks of the Communist Party taking power in the country. According expert on public nutrition Hristo Hadzhinikolov, in 1947 there were 2,340 canteens and by 1949 already 3,440.1 Their number grew in the following decades, the State Statistics Institute estimated that by 1956 there were 2,379, by 1966 4,454, by 1976 5,001, and by 1986, at their peak, 6,586.2 A significant campaign to boost the use of canteens was launched in the mid-1950s, when the state invested extra efforts to make this catering system more accessible. In 1956, the government began subsidizing canteen food to lower its price. According to experts, nowhere else in the Eastern Bloc was food state-sponsored as much as it was in Bulgaria.3 The policy to keep public catering prices low also involved restaurants, and documents suggest that at least until 1970 the margin was almost never higher than 35 percent.4

Another part of the effort to popularize canteen food was to give access to factory and institute canteens to the employees’ families: wives or husbands, children, and even parents were allowed to use the benefits offered by the employer and the state. Investments in and reforms of the canteens towards the end of the 1950s were supported by media popularization campaigns. Zhenata dnes, the extremely popular women’s magazine, regularly pointed to the advantages of the canteen and industrially processed food as an alternative to home cooking. Speedy, efficient, diverse, and healthy canteen meals were promoted as a means to save time and work at home. In the typical utopian style of the period, the magazine depicted scenes of contentment and happiness around canteen tables, quite similar to early Western commercial advertisements. “A few minutes ago, the spacious dining hall was so quiet. Behind the door, the tall, neat chef Slavi has given his last instructions. Seventeen different dishes: soups, mains, and desserts are ready to be served. Plates of different sizes are arranged in the most convenient places. As soon as the bell rings, the fast hands of the kitchen workers start handing the selected plates to the visitors.”5 Zhe­­nata dnes quoted a worker saying that she took away canteen food to feed her family at home and as a result, had more time for her children. Two others, the author pointed out, are liberated from their daily responsibility to shop for groceries. “Twenty-six p ­ eople

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work [in the canteen]. They have served 2,000 portions of food today. Thousands of hours were saved by wives and mothers, thousands of hours to the women of the September Ninth factory.” The journalist went on to generalize statistics about all the canteens in the country and all the hours that “have been made free for women to care for and raise their children, rest, go to the movies, to the theatre, to educate themselves!”6 The liberation of women from work in the kitchen was regularly mentioned as a justification for the state canteen policy. Work efficiency was generally the prime motivation. “Surveys show that in those institutions where well-organized canteen service is present (the food is tasty, adequate to the type of work, the service is fast, etc.), the average hourly productivity of the whole shift is 7–8 percent higher… than in establishments where canteens do not work well or the workers eat dry food brought from home or purchased in the institution’s cafeteria.”7 Though there were cases, especially where the targeted consumer was working women themselves, when the message’s primary concern was not worker efficiency. The article quoted in Zhenata dnes from 1958, for example, does not mention work efficiency but rather focuses on the extra time that women will have to spend with their children on supervising them but also on quality family time. The state placed great hopes on the canteens. The goal was for them to feed 60 percent of all students

and 45 percent of all workers by 1980 and 90 percent and 70 percent, respectively, by 1990.8 But another survey from 1969 cast doubts on how realistic this hope was. It claimed that “only 8.5 percent of the families of married women eat lunch in canteens, and for dinner the number is even lower, barely reaching 3 percent.” 9 Another study in 1976 found that despite the availability of relatively cheap canteens, people stubbornly preferred homemade food.10 Communist Bulgaria produced a wide range of quality in the canteens in terms of cuisine, ingredients, menu, and service. The lowest in this hierarchy were school, university, and factory canteens. These were mostly capacious, as they had to serve large numbers of people in short periods of time. The halls were unadorned, with cement floors, cheap furniture, cold fluorescent lights, and, occasionally, potted geranium and ficus. While canteens were meant to feed people industrially, they were far from the mechanized nightmare that fed Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. Indeed, until the 1980s many of these places did not even have bread-cutting machines, and food was handed out by the cook from a window in the wall.11 Most canteens were not equipped with efficient ventilation, so another common feature was a strong stench of cheap soap and disinfectant, fried onions, fried fish, and the pungent aromas of cooked peppers. The soundscape was also unique: chairs dragging on the cement floor, metal plates

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and cutlery handled without care, in addition to the voices of tens or hundreds of visitors, undampened by carpets or curtains. The most significant features were the mostly female cooks, lelichki, who cooked in the canteens. These mères sofiannaises, dominating the public foodscape of the capital for many workers, students, and schoolchildren, were nothing like les mères lyonnaises—they did not cook with great care, and they were no matriarchs of local cuisine or masters of traditional recipes. They used an obligatory cookbook and prepared a limited and monotonous repertoire of dishes, just like their (mostly male) colleagues in the restaurants. Still, the usual range of canteen dishes was different: it contained much less grilled meat, if any, and consisted mostly of what a housewife of those times would hastily prepare at home. An inspection in fourteen large canteens in the steel factory in Kremikovtsi in 1970 established that in one month the visitors were offered a total of forty-three different dishes. However, the vegetarian ones mostly consisted of white beans, and 80 percent of those with meat were repeated daily. The study criticized the cooks, considering that they had access to a manual of some 1,300 recipes, but they preferred to cook “the least laborious ones.”12 The experts pointed out that given the limited personnel and the lack of mechanization in the canteens, it would be “almost impossible to pro-

duce a greater assortment” of good quality food to feed the over 15,000 daily visitors. But they also said that in smaller-scale canteens, the diversity of food was even smaller.13 Factory canteens were not prestigious, but they were unavoidable. The large factory compounds were often far from commercial zones and offered no alternative except meals brought from home. The situation was different in schools, where eating was more a matter of choice, and it was not unusual for parents to forbid their children to eat in the canteens. Despite the state’s alleged commitment to feminism, the patriarchal order in the country remained quite intact. Many mothers thought it was a matter of honor to provide food at home for their children. As a result, school canteens came to be considered places for children who lacked parental care. With the typical urban snobbery of the time, the residents of the city center looked down on those who lived in the outer zones, where the working class homes were concentrated, and where children were sometimes forced to eat at the canteens. They also reasonably mistrusted the quality of the food and the treatment, as my piano-mate Ani’s experience shows. Not all children agreed, but it was hardly their choice to make. “I remember suffering in my first year in school because all my classmates, who came from afar, had to eat in the canteen. My parents though did not allow me to go, claiming that the

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fig. 70.  Machines for soft drinks installed by Balkantourist in several locations across the country in the 1980s.

Private photo, Imaginary Archive.

food is bad,” recalls Angel Kugyiski.14 “There was a boy called Gosho. He spoke a Bulgarian that I didn’t understand and I found this fascinating. One day I went with him to the canteen. Then my parents made a lot of trouble because of this.” The university canteens echoed this situation to a degree, as students who lived in the towns they

studied in hardly used their services. Instead, they mostly ate at home or in restaurants. In their eyes, the university canteen was a terrible place, better to avoid.15 But for students who came from the countryside the situation was different. Resettlement in the capital was restricted by laws, and studying in a

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university was one of the few ways to get permission. Thus, for many young people, the coupons for the university canteen were a precious treasure, part of the life in the big city they so desired, proof they had come of age and moved up in life. Somewhere between the workers’ canteens and those in research institutes and administration were the “public kitchens.” Launched as an urban service for take-away food, they were opened with much pomp and circumstance. However, they failed to garner any enthusiasm from housewives, who frowned on them and were suspicious of their cooking methods. Lacking the captive audience of the factories, they never played an important role in urban areas. Recalling the opening of one central public kitchen on Asen Zlatarov street in Sofia in 1961, journalist Evgenia Manolova remembered the orchestra that was brought to celebrate the event and the banner that read “The Socialist Woman is Being Liberated from the Burden of the Kitchen!” Her mother purchased a three-tiered lunchbox and brought home food from the kitchen, burned meatballs and potato salad, which were met with cold sarcasm by her grandmother. The family did not continue to use the public kitchen, which in the following months underwent a curious evolution. “When the kitchen opened, it had a counter and a small table with one chair, where, if you feel really bad, you could wait to have your food packed,”

recalled Manolova. “First on this chair appeared a man who drank beer while waiting to get some snacks. Then the tables became two. More drinking people installed themselves around them… Not even three years later the kitchen had transformed into the famed pub Zlatna Panega, known to every bon-vivant.”16 The canteens for white-collar workers significantly surpassed the others in quality. Generally quite decent, they are remembered as desirable places, the coupons for which were sometimes traded behind the counter, and where people were smuggled inside to eat. Not surprisingly, the canteen hierarchy was topped by the canteens of the government and party institutions. They often served fewer people than those in the universities and factories, allowing for a much higher quality of food and service. Particularly interesting was the case of the Ministry of Agriculture. Supervising the state hunting reserves and the forests, its restaurant often ended up with game on the menu. Katerina Gadzheva, whose mother worked at the ministry at the time and sometimes treated her to lunch, recalls that there was game “every day.” “There were always dishes with deer, with bear meat.” She says she found the food there “the most delicious that I ever ate.” It seemed to her though that the employees, who dined there regularly, did not make much of it. Still she recalls that the game attracted vis-

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itors, and at night there were often parties in the ministry.17 Perhaps the best canteen, or at least the most desired one, is widely remembered as that of the Council of Ministers. It was in fact not even called a canteen, rather a restaurant. It is remembered for the polite and smooth service, for its chic interior, and the selection of wines at a time when even the best restaurants would offer simply “red” and “white” wine.18 The different quality of service and food in the canteens across the country quite clearly reflected the social hierarchies created by the Communist state. The distinction was clearly class based. Unlike the restaurants, which at least in theory everyone had access to, the canteens’ hierarchy of clientele reconfirmed the new class divisions of Communist Bulgaria. Their disparities clearly distinguished urban and rural, blue- and white-collar workers, and those with power and everyone else. Though experiences of eating in the canteens varied, it seems that negative memories dominate. More importantly, many adults shared suspicions of the cooking practices and preferred to feed their families at home. In my interviews with 23 adult women who ran households in the 1970s and 1980s and who came from all walks of life, I found that all of them had access to canteen food during that time. None of them, though, used canteen food to avoid having to cook. A few of them had taken

such meals home for a short period of time as a last resort when they could not cook. “I did so when I lived in a rented kitchen and used the stove to store my books,” one of them explained.19 Taste, cooking practices, ingredients, and hygiene were the usual subjects of the women’s criticism of the canteens. But even those, who recalled good-tasting and “ridiculously cheap” meals, or seemed to have found the canteens’ food acceptable, considered it improper for feeding a family.20 In his research on domestic migration, Bulgarian historian Nikolay Nenov argued that it was “the artificiality of the city in the modern era, which has penetrated even physiology,” and this artificiality repulsed those who were unused to urban life and pushed them to keep the village as a source of their food supplies.21 But the recollections of the women in my survey indicate that it was more firsthand experience than abstract fear that led them away from the food offered to them by the state which was supposed to make their lives easier in the kitchen. Sometimes such experiences were personal; at other times they were shared within the closer social circles. Lilia Dencheva recalled reading a story in the newspaper that shook her deeply and shaped her attitude toward canteen food.22 The article discussed canned mushrooms and argued that eating in a canteen is safer because one bad can of mushrooms would not cause any one person to die

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but rather just cause slight stomach aches for many people. She was shocked by this logic. She also thought that people were encouraged to eat in canteens so that foodstuffs could be used completely. Many women’s recollections were related to their own unsatisfactory experience as consumers of canteen food. Also, numerous stories of people who had been involved in professional cooking in the canteens circulated and deepened consumers’ distrust. It was thought that canteen workers stole the best food and supplies and cooked with the lesser quality ingredients that remained. Dani Tsacheva recalled how a relative of hers worked in the kitchen of an orphanage and wept daily because of what the routine theft by other staff of butter, meat, and other precious ingredients meant for the helpless children.23 The state practice of sending people to brigades and forcing white-collar workers to do seasonal blue-collar jobs meant that most Bulgarians had first-hand experience with Communist industry. All generations and classes, except the political establishment in the later years, were involved in production and agriculture for periods of time. Having personally encountered the neglect, lack of morals, and professional ineptitude of the Communist food industry, people needed no abstract reasons to fear it. Even if the canteen system grew into a major network during Communist rule, it was mostly used as a last resort.

Notes 1 Hristo Hadzhinikolov, Rabotnicheskoto Stolovo Hranene [Workers’ canteen nutrition] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1983), 15. 2 National Statistics Institute (NSI), Statisticheski godishnik [State statistics yearbook] (Sofia: NSI), 1969, 1979, 1989, available online at http://statlib.nsi.bg:8181/bg/index.php.. 3 Hristo Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na centralizatsiata i koncentratsiata na proizvodstvoto na obshtestvenoto hranene v Bulgaria” [Problems of the centralization and concentration of production in public catering in Bulgaria] Institute for Scientific Research in Trade and Public Catering, 1970, Central State Archive, Sofia (CSA) 707-1-30, 7. 4 Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na centralizatsiata,” 6. 5 M. Koleva, “Spesteni chasove” [Spared hours], Zhenata dnes, no. 2 (February 1958): 8–9. 6 Koleva, “Spesteni chasove,” 8–9. 7 Hadzhinikolov, Rabotnicheskoto stolovo hranene, 10. 8 Hadzhinikolov, “Problemi na centralizaciata.” 9 “Sustoyanie i tendentsii za razvitie na potrebitelskoto tureen na kulinarni izdelia” [State and trends in the development of consumers’ demand of culinary produce] (1969, Sofia) CSA 707-1-136. 10 Maria Dinkova, Suvremennoto bulgarsko semeystvo [The contemporary Bulgarian family]. (Sofia: Otechestven front, 1976). 11 Todor Stefanov, Katerina Georgieva, and Georgi Statkov. “Obshtestvenoto hranene v MZ Lenin v Pernik” [Public catering in the metallurgical factory “Lenin” in Pernik]. Ikonomicheski zhivot no. 12, March 15, 1972. 12 “Doklad za rezultatite ot provedenoto kompleksno izsledvane i kritichen analiz v sistemata na DTO “Obshtestveno hranene” prez 1969 [Results from a study and critical analysis in the “Public nutrition” system in 1969] (Sofia: Ministry of Interior Trade, 1969), 20. 13 “Doklad za ‘Obshtestveno hranene’.” 14 Angel Kugiyski, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, March 25, 2013. 15 The university canteens were a routine object of ridicule. One popular joke goes: Two cockroaches—one fat and one meagre—converse. The fat one says: “My life is good. I live in a restaurant. Every time I throw myself in the soup, the customer shouts: ‘Waiter! A cockroach!’ and I get all the soup for myself.” The other cockroach sniffs. “I live in a university canteen. I avoid throwing myself in the soup. As soon as I do it, a student grabs me and shouts: ‘meat!’” 16 Evgenia Manolova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014.

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17 Katerina Gadzheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, ­Sofia, April 24, 2012. 18 Tamara Ganeva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Brussels, September 21, 2012. 19 Lilia Dencheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, May 2, 2015. 20 Rayna Gavrilova, interview by Albena Shkodrova (in writing), Sofia, October 16, 2012.

21 Nikolay Nenov, “Strahut of industrialnia grad v biografichnia razkaz na migranta” [Fearing the industrial city in migrants’ bio­graphies] Izvestia na Regionalen istoricheski muzey Ruse, no. 10 (2006): 269–74. 22 Dencheva, interview. 23 Dani Tsacheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Elena, March 17, 2016.

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Chapter 10

Tripe Treats

R

fig. 71.  The inner court of Hotel

Trimontsium, on the side of which operated the legendary Bumbarnika. Photo from the album “15 Years Socialist Bulgaria”, 1959.

aised in the last two decades of Communist Bulgaria, I have no recollection of when I first tried tripe soup. It has always been around— spicy, steaming, and pungent. Shkembe chorba, the Bulgarian version of tripe soup, was never cooked at home. However, it was ubiquitous, offered all around the city in, even by Communist standards, unpretentious joints. It was hard to see in these places through the cigarette smoke and steam from the cauldrons that hung like a thick fog on cold days. There was also a constant cacophony: music playing on the radio and chairs dragged on the cement floor so loud that that people had to shout. Once in a while, I ended up in these places—I loved the soup and these visits made me feel like an adult. Eating in a shkembedzhiynitsa—as these joints were commonly referred to—felt like a rebellion, like freedom. I do not think I was aware of why that was, and only much later did I find out. Before the development of modern urban culture around the end of the nineteenth century, tripe was not widely consumed in Bulgaria. There was evidence that it was considered offal and was used mainly by the poor people, and not necessarily as food. The Bulgarian writer Zahari Stoyanov described poor people stretching animal stomachs on their windows instead of glass panes, which they could not afford.1 The autobiographical writings of another writer, Pavel Vezhinov, suggest that the situation persisted in the countryside into the 1920s, when cow guts and stomachs were summarily thrown in the gutter by butchers. “We only had to find and catch them in time in the dirty, reeking water. We did that with

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iron hooks or just with hands.” Vezhinov recalls his playmates taking the catch home in buckets, “They didn’t eat it, of course, although I am not sure about that. Their mothers would boil it, mince it, and feed it to the hens. Never did I see again such strong and well-fed hens as those from my neighborhood. Rancorous from the food, the local cocks grew combative.”2 However, by the end of the nineteenth century, tripe soup must have been on the rise in major Bulgarian towns, borrowed from Istanbul. The capital of the Ottoman Empire held a special place in the hearts of Bulgarians. By the 1870s, a significant, wealthy Bulgarian minority lived there, and the city was a trendsetter. Bulgarians would call it “Tsarigrad,” the city of their own rulers, the tsars, as if making certain emotional, cultural, and even territorial claims. Istanbul’s deep influence on Bulgarian foodways is evident in the first known Bulgarian cookbook, composed of recipes “as they are cooked in Tsarigrad.”3 Commenting ironically on the hedonistic lifestyle of Bulgarians in those times, the writer Lyuben Karavelov listed the drinking of rose rakia in Kazunluk, visits to the public house of Madame Klain in Belgrade, and eating işkembe çorbası in Istanbul as important landmarks in Bulgarians’ cartography of pleasure.4 Even after Bulgaria gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Istanbul’s foodways were borrowed, and shkembedzhiynitsi, the name

copied from the Turkish işkembe salonu, were everywhere in Sofia between the World Wars.5 These were simple places where the customers stayed only as long as they needed to slurp down their hot and spicy soups. The kitchen was in the back, featuring large cauldrons. A counter divided it from the dining space, and there a cook chopped boiled tripe: rough or fine, single or double serving. He then tossed the pieces into a metal bowl, poured in steaming liquid from the cauldron and handed the dish to the customer. Spicy red pepper and a mixture of garlic and vinegar were usually sprinkled on top. People paid at the exit. The only difference with Istanbul, at least in the late Communist period, was that upon leaving they were not offered cloves to freshen their breath or eau-de-cologne to clean their hands.6 Among the many shkembedzhiynitsi of Sofia, the most popular before the Second World War was Damarche, located opposite the National Court in the city center. Writer Dragan Tenev described the colorful life of the place, which “opened as early as at four a.m., and often at this hour there were to be found ladies in long gowns and men in tailcoats and tuxedos, who thought it was supremely chic to gulp down a bowl of shkembe after a ball.”7 By that time, shkembedzhiynitsi had firmly established themselves as an institution and become such an indispensable part of Bulgarian urban life that they were part of urban folklore. One popular joke goes:

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A customer stands before the cauldron with soup, and waits for the cook to cut his meat. They chat, but suddenly the client notices that the cook has ab­ sentmindedly started chopping the kitchen t­owel. “Yo, chef, why are you mincing this rag?” Startled, the cook looks at his hands and quickly shouts back: “What? For 20 stotinki 8 you want me to mince you a Persian carpet?”

In the 1950s, the shkembedzhiynitsi ended up in under the jurisdiction of the centralized government, which tried to channel restaurants into a manageable uniformity. The Cook’s Manual from the 1970s specified that “the dining space should be spacious and allow easy maintenance. Chairs and tables must be of the same sort. The tables need to be covered with hard covers, such as decorative linoleum, marble, oilcloth or glass.” The book suggested that waiters serve at some tripe soup places, but insisted that all should introduce self-service. It also obliged shkembedzhiynitsi to maintain “at least two types of soups, grilled meat, and salads, three kinds of garnishes and some cooked dishes.”9 It was not only the state’s approach to restaurants, but also the radical restructuring of the city centers of the late 1950s that affected the tripe soup eateries. Not being particularly valued, they were gradually pushed out towards the outskirts of the towns, becoming associated with railroad and bus

stations, highways and industrial areas. Damarche withstood the changes long after the Communist regime came to power, but many other places did not. By 1975, only twelve shkembedzhiynitsi remained in the capital. There were even fewer of them than the most bizarre restaurants of those times, the “wagon-restaurants,” eateries arranged in old train wagons (which that same year numbered nineteen).10 The shkembedzhiynitsi also became culturally marginalized. They were considered controversial, as if tripe soup was some sort of vaguely unwise, even shameful cuisine. But they still offered extraordinary cheap food, attracting two social groups with low income: unskilled workers and rebellious intellectuals who were not loyal to the party. A case of the latter was portrayed by Georgi Markov in his In Absentia Reports, where he described the life of his friend Vlado Musakov forced to live “in cellars and attics, in narrow spaces cluttered with books, and with lights that he needed to keep on all day.” According to Markov, tripe soup was the main diet of Musakov, who consumed it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “He could never afford to go to clubs, decent restaurants, or more expensive places… I remember the day when I and Vlado, who hadn’t eaten for two days, gulped down two double–tripe soups each. Then Bubi Radev invited us to drink boza. Poor Vlado drank two liters and then felt sick.”11

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Attracting the poor, the rebellious, and the bohemian, shkembedzhiynitsi acquired a sort of romantic aura. In the 1950s and 1960s, many university students and artsy people fell for their rough charm. In Sofia, Damarche remained an important hangout for porters, factory workers, students, as well as famous poets, literary critics, and “young native writing talent.”12 Habitually gathered in the dining room, they “described it as spacious as a barracks and reeking of garlic, vinegar, and of unfiltered Arda [cheap cigarettes].” Without these scents, however, “the magic spoils,” Ivan Dinkov pined years later in his memoirs.13 Bulgarian painter Nikola Manev, who eventually moved to work in Paris, recalled selling his first painting in Damarche to a local drunkard for a pack of cigarettes. “The pack was not even full!”14 Another popular shkembedzhiynitsa, which attracted the actors of the nearby theaters, was on Graf Ignatiev Street in Sofia.15 Tripe soup retained its reputation as an excellent cure for hangovers, and hangovers were associated with a good life. Contemporary literature suggests that by the 1970s, urban Bulgarian society was divided over tripe soup and tripe soup eateries. Some considered them cool and unique, while others found them disgusting and frowned on them. Interestingly though, it seems that both the Communist elite and bohemians shared a taste for it. While pretentious dishes from European cuisines invaded the restaurant menus, the love for

offal remained eternally in the background. “Tripe soup was a special thing. You wouldn’t find it on the restaurant menus, but any time there was a party or an event, it would be the first thing everyone would ask for,” recalled Danail Danailov, who managed a chain of restaurants in the center of Plovdiv in the late Communist period.16 One illustrious example of the enduring love for tripe was Bumbarnika, a legendary restaurant in those times. In the 1950s, an entire neighborhood in the center of Plovdiv was leveled to make space for a new project, the luxurious and monumental hotel Trimontsium, meant to represent the wealth and modernity of Communist Bulgaria. Opened in 1956, the hotel was solemn and elegant by socialist standards. It was a white massive building placed in a large open square, standing as a colossal counterpoint to the crooked cobbled streets and domesticity of the old town, as if the might of Communist modernity was meant to intimidate and put to shame the chaotic life of pre-Communist Bulgaria. In 1959, however, a curious development marred its solemnity. On the side of the massive white body of the hotel grew a wild and plebeian appendix, the Bumbarnika restaurant. The main specialty of Bumbarnika was the bumbar, a sausage stuffed with offal and finely chopped meat. The fame of the place was instantaneous and sweeping. People lined up in front of its doors as soon as it opened, and it

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soon became the best loved, and arguably the noisiest, eatery in the city. According to Nikola Kyulhanov, who was a director of Trimontsium for about three decades, the opening of Bumbarnika was somehow spontaneous. At first, the idea was to use the offal that was left over when animals were butchered in the kitchens of the hotel. To utilize these leftovers, a cook named Bay Kuncho invented the bumbar. This all came about around the time of an annual trade fair. “Merchants from the entire country would gather to negotiate, having collected money for this stay all through the year. When they came, they didn’t want rooms, just keys! These were Bacchanalian nights and days!” said Kyulhanov, remembering the endless parties during those events. He recalled it was during one of these events that Bay Kuncho first made space in the kitchen of the hotel to prepare the bumbar. This is how a food of such lowly pedigree found its way into the heart of the most prestigious hotel in Plovdiv. At the time, Trimontsium accommodated state, party and diplomatic guests, as well as any elite tourism Bulgaria might have attracted. The guest book of the hotel contains the signatures of the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, of the then primadonna in La Scala in Milan, Elena Nikolay, and of many other stars that were acceptable to and welcomed by the Communist regime. “Trimontsium was like a temple for the people of Plovdiv, a church!” exclaimed Kyulhanov, recall-

fig. 72.  Nikola Kyulhanov, former Director General of Hotel Trimontsium in Plovdiv, 2014. Photo Albena Shkodrova

ing the reputation of the hotel in the decade after its opening. “When one gets up on the weekend, or especially on holidays, one would dress up, and… where to? Why, to the Trimontsium, of course!”17 The former director recalled the terrace being as crowded as a “train station,” with many tables and

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fig. 73.  Three “No Smoking” signs, with another that reads, “Vladimir Usunov, Attorney.” Place and date unknown. Imaginary Archive.

chairs installed on the square to accommodate the many visitors. Against this background, the bumbar became a great culinary star. It got so popular that the hotel director decided to move its preparation and ser-

vice to another area of the hotel, with a separate entrance from the side street. Indeed, the Bumbarnik is conceived as an appendix to the clean Communist-neoclassical body of the hotel, and the anatomical term used by Kyulhanov is apt not

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only because of its location but also because of its function, processing the by-products and leftovers of the hotel. Trimontsium had around 2,000 restaurant seats and was regularly fully booked. The supply trucks came and went, came and went. Entire trucks with pro­ duce! Today people can’t even imagine what it was like! The parties of the large companies were for 700–800 people… Add to this the 400 places left for visitors à la carte, the coffee shop, and the Bumbarni­ ka, which was bustling and hustling: it was all like a large food factory, both mass produced and special. (Kyulhanov, interview.)

The meat waste—tongues, brains, intestines, trotters, ears, tripe—were processed in the cauldrons and fryers of the addition, following Bay Kuncho’s recipe that was obviously to the taste of the Bulgarians, who three decades later continue to rave over the lost paradise of the Bumbarnik. Since the place did not accept reservations, people queued from the early afternoon to make sure they were seated. By 4:30 PM, the line had 120 people, Kyulhanov exclaimed, swearing that he had counted them. He says that most of the visitors were unpretentious, working class folk. The place, however, was a legend among bohemians, especially among artists. Traditionally, they started their afternoons at Trimont­ sium’s cafe, then around 7 PM moved to the Bum-

barnika for dinner, and finished the evening after 9 PM in a bar or other place in the old town. “The bumbars were the hit. And the city of Plovdiv itself was terribly attractive,” the painter Andrey Daniel reminisced, one of the many artists who frequented the town in the late socialist period to attend exhibition openings.18 He described partying at the Bumbarnika, which involved large quantities of bumbar and hard alcohol, like vodka, which was thought to go very well with the dish. But not only were bohemians and the working class attracted to the “appendix’s” specialty, so too was the political elite. Kyulhanov recalled how official delegations would often take a table in the restaurant and then beg to have bumbar brought from the other side of the building. Journalist Evgeny Todorov witnessed an emotional scene when Australians came to the Plovdiv Fair and tried the bumbar, and the next year their colleagues came searching for the restaurant, for the bumbar and for Bay Kuncho. When the cook heard about it, he wept with happiness.19 However, not all foreigners were as thrilled by offal as Bulgarians. Bulgarians’ predilection for consuming tripe soup with garlic in the early hours of the day has made many a foreigner shudder. “After a night of drinking, you’d go out to the place with the shkembe chorba, you’d smell it like two blocks away and I just could not—just could not do it. Just the smell of it. And my friends

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loved  it. Loved it,” recalled Mary Sherhart, an American singer of Bulgarian folk songs.20 Swede Kjell remembered that “Swedish tourists did not have a good attitude at all; it was considered lowly sort of food. I sometimes ordered brain in Plovdiv, horrifying some of them—but that was part of my show.”21 Despite its questionable international reputation, offal remained a favorite of the political elite. Though this is not implied by the declining number of shkembedzhiynitsi over time, there is other evidence for this. Kyulhanov, for example, says that people high in the party hierarchy developed such a liking for Bay Kuncho’s bumbar that they repeatedly sent cooks to be trained in his kitchen. However, the training seems to have been in vain since the bumbar was never successfully reproduced elsewhere. It is possible and likely that the shkembedzhiy­ nitsi were not removed from the city centers deliberately, but more as a side effect of intensive reconstruction, which made place for other priorities, such as malls, public buildings, and other things. In any case, by the 1980s, very few of these once famous eateries remained. Tripe also became increasingly rare. It was easier to find trotters broth or cooked lamb heads than tripe soup.22 During Communism tripe soup became, on the one hand, an icon of Bulgarian bohemians, a somewhat romantic and rebellious symbol of the “rough real life.” On the other, the modernization

projects diminished the presence and the role of shkembedzhiynitsi in Bulgarian urban life. Moving them out of the city centers towards bus and train stops, cemeteries, roads, and industrial suburbs made tripe soup gradually become associated with travel and social, cultural, and geographical marginality.

Notes 1 Zahari Stoyanov. Zapiski po bulgarskite vustania [Notes from the Bulgarian uprisings] (1884), available online: http://www. slovo.bg/showwork.php3?AuID=149&WorkID=3866&Level=1 (last accessed 20 Dec., 2020) 2 Pavel Vezhinov, “Kak se previrna na more” [How it became a sea], in Izbrani proizvedenia v chetiri toma [Selected writings in four volumes] (Sofia: Bulgarski pisatel, 1977), vol. 3, 231. 3 Petko Slaveykov, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za gostbi vsyakakvi spored tova kak go pravyat v Tsarigrad [Cookbook, or instructions on various dishes, as they are prepared in Tsarigrad] (Istanbul: Macedonia, 1870). 4 Lyuben Karavelov, Mamino detentse [Mommy’s boy] (Sofia: Bulgarski pisatel, 1973 [1876]), 3. 5 Dragan Tenev, Tristahilyadna Sofia mezhdu dvete voyni [Sofia with three hundred thousand citizens between the two world wars] (Sofia: Bulgarski pisate, 1997), 285–89. 6 Zahari Todorov, “Shkembedzhiynitsite” [The tripe-soup eateries]. Blog post on Sofia predi 50 godini, accessed May 29, 2014, http://sofia50.blogspot.be/2008 /01/23.html; Evgeniy Todorov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 7 Tenev, Tristahilyadna Sofia, 285–89. 8 Bulgarian currency, currently equivalent to about 0.1 euro today. 9 Darina Yanilova and Margarita Manova, Technologichno obzavezhdane na zavedeniata za obshtestveno hranene [Technological equipment of public nutrition institutions]. (Sofia: Technika, 1975), 97. 10 Spas Karanfilov and Nikolay Portnih, “Osnovnie napravlenia perspectivnogo razvitia roznichnoy torgovoy seti” [Main directions of the development of the retail network], Sofia, 1976, Central State Archive, Sofia (CSA) 707-3-3.

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11 Georgi Markov, Zadochni reportazhi za Bulgaria [In absentia reports about Bulgaria]. (Zurich: Georgi Markov Fund, 1980). 12 Maxim Bern, “Shdembedzhiynitsa vduhnovyava poetite s aprilski surtsa” [Tripe-soup joints inspired the poets with April hearts]. Frognews.bg, July 20, 2011 (accessed July 3, 2018) https://frognews.bg/laif-stail/hrana-vino/shkembedjiini­t­s avdahnoviava-poetite-aprilski-sartsa.html#. 13 Bern, “Shkembedzhiynitsa.” 14 Elena Krusteva, “Hudozhnikut Nikola Manev” [Painter Nikola Manev]. Blog post by journalist Elena Krusteva (accessed June 10, 2018) http://elenak.blog.bg/zabavlenie/2008/09/07/hudojnikytnikola-manev-syjaliavam-che-ne-sym-pravil-ludost-.231409.

15 Todorov, “Shkembedzhiynitsite.” 16 Danail Danailov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 17 Nikola Kyulhanov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, November 27, 2012 and February 14, 2014. 18 Andrey Daniel, interview by Albena Shkodrova, September 14, 2012. 19 Todorov, interview. 20 Sherhart, interview. 21 Kjell, interview. 22 Todorov, “Shkembedzhiynitsite.” Andrey Daniel’s interview for this book also confirmed these recollections.

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Chapter 11

The Menu: Between Communist International and Rural National The Ups and Downs in Bulgarian Food Identity Construction

W

fig. 74.  A folklore performance at the Restaurant Vodenitsite at Zlatni Pyasuci resort on the Black Sea, 1967. Photo Vladimir Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

hen the Soviet-supported Communist regime was established in Bulgaria in the late 1940s, the idea of a Bulgarian national cuisine was still in the making. The consolidation of the modern country had taken place in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when one territory after another gained independence from the Ottoman empire and merged into the new Bulgarian state. Bulgarian national identity, in a manner typical of romantic nationalism of that time, had incorporated two significant components: resentment of the nation’s previous status and a striving for a sort of modernity comparable to those of other European countries. Much of the popular culture of Bulgaria in that period focused on defining the cultural differences between the nation and its former rulers, the ethnic Turks and the Ottoman Empire. However, the early Bulgarian cookbooks of the period, which did not denigrate long traditions, kept these ideological trends at a distance. The first authors, intellectual Petko Slaveykov and the inn-keeper Dimitri Smrikarov, saw no conflict between the Ottoman legacy and their vision of Bulgarian urban modernity. On the contrary, the food culture of the Ottoman empire’s capital Istanbul was perceived as a standard for modernity.1 The first ever Bulgarian cookbook illustrated this with its title: Cook-

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book or Advice on Dishes of all Sorts as They Are Prepared in Tsarigrad.2 Its very purpose was to develop the quality of cooking in urban Bulgaria, and translating the insights of the Sultan’s palace cuisine, as appropriated by the urban elite of Istanbul, was seen as a central part of this project.3 The Bulgarian merchant Smrikarov, who spent periods of his life in Istanbul, Sarajevo, and at the Rila monastery, published his cookbook in Belgrade, and placed Ottoman cooking traditions front and center. Mixing recipes from Istanbul and Sarajevo, Muslim and non-Muslim sources, he produced a body of cooking instructions that can best be described as Balkan.4 In fact neither Slaveykov’s or Smrikarov’s books,5 nor those by others in the subsequent three decades, attached Bulgarian national identity to foods. On the contrary, some authors explicitly denied any valuable culinary knowledge in the country. They positioned themselves as writing on a culinary tabula rasa. “Our grandfathers and great-grand­ fathers lived in a dark age, when nothing good could have sneaked through, while now this is no longer so,” radically stated the foreword to a 1895 cookbook,6 and these words were echoed quite literally in further publications for over thirty years. Particularly critical of the national foodways were the cooking manuals addressed to the rural population. A cookbook from 1919 described the Bulgarian countryside as a land of plenty, pop-

ulated by hard working people ignorant in matters of food.7 These industrious laborers are not to blame, pointed out the author of the foreword, suggesting that the educated classes, who were supposed to promote knowledge, bore responsibility for the appalling state of Bulgarian rural cooking. Even more radical was the introduction of the Short Guide to Cookery, which stated that Bulgarian peasant women were able to cook nothing but the simplest dishes, drowned in oil and spiced with disturbing amounts of paprika. “Overall the Bulgarian diet is comprised of entirely tasteless dishes, cooked without any care and variety of ingredients.”8 But if the idea of national food was to be ignored or regarded as unworthy of discussion for years to come, the establishment of the nationstate brought another important development: the increasing alignment of culinary advice standards with those of Western Europe. The most obvious evidence for this was the nature of the recipes featured, most of which were of Western rather than of Near and Middle Eastern origin. They were combined with other explicit references to the West: to be educated in Western cooking schools was portrayed as an asset, and the Western culinary tradition was seen as the most sophisticated. The cookbooks published in Bulgaria in the first decades of the twentieth century often presented simple recipes with relatively basic ingredients that were available in the country, indicating that

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The Menu fig. 75.  A cook roasts meat on a spit at the Restaurant Vodenitsite at Zlatni Pyasuci resort on the Black Sea, 1967. Photo Vladimir Ivanov, Pressphoto-BTA.

they tried to build upon established local cooking practices. Nevertheless, they were written by people who had embraced the cause of improving the nation’s diet and foodways. Cookbooks influenced by the vegetarian movement and the ideas of Eduard Baltzer and Leo Tolstoy shaped and reflected an entire culinary movement.9 Recipes were borrowed

from around the world, some books citing American muffins or including the favorite recipes of Hollywood movie stars, others translating the works of Escoffier, the founder of modern haute cuisine, or copying from Russian imperial cuisine popularized by the Russian emigres. These strands of innovation seemed to merge seamlessly with earlier Mediter-

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ranean, Middle-Eastern, and Ottoman influences, already reworked into local cooking practices. The cosmopolitan standards stand out especially in Marinov’s Patisserie and Cooking Guide from 1941.10 In the preface, the author outlined two European schools in pastry-making: the Austrian-German and the French, commenting that the second tended to produce “juicier, lighter and more varied” pastries. Announcing that he selected recipes closer to the Bulgarian taste, he offered an idiosyncratic collection of cooking instructions, which read like a joyful ode to the sweet pleasures of the palate—a travelogue written in a mixture of French and Bulgarian that takes the reader on a trip around the world with Egyptian flan, Abyssinian cake, Fleur d’Orange cake, and Islands’ tartlets. Indeed, cookbooks, as many scholars have argued, do not reflect directly what people cook at home.11 What we find instead is an ideology of what home cooking should be, including notions of fashion, progress, and modernity. By the mid-1930s Bulgarian cookbook authors had forgotten about Turkey and were following European fashion. But how far did the changes in their cookbooks reflect shifts in actual cooking practices and diets? It is difficult to know for certain. Some evidence suggests that rural Bulgaria did not undergo dramatic changes in those years and did not stray from a very simple everyday diet. However, the urban population developed an eclectic palette, which they took

pride in and associated with high standards. Two peculiar cookbooks offer a closer look at what was actually cooked in the urban households (probably of the middle and upper middle class), as they were both composed of recipes from housewives’ scrapbooks. The first was a collection produced for charity purposes by several wealthy women from Burgas (on the Black Sea), which shows the rich melange of influences that people in the cities enjoyed. From the Arab-Turkish malebi to Alpenblumen pudding, from tapioca dishes to Russian blini, Berlin meringues, or Swedish breads, the recipes came from all corners of the world (and often from one and the same scrapbook).12 Similar, if more modest, was the mixture of tastes and styles in the second book, published in Sofia.13 Here a publisher made use of the scrapbooks of the older generation, but the recipes nevertheless present the fusion of urban cuisine, referring directly to Prague, Alsace, and Vienna, with dishes like risotto, goulash, or medzhidie from the Mediterranean, Central Europe, or the Orient. The internationalization of this period was further enhanced by the developments in restaurants and trades in the country. By the 1930s, the bigger cities, and especially the capital, showed clear signs of US, French, and Austrian influence. One excellent source of information is the numerous advertisements in the Patisserie and Cooking Guide, which Ivan Marinov published months before the Second World War, and which reached the country in 1941.

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When he finally held his book in his hands, he must have realized how late it had come. With the war raging in Europe and with the national borders closed, the panicking urban population anxiously hoarded food reserves from the preceding autumn. Against this background, Marinov’s recipes for Cake Rothschild, Sorbet Piétage, and Tartlets Imperatrice were like a ball gown at a funeral. With the advice and the advertisements that surround it, this book captures a portrait of Sofia immediately before the war: buzzing with social life, cosmopolitan, and developing finer food standards. It is sort of a map, a route through the town, highlighting places that almost without exception disappeared in the next few years. “It is common knowledge,” states an advertisement in the book, that the two American patisseries on the central Rakovski street “introduced novelties in the art of pastry-making.” It ensured housewives that should they have no time to prepare sweets for their guests at home, any order will be made after their taste and delivered with great precision. On Tsar Osvoboditel, the popular commercial street, covered with yellow cobblestones, social life thrived. The Viennese patisserie—one of the three branches of Joseph Eduard Poslushni’s and Kosta Kostov Smolnitski’s enterprise—advertised the “Viennese taste, well familiar to Sofianites” and “our bonbons, marzipan, jam, and syrups are unrivalled in taste!” Another patisserie called “French,” popularized its slogan Chez Trifon tout est bon! [At Trifon’s all is tasty!]14

Among the multiple commercials for Bulgarian bakeries, the influence of the West is also much more evident than that of the East. The products promoted are entirely Western, and there is no mention of any of the traditional Eastern desserts, which were, and still continue to be, consumed in Bulgaria in significant quantities. Confirming the perception of Western culinary art as supreme, the Ivan Panchev and Ohrid bakeries advertised the German education of their young pastry chef to attract customers. It very well could be that the pastry shops sold many of the popular syrupy Middle Eastern delights without advertising them. But judging by the content of the advertisements, the Sofia restaurants of the time seem to have been more eclectic in their culinary profiles. One of the most popular and classy places of the period, Beer House Sofia in Restaurant Bulgaria, advertised its “first-class cuisine” as “European and Oriental, of unsurpassed quality. Drinks, meeting Bacchic tastes.”15 By 1940, the Bulgarian urban class had a strong culture of dining out—probably stronger than those of Northern Europe due to the Ottoman and South-European street food traditions, which merged with the twentieth century development of more formal restaurants. Already by the 1880s, Sofia, recently established as a capital of the modern nation-state, had eateries catering to all classes of customers. For the rich there were monthly subscription rates, while the poor were allowed to

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order half a portion and eat it with plenty of bread, which was served for free.16 By the 1930s, the gap in wealth had grown. While the wealthier classes were excelling in entertaining at home with the support of servants and modern catering, the working class predominantly lived in considerable poverty.17 Given these circumstances, the restaurant scene in Sofia continued to serve the poor working class, middle class, and bohemians, but in a segregated manner. “Kruchmi and kruchmichki [eatieries]18 could be found on any corner,” wrote Rayna Kostentseva, author of unique and vivid memoirs of Sofia during the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Judging by writings on other Bulgarian cities, the situation there was quite similar.19 Marinov’s cookbook also testifies to the practice of visiting restaurants for family lunches. In the beginning of the twentieth century, city people dined out on a bright mélange of foods from all corners of Europe and beyond. On a hotel menu from 1907 one could find Russian borsht, Fillet a la Wellington, and Crabs ragout in the Polish style, as well as the more generic asparagus in butter or strawberry ice cream.20 Western enterpreneurs worked shoulder to shoulder with Balkan businessmen: biographical writing from that era mentions Austrians, Germans, French, Czechs, Greeks, Albanians, and Armenians, among others. Somewhere along with the appropriation of Western standards, the notion of Bulgarian cuisine

started to take shape. The first signs were visible in 1917, when for the first time in history, a cookbook was published with the name “Bulgarian” on it: Bulgarian Vegetarian Cuisine.21 After this early instance, such references only appeared again in 1927. The cookbook in question, compiled from private scrapbooks, was the first to claim explicitly that Bulgarian cuisine was worthy of exploration and implied that it had a unique identity, separate from the influx of fashion and influences. There was a certain indignation in its preface, which pointed out that all the cookbooks previously published in the country were either translations or bad compilations of foreign cooking advice that was not adapted to local tastes and practices. “We still do not have a cookbook of our own, a Bulgarian cookbook. The dishes, with which our stout great grand fathers were raised, have not been put in writing. They are cooked by some of our ageing mothers, but we are certain that the ‘fashionable’ will obliterate them beyond recall.”22 But the cuisine that the cookbook 500 Recepti za Gotvene (500 recipes for cooking) presented as borrowed from the well-tried recipes of “intelligent elderly Bulgarian women”23 is precisely the mixture of European and Ottoman cuisine brought by previous fashions that had been well incorporated by that time. The cause of romantic food nationalism was taken up a few years later by another culinary author, Anna Hakanova. In 1937 she published Bulgarian People’s Dishes, practically repeating the message of

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500 Cooking Recipes, but claiming that her source was three women from her own family.24 The content of Hakanova’s book shows efforts to remove all the Central and Western European recipes. The result is a collection of generic dishes heavily influenced by the Ottoman heritage. However, her book was the first one to bring together recipes from different regions in modern Bulgaria. Although she claimed that the sources of her recipes were her mother, grandmother, and her mother-in-law, the dishes were assigned to different areas of the country. From a total of about 120 cookbooks published before the Second World War in Bulgaria, only five contained the words “Bulgarian” or “National” in their title, and four of those were published in the 1930s.25 One could argue that the discussion over what Bulgarian national cuisine consisted of had only just begun when the establishment of the Communist state abruptly halted the process.

The Communist International

D

iscussions of Bulgarian national identity were not welcome after 1944, internationally or otherwise. Since Bulgaria gained independence in 1878, nationalist sentiments led to multiple regional conflicts and pushed for siding with the Germans twice in the World Wars. None of the major Western forces wanted to hear more about Bulgarians’ nationalist sentiments.

More importantly, these feelings were not tolerated by the Soviet Union, whose army was deployed to the country in September 1944. The understanding of nationalism as bourgeois and opposed to proletarian internationalism was one of the tenets of Communist ideology at the turn of the twentieth century. Abandoned by Stalin in the late 1930s, these ideas were revived by the Second World War and in the aftermath proved convenient in Bulgaria, where they were seen as a way to solve the half century of tensions over territories between Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Turks, and Romanians. Stalin counted on establishing good relations throughout the region, and conflicts between the Balkan states, motivated by nationalist claims, stood in his way. A useful instrument in this situation proved to be the Communist International—the organization that advocated for world Communism and brotherhood of the working classes across national borders, and its successor after the Second World War, the Cominformburo. The Bulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov, a close aide of Stalin, played a central role in both organizations. After 1944, he brought home the priority of internationalism. That Communist internationalism had little in common with national cosmopolitanism soon became obvious, even on the mundane pages of cookbooks. In the period between 1944 and 1948, Stalin and his collaborators in Eastern Europe briefly entertained the idea of establishing people’s democracies

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in the new satellite countries. In Bulgaria this was a period when much of the production, trade, and land remained in private hands. So did the women’s magazines and the private publishing houses that specialized in cooking literature. But in this brief period and paralyzed by fear in the climate of political murders and extortion,26 these publications show a clear change in the tone and the direction of their output, as if frantically trying to adjust to the new political situation. This change did not help the publishing houses survive. In 1948, Dimitrov explicitly addressed them as problematic and accused them of disseminating the petty spirit of prewar bourgeois society. By this time, the state was increasingly totalitarian and soon announced a monopoly over publication activities. All private enterprises were closed and replaced by centrally designed and controlled state publishing.

Purging the West, the Crown, and Religion

O

nce in state hands, the dissemination of cookery advice was effectively stopped. Home cooking was not a priority for the Communist regime, which especially in its early stages, actively sought to push women out of the kitchens and into state industry.27 In my extensive survey of the Bulgarian national library’s catalogue, supported by frequent visits to antiquarian shops and enquiries

in my social networks, I have so far identified sixty-four books on home cooking published between 1930 and 1939 and only nineteen between 1950 and 1959. The trend continued into the 1960s, when twelve cookbooks were released, and the 1970s with nineteen titles. Even the 1980s, when thirty-three new titles were published, reached only half of the diversity of the cookery advice from the 1930s. Apart from the sharp drop in the number of titles, a notable feature of the early state-published cookbooks was the reorientation of culinary references in cookbooks towards the Soviet Bloc. The process occurred in two stages. First, the previously common references to the Western world and to the non-Communist social order of the past were removed. Next, more dishes from Eastern Europe and Soviet republics were added. The removal of references to Western fashions or cuisines is very noticeable on the pages of the cookbooks published between 1944 and 1956. A quantitative analysis of the direct ethnic and geographical references in the recipes clearly illustrates the trend. Titles published before 1948 contained such references in 3.3 percent of the recipes on average, in some cases reaching over 6 percent.28 In books after 1948, they dropped at first to 0.2 percent and then went up to about 1.5 percent.29 The trend is especially evident in the difference between the 1947 and the 1952 editions of Penka Cholcheva’s 1000 Tried Cooking Recipes.30 The first edition,

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published by her family’s publishing house, listed thirty-three recipes that named places or cuisines of Western Europe. In the second edition, released by a state publisher, that number dropped to four. The shift is also confirmed by the increasingly rare bibliographical references. The earlier cookbooks referred to a mixture of Western and Russian sources, the later, exclusively to Soviet ones.31 Another manifestation of the profound cultural shift was the removal of references to attributes of the pre-Communist past, specifically the monarchy and religion. Mentioning religious holidays or symbols of the monarchy was not particularly common in the prewar cookbooks, but did occur once in a while. “Tsar’s” or “vladika’s” (Bishop’s) indicated the elevated status or the lavishness of a dish; Tsar’s soup, schnitzel, spinach, or vladishki bread are found, along with dishes named “Marquise,” “Cardinal,” or “Contessa.” “Princess” and “Royal” were also used to indicate foods for more elevated tastes. Sometimes dishes or entire menus related to big Christian celebrations like Easter or Christmas were listed in the recipes. Hakanova’s 1937 Bulgarian People’s Dishes contained an entire section featuring particularly elaborate menus for religious festivities. Very few of these references made it into the state-published cookbooks in the following years. Symbols related to the monarchy were no longer mentioned, and the Christmas dishes were replaced

by New Year’s dishes. Only some references to Easter remained, as well as the recipe for popska yahnia (priest’s stew), which seems to have been viewed as generic enough. The 1952 edition of Cholcheva’s 1000 Tried Cooking Recipes contained three New Year’s recipes and one for Christmas, which might have made it into the new edition by mistake. No such references are found in the 1955 Nasha kuhnya 32 or in the 1956 Kniga za domakinyata.33 It is difficult to judge if the purge of these references was due to censorship or if it was a result of the author’s own fear or understanding of the ideological guidelines. The channels through which the Cold War influenced many aspects of everyday life remain to be studied more systematically. In any case, the same trend is observed in the Soviet Union, where the early 1950s editions of the most popular cookbook, Kniga o vkusnoy i zdorovoy pishche (Book of tasty and healthy food) were similarly devoid of references to the United States: historian Edward Geist observed how in the process ketchup became “spicy tomato sauce.”34

The Russian Influence

R

eferences to the Soviet Union (Russia or the republics), on the other hand, did not increase immediately. The interest in Russian cuisine dated from long before the Second World War. It is evident in many early Bulgarian cookbooks, which

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often reached eastward for advice. Russian recipes mingled with French, English and German ones on more-or-less equal footing, representing one of the several major culinary schools in the modern mix of recipes used by the urban consumer. Before the Second World War, Russian recipes accounted for between 0.2 and 0.5 percent of recipes in cookbooks.35 One exception was Teodora Peykova’s 1925 Cookbook, which featured a dramatic increase of Russian recipes, probably due to the influx of Russian refugees in the early 1920s. Some 20,000 Russians from the upper classes arrived in Bulgaria, escaping the consequences of the October revolution. A gregarious crowd, they made a strong impression on Sofia’s beau monde before migrating further north and west. Peykova’s cookbook contains recipes that were not featured in any earlier (or later) cookbook, and the names suggested links to the Russian elite36—it remains exceptional in culinary literature in this regard. In both editions of Cholcheva’s 1000 ­Recipes (1947 and 1952), references to Russia in the recipes remained at prewar levels of 0.3 percent. They only increased in the first cookbooks written during the period of the totalitarian regime: 2.5 percent in Naydenov and Chortanova’s 1955 Nasha kuhnya 37 and 1.7 percent in 1956 Cholcheva’s Kniga za domakinyata.38 For the first time in these two books, these references were more numerous than those to the Western world. This was not the case

even in Peykova’s 1925 cookbook, where 2.04 percent of the recipes referred to Russian or Soviet republics and 3.23 percent to Western countries.39 References to other countries from the Communist Bloc also markedly increased, and cookbooks regularly featured a series of Czech, Polish, Hungarian recipes, as well as some Georgian cuisine. The Socialist brotherhood, if not dominant, stood out clearly in contrast to the reduced number of Western identified dishes.

The Impact of the Soviet Book of Tasty and Healthy Food

T

he quintessential codification and presentation of Soviet cuisine occurred in 1939 with the first publication of Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche (The book of tasty and healthy food), a work personally developed by the main food ideologist and strategist of the USSR, Anastas Mikoyan.40 The book reflected his personal culinary thinking: “an eclectic fusion of pre-revolutionary Russian bourgeois cuisine, ‘scientific’ nutrition, and American industrial models,” as Geist described it.41 Reflecting Stalin’s idea to offer luxury to the masses, it was a celebration of the wishful Communist food utopia. The enormous authority of the cookbook was preserved after Stalin, when it was republished many times and continued to be perceived as the cookbook of the USSR, at least in Russia.

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The Menu fig. 76.  A private dinner. Late 1970s or early 1980s. Imaginary Archive.

After 1944, the influence of Kniga spread beyond the initial territories of the USSR. It was translated and cited, influencing the cookery advice one way or another all across the Communist Bloc. But if it was a cyclonic phenomenon in the USSR, it reached the outer territories like Bulgaria in subtle ripples not always easy to identify. Three early cookbooks of the Bulgarian Communist period show traces of this influence, although only one of them makes a direct reference to Kniga. It is Naydenov and Chortanova’s 1955 Nasha kuhnya,42 which refers to the 1950 and 1952 editions of Kniga: both quite different in spirit compared to the 1939, prewar edition.43 References are made in the bibliography at the end of the

cookbook, but it remains unclear in which way and where Kniga was used. It seems likely that a body of recipes for bouillons and soups was reworked and published in the Bulgarian cookbook.44 Direct borrowings from Kniga are visible in a couple of other cookbooks that do not quote it at all, but used illustrations from it: Kniga za domakinyata (1956) and Suvremenna kuhnya (1959).45 Mixed with local photographs and reprinted with much inferior quality than the original,46 they became an anonymous part of the visual presentation of food in these volumes. It is difficult to judge today if the most influential Soviet cookbook had an important impact on

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the general spirit of mainstream Communist cooking literature. While one can easily see similar recipes, it is impossible to know if they were copied from Kniga or resulted from parallel ideological developments in food. What makes it particularly challenging to evaluate is that Mikoyan’s book itself evolved, and as many researchers have pointed out, later editions differed in spirit from the original.47 However, it is not impossible that Kniga, in a somewhat oxymoronic way, made possible the publication of the exceptional Suvremenna kuhnya (Contemporary cuisine), so profoundly contradictory to Communist ideology.48 The author, Natsko Sotirov, was unlike any other cookbook author at the time. He did not come from the prewar cookery advice publishing business, nor was he a member of the emerging first generation of food scientists who wrote cookbooks. A former chef of the Bulgarian king, his career could have ended in 1944 as did the professional paths of many others who were close to the abolished monarchy. Luckily, the first Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov and his successor Vulko Chervenkov preferred to use his skills for their own benefit as a chef for themselves and the party elite. But as he was elderly, Sotirov soon retired to write his colossal work, which was miraculously published in 1959. Just like the Soviet culinary bible, it tried to introduce haute cuisine. And, just like its 1939 edition, it featured multiple ingredients unavailable in the Communist markets.

But these similarities underscore some contrasts between Kniga and Suvremenna kuhnya. If the unavailable products in Mikoyan’s haute cuisine were those that his ideal Communist food industry was meant to produce, Sotirov’s were the ingredients which the wealthier classes of Bulgarians had enjoyed in the past and which were lost under Communism (like game, truffles, foie gras, wine from Bordeaux or Madeira, asparagus, gnocchi, curry, and capers, to name just a few). If Mikoyan’s book constructed Soviet haute cuisine,49 the haute cuisine of Sotirov was borrowed from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and other places inaccessible to the Communist consumer. This fundamental difference provided a message quite opposite to the one of the Soviet food strategist: instead of glorifying the fictional bountiful life in the Communist state as Mikoyan’s book did, Sotirov’s work highlighted the glory of pre-Communist times and of non-Communist lands. It is difficult to judge now if the book was allowed to be published (and republished numerous times) due to Sotirov’s work for Georgi Dimitrov, but it is possible that it was in some ways validated by the existence of Kniga.

Returning to the Construction of National Cuisine

O

n the political level, internationalism d­ ominated Communist Bulgaria until the second half of the 1950s. Superficially, cookbooks appear to re-

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flect this, although considering their small number, it might have been a coincidence. In any case, no cookbook title used the words “national” or “Bulgarian” between 1944 and 1956. The references to regional foods more or less retained their prewar levels of a few out of a thousand recipes. However, slight increases could be observed. For example, when Cholcheva edited her 1000 Tried Cooking Recipes to submit to a state publisher, she substituted the references to the West and the monarchy with references to national regions—recipes associated with regional cuisines went from zero in the previous edition to nine in the 1952 edition. An indication that a new trend was emerging was the early and heavily prescriptive Communist household encyclopaedia Kniga za domakinyata, coauthored by Cholcheva in 1956.50 It introduced a significant number of invented names for dishes, which on a linguistic level implied a connection to nature and promoted an Arcadian, idealized image of the countryside and the rural lifestyle. “Shepherd’s,” “Hunter’s,” “Forest,” “Butcher’s,” and “Haydushki”51 were all terms coined around the publication of this book that were non-existent in the previous culinary literature. There is a certain contradiction in the appearance of Arcadian names in the cookbooks of Communist Bulgaria, which in those years was forceibly industrializing and urbanizing, and whose ruling class’s ideals were those of industrial modernity. Two possible explanations for this anachronism exist, and they

probably worked together to bring this new range of dishes and the entire trend to evoke and idealize the pre-industrial lifestyle. One was that the advancing modernity expanded enough in Bulgarians’ lives to make space for nostalgia for the pre-modern, not the least because the rapid urbanization displaced large numbers of the population who felt they belonged to two worlds and missed the one of their childhood or youth that they had abandoned. The other obvious explanation was the advance of the tourist industry, which created a market for “authenticity” and for “nature-related” products, and which professional cooking had to address. The professionalization of culinary advice writing was also a trend during the post-war years52 and facilitated the introduction of recipes invented for the needs of the tourist industry and home-cooking. Thus, 1956 brought early signs of the return of the national cuisine concept as well as an initial indication of how it would be reshaped. Three years later, Bulgarian National Dishes by Georgi Shishkov and Stoil Vuchkov was published as a first work on national cuisine, and it was endorsed by the modern food professionals guild.53 The book justified its appearance, depicting the national cuisine as diverse and beneficial for the absorption of nutrients. These qualities were emphasized by the authors, who claimed that the “healthy people’s instinct” had created a perfect cuisine, which had been “for various reasons gradually perverted.”54

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 77.  Petur Doychev, who passed

away in 2019 at the age of 94 years, worked in Balkantourist since 1948, for over four decades, and was considered by many to be the living memory of the organization. 2014. Photo Albena Shkodrova.

Therefore, the book was presented as a rightful reparation of the national cuisine. This reparation had reportedly taken place in a lab for public nutrition at the Ministry of Trade, where the recipes were supposedly tested before being selected and published. In fact, nearly half of them were copied from Hakanova’s 1937 Bulgarian People’s Dishes, and the only change was shortened instructions. The recipes in Bulgarian National Dishes did not list any more references to regions than most of the cookbooks before it. Instead they had adopted the policy in the 1956 Kniga za domakinyata and made references to food po selski—in the “villagers’ way,” and the “people’s.”55 Indeed, the major change was that they saw no role for urban foodways in the con-

cept of Bulgarian cuisine. From this point on, rural cuisine was the focus of the Communist national cuisine construction, and any achievements of urban foodways before 1944 were ignored. Bulgarian National Dishes did not reach many households. Forty thousand copies were published, which was a low print-run for the time, when minor titles were released with 45,000 copies and the important ones between 100,000 and 250,000. The target audience was not primarily the domestic cook. The work was very soon included in the 1960 large recipes manual produced for the public catering network,56 clearly addressed to professional cooks. This development was an indication of the state’s idea that national cuisine, like all other cultural practices

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regardless of the level of privacy or even intimacy involved, needed to be streamlined from above. The state-organized system for public nutrition, a branch of which catered to Bulgarian and foreign tourists, became the main influence on the twentieth-century idea of Bulgarian national cuisine. What was endorsed as the “people’s” and “regional” was modified or sometimes entirely invented in the kitchens of the state-run food industry. With the growth of tourism, the ruling class increasingly saw national identity as a commodity, and sought to endorse its expression on various levels, one of them being the national cuisine. There are well-documented examples of central efforts to encourage national identity. Sometimes “typical” recipes were invented, the most prominently researched example is the case of Shopska salad. This summer staple, which many believed originated from the Shopluk (the rural area around Sofia), was in fact single-handedly invented by a chef in the kitchens of the state tourist company Balkantourist.57 The efforts to forge a national cuisine intensified, particularly in the 1970s. Since the beginning of the decade, an idea had been brewing among the political leadership to celebrate the 1300th anniversary of the recognition of the first Bulgarian state in 681. A multi-volume history of the country was underway, and the Communist state was undergoing a revival of national ideals. In 1976, a colossal cultural campaign was designed, which remains one of the costliest and grandest in modern Bulgar-

ian history, that funded multiple nationwide activities and numerous monumental constructions. The consolidation of a national cuisine became part of the quest for national history. The process was centrally managed, and the professional networks related to public nutrition played a central role. In 1973, the Ministry of Domestic Trade organized a nation-wide meeting where professionals gathered to exchange Bulgarian national dishes. The intent was to introduce the recipes to public catering menus as a means to “recover, establish, and support Bulgarian culinary traditions.”58 These initiatives continued throughout the decade, spilling into the 1980s. In 1981, a congress of the Communist Party officially urged that Bulgarian national dishes be incorporated as much as possible into the public nutrition system. A particularly ambitious event was the Bulgarian National Cuisine Review in Sofia in 1981, when regional teams of professional cooks demonstrated menus over the course of two months. The final stage reportedly involved the preparation of the 300 most interesting Bulgarian dishes, and several teams received prizes for interesting and well-cooked menus.59Although there is no information on how the menus were proven to be typical for the regions, this event produced a major set of recipes for use in the tourist industry. The peak of this quest seems to be Petrov and Dzhelepov’s 1978 Bulgarian National Cuisine. The book, which is dedicated to Bulgaria’s 1300th anni-

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versary, is the only one from the Communist period that was reportedly based on actual ethnographic work. The two authors claim that the recipes were collected directly from people, primarily elderly women, across the country. The recipes are preceded by an equally unique foreword, in which the authors discuss the many influences on Bulgarian cuisine, from the Orient and the East to the West, starting with archeological excavations from antiquity to the early decades of the country’s independence. The recipes reveal the mostly Ottoman-Mediterranean components that had defined local foodways for centuries. By the end of the 1980s, the edifice of a Bulgarian national cuisine was solidly in place and bore heavily the stamp of Communist rule. A great deal of what came to be seen as national cuisine was produced in the professional kitchens of the state, which wanted to see old-fashioned Bulgarian rural life obliterated, but at the same time presented its creations as Arcadian, pre-modern, and rural. European influences, more present in urban cuisine, were dismissed, while the Ottoman ones, which to a great extent shaped rural cuisine, were implicitly acknowledged as part of the national identity.

Keeping up Appearances

I

f public catering and growing tourism contributed to the consolidation of a national cuisine, they also led to the return of Western cuisines to

the menu. In the 1960s, the number of foreign holidaymakers grew dramatically: from less than 17,000 in 1957 to 2.5 million in 1970. The national tourist industry was seen as an important source of convertible currency for the suffering state economy and, thus, had to cater to different tastes. It had to satisfy demands that far surpassed those of locals. Since keeping up the appearances of Bulgaria as a well-informed, well-to-do state was an integral part of the late Communist reality, the political leadership struggled to conceal the deep pits of its systemic unsustainability. What to put on the foreign visitors’ plates came to be seen as increasingly important. Adding popular Western dishes to the restaurant menus was part of the message that the Iron Curtain did not equal cultural backwardness. The return of the West was expressed only partly in actual dishes (as many of them had remained under descriptive names), and mostly on the level of language. Re-labelling the food as Western became part of the process of cosmopolitanizing, which was intended to portray Bulgaria as worldly. The change is clear in the contrast between two key recipe books, one published in 1960 and the other in 1970. Both were written by professionals for professionals, published on behalf of state institutions, and contained the obligatory range of recipes by state public caterers. The 1960 Cookery ­Recipes for Public Nutrition, produced for the needs

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of the public catering system, contained descriptively presented, generic dishes.60 Its 1338 recipes make only three references to Western Europe, if one does not include Brussels in the name of Brussels sprouts. Recipes for Cooking and Pastry Making, published ten years later for restaurants that catered to domestic and foreign tourists, is in contrast an explosion of references to Western Europe. There is hardly a country in Western Europe that is not represented by its name or by the name of a region, city, or town.61 Perhaps as a result of the legitimization of the presence of the West in professional literature, a similar trend is visible in the cookbooks for domestic use. In 1969, Cholcheva and Kalaydzhieva’s Contemporary Domestic Cooking included foreign recipes, predominantly Western, in each of its sections.62 In 1977, a cookbook featured two similarly sized sections of “ours” and “foreign,”63 and finally the 1980s saw a sequence of recipe collections entirely dedicated to foreign (mostly Western) cuisines.64 These efforts did not mean that the Bulgarian restaurants or households of that time cooked in the style of Escofier or produced a generous offering of Western foods. As we have seen, restaurants featured long menus but offered a very limited actual choice of dishes. Only some, mainly the Balkantourist restaurants, offered a few European classics. Those were typically “Beef Stroganoff,”

“Tournedos Rossini,” “Tournedos Sarah Bernard,” or “Steak Cordon Bleu,” cooked with whatever meat was on hand and usually without much skill or care. Their tireless but unconvincing reproduction is often remembered like an epitome of late Bulgarian Communism itself: a system that strenuously tried to cover its failures with preposterous pretenses. In the end, the development of Bulgarian cuisine under the Communist regime took a distinctive path by which many processes occurred top-down and few from the bottom up. The professionals in the middle mostly sided with the top, as cooks were not dependent on the approval of their customers—the published cooking literature was insufficient to satisfy demand and, therefore, sold regardless of its quality. The twentieth-century concept of national cuisine was formed under these circumstances, under the direct impact of political ideologies, nutrition policies, and shortages. It is indeed remarkable how little remained of the influence of Soviet cuisine and how little Bulgarian foodways appropriated from Russian dishes: most of what survived the end of Communism seems to be what was there before Communism. Despite political pressure from Moscow, which never ceased until perestroika, Zhivkov’s regime pursued the national cause rather than the Communist cause to a greater extent and with a greater degree of success.

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Notes 1 Stefan Detchev, “From Istanbul to Sarajevo via Belgrade—A Bulgarian Cookbook of 1874.” In Earthly Delights: Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, c. 1500–1900, ed. Angela Jianu and Violeta Barbu (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 376–401; Stefan Detchev, “Mezhdu visshata osmanska kuhnya i Evropa: Slaveykovata knita ot 1870 i putyat kum modernoto gotvarstvo [Between haute Ottoman cuisine and Slaveykov’s book of 1870: the road to contemporary cooking] Lettera et Lingua 11, no. 3 (2014). https://naum.slav.uni-sofia. bg/lilijournal/2014/11/3/dechevs 2 Petko Slaveykov, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za gostbi vsyakakvi spored tova kak go pravyat v Tsarigrad [Cookbook, or instructions on various dishes, as they are prepared in Tsarigrad] (Istanbul: Macedonia, 1870). “Tsarigrad”, literarally, “the city of the tsar,” was the Bulgarian name of Istanbul at the time. 3 Detchev, “Mezhdu visshata osmanska kuhnya.” 4 Detchev, “From Istanbul to Sarajevo,” 388. 5 Dimitri H. Jonov Smrikarov, Dodatŭci na zlatnia izvor [At the golden source] (Belgrade, 1874). 6 Domashna gotvarska kniga [Home cookbook] (Sofia: Bulgarian Almanach, 1895). 7 Ivanka Ilieva, Stefana Hristova, and Josephine Rosenthal, Prigotvyane na yastia ot kartofi [Recipes for potato dishes] (Sofia Mobile Agricultural College, 1919), 3. 8 Tsveta Tsocheva, Kratki uputvania po gotvarstvo [A short guide to cookery] (Izgrev: Pleven, 1925), 3. 9 Eduard Balzer, Vegetarianska gotvarska kniga za lyubitelite na prirodosuobraznia zhivot [Vegetaian cookbook for the lovers of nature-friendly life] (Sofia: Balkanska tribuna, 1907); Ivan Bozhinov, Prakticheska gotvarska kniga i vegetarianska kuhnya [Practical cookbook and vegetarian cuisine] (Sofia: Ivan Bozhinov, 1908); Rayna Stefanova and Ilia Stevanov, Bulgarskata vegetarianska kuhnya [Bulgarian vegetarian cuisine] (Sofia: Chomonev, 1917); Stefana Hristova, Zelenchutsi: 90 Retsepti [Vegetables: 90 recipes] (Sofia: Union, 1926); Dimkova, Nova vegetarianska gorvarska kniga, among others. 10 Marinov, Rukovodstvo po sladkarstvo i gotvarstvo [Patisserie and cookery guide]. (Sofia: Pechatnitsa Pravo, 1940). 11 Appadurai, “How to Make a National Cuisine”; Albala, “Cookbooks”; Shkodrova, “From Duty to Pleasure.” 12 250 Izpitani retsepti [250 tried recipes] (Burgas: Women’s Charity Society, 1938). 13 500 Retsepti za gotvene [500 cookery recipes] (Sofia: Vestnik za zhenata, 1927). 14 Marinov, Rukovodstvo.

15 Marinov, Rukovodstvo. 16 Rayna Kostentseva, Moyat roden grad Sofia [My hometown Sofia] (Sofia: Riva, 2008 [1979]). 17 This is confirmed by numerous biographical documents, which are part of the National Memory archive of the Institute for Critical Sociological Studies in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, collected between 2008 and 2011 by sociologist Galya Misheva. 18 Kruchma is the Bulgarian word for an unpretentious restaurant, an eatery. Kruchmichka is a diminutive from kruchma. 19 Another example is Nikola Alvadzhiev, Plovdivska hronika [Plovdiv chronicles] (Plovdiv: Hristo Danov, 1984). 20 Alvadzhiev, Plovdivska hronika, 134. 21 Stefanova and Stefanov, Bulgarskata vegetarianska kuhnya. 22 500 Retsepti za gotvene. 23 500 Retsepti za gotvene, 3. 24 Ana Hakanova, Bulgarski narodni gostbi [Bulgarian people’s dishes] (Sofia: Vestnik za chenata, 1937). 25 The titles, not yet mentioned, included: Moyata kuhnya: bulgarska, nemska, vegetarianska [My cuisine: Bulgarian, German, vegetarian] (Sofia: Magazine Domakinya i Mayka, 1934); A. Petrushev, Narodna divechova kuhnya [People’s game cuisine] (Belogradchik: St. Kamenov, 1939); Teodora Peykova, Gotvarska kniga: Novi izpitani retsepti; Bulgariska narodna kuhnya. [Cookbook: New, tested recipes; Bulgarian people’s cuisine] (Sofia: Pasko Dinchev, 1942). 26 Liliana Deyanova, “1948: Simvolna euforia, simvolen teror” [1948: Symbol euphoria, symbol terror]. Kultura i Kritika (2005), 3. (https://liternet.bg/publish14/l_deianova/1948.htm). 27 Albena Shkodrova, “From Duty to Pleasure in the Cookbooks of Communist Bulgaria: Attitudes to Food in the Culinary Literature for Domestic Cooking Released by the State-Run Publishers between 1949 and 1989.” Food, Culture & Society 21, no. 4 (August 8, 2018): 468–87. 28 The analysis is based on several popular titles from the period: Teodora Peykova, Gotvarska kniga [Cookbook] (Sofia: Ikonomia i domakinstvo, 1925); Bogdana Kassurova, and Spaska Dimchevska. Gotvarska kniga s polezni uputvania za mladata domakinya [Cookbook with useful advice for the young housewife] (Sofia: Knipegraf, 1933); Stefana Yakimova, Kalendar po gotvarstvo [Cooking calendar] (Sofia: Zhena i dom, 1937); Cholcheva and Surbinova, 555 Izpitani retsepti; Penka Cholcheva, 1000 Izpitani retsepti za gotvene [1000 tried cooking recipes] (Sofia: Hristo Chochev, 1947). 29 Penka Cholcheva, Nay-nova gotvarska kniga [A new cookbook] (Sofia: Zhenata dnes, 1949); Cholcheva, 1000 Izpitani retsepti za gotvene (1952 edition); Ivan Naydenov and Sonya Chortanova, Nasha kuhnya [Our cuisine] (Sofia: Medicina I Fizkultura, 1955);

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Penka Cholcheva and Al. Ruseva. Kniga za domakinyata [The housewife’s book] (Sofia: Otechestven front, 1956). 30 Cholcheva, 1000 Izpitani retsepti (1947 and 1952). 31 An example for the former (Western and Russian sources) is Dimkova, Nova vegetarianska. For the latter (Soviet sources), Naydenov and Chortanova, Nasha Kuhnya. 32 Naydenov and Chortanova, Nasha kuhnya. 33 Cholcheva et al., Kniga za domakinyata. 34 Edward Geist, “Cooking Bolshevik: Anastas Mikoyan and the Making of the Book about Delicious and Healthy Food,” The Russian Review 71, no. 2 (April 2012): 295–313. (https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-9434.2012.00654.x.) 35 The example of the first is Kassurova and Dimchevska, Gotvarska kniga, of the second is Yakimova, Kalendar po gotvarstvo. 36 Albena Shkodrova, “Investigating the History of Meanings of a Dish: An Enactivist Approach to the Life of the Russian Salad in 20th-Century Bulgaria.” Volkskunde, no. 3 (2018), 351. 37 Naydenov and Chortanova, Nasha kuhnya. 38 Cholcheva et al., Kniga za domakinyata. 39 Shkodrova, “Investigating the History.” 40 Abaturov et al., Kniga o vkusnoy. E.L. Hudyakov, B.V.Vilenkin, M.I. Pevzner, and O.P. Molchanova, eds., Kniga o vkusnoy i zdorovoy pishche [Book of healthy and delicious food]. (Moscow, Leningrad: Pishchepromizdat, 1939). 41 Geist, “Cooking Bolshevik,” 42 Naydenov and Chortanova, Nasha kuhnya. 43 Irina Glushchenko, Obshchepit: Mikoyan i sovetskaya kuhnya [Obshchepit: Mikoyan and the Soviet cuisine] (Moscow: Economy High School, 2010). 44 Naydenov and Chortanova, Nasha kuhnya, 118–123, 135–136. 45 See Cholcheva et al., Kniga za domakinyata, 128 (as one example); See also Natsko Sotirov, Suvremenna kuhnia [Contemporary cuisine] (Sofia: Tehnika, 1959), 321. 46 At least in the case of Sotirov, Suvremenna kuhnya. 47 Geist, “Cooking Bolshevik”; Glushchenko, Obshchepit; Jukka Gronow and Sergey Zhuravlev, “The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food: The Establishment of Soviet Haute Cuisine,” in Educated Tastes: Food, Drink, and Connoisseur Culture, ed. Jeremy Strong (Lincoln–London: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 24–56. 48 Sotirov, Suvremenna kuhnya. 49 Gronow and Zhuravyev, “The Book.”

50 Cholcheva et al., Kniga za domakinyata. 51 Hayduk was the word used for rebels and fighters for national freedom during the nineteenth century, who mostly lived secret lives in the wild, hiding in woods, hunting, and murdering Turks in surprise attacks on the roads. 52 Shkodrova, “From Duty to Pleasure.” 53 Georgi Shishkov and Stoil Vuchkov, Bulgarski natsionalni yastia [Bulgarian national dishes] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1959). 54 Shishkov and Vuchkov, Natsionalni yastia, 7–8. 55 Cholcheva, and Ruseva, Kniga za domakinyata. 56 Stefan Boyadzhiev, Zahari Zahariev, Stoil Vuchkov and Georgi Shishkov, Sbornik gotvarski retsepti za zavedeniata za obshtestveno hranene [Cookery recipes for the public catering] (Sofia: Profizdat, 1960). 57 Stefan Detchev, “Bulgarian, but not Exactly Shopska: About One of the Culinary Symbols,” Bulgarian Folklore [Български фолклор] no. 1 (2010): 125–40. 58 Petrov et al., Bulgarska natsionalna kuhnya, 9. 59 303 Retsepti za yastia ot bulgarskata natsionalna kuhnya [303 recipes for dishes from the Bulgarian national cuisine] (Sofia: Ministry of Domestic Trade and Services, 1983), 3–4. 60 Boyadzhiev et al, Sbornik. 61 Dimitur Moshlev, Pavlina Popova, Kiril Bozhilov, Nenyu Karaivanov, Panayot Penchev, Siyka Popova, Subi Nikolov, and Petko Nikolov, Recepturnik po gotvarstvo i sladkarstvo [Recepies for cooking and pastry making] (Sofia: Technika, 1970). 62 Penka Cholcheva and Tsvetana Kalaydzhieva, Suvremenna domashna kuhnya: 2000 Bulgarski i chuzhdestranni retsepti [Contemporary domestic cooking: 2000 Bulgarian and foreign recipes] (Sofia: Tehnika, 1972). 63 Sonya Chortanova and Nikolay Dzhelepov, Nashata i svetovna kuhnya i ratsionalnoto hranene [Our and the world’s cuisine and rational nutrition] (Sofia: Meditsina i fizkultura, 1977). 64 Libuse Vlahova and Augustin Wolf. Kakvo se gotvi v Evropa [What Europe cooks] (Sofia: Meditsina i fizkultura, 1982); Yuliana Fialova, Kuhnyata na gastronoma [The gastronomer’s cuisine] (Sofia: Meditsina i fizkultura, 1984) (both translated from Czech); Nie gotvim dobre [We cook well] (Sofia: Meditsina i fizkultura, 1984). (Translated from the original German edition: Wir kochen gut [Berlin: Verlag für die Frau, 1968].

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fig. 78.  Domestic canning of fruits. Probably the 1980s. Imaginary Archive.

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Chapter 12

The Canning Season Food Preserves as Urban Art

P

icture this: a city landscape, asphalt road encircles several condominium blocks. Between them is a shabby playground, a lawn with some patches of grass, and a few battered benches at the edge of the disintegrating pavement. Sacks of vegetables lean against the walls of the nearby building. In the middle of the pavement, women are sitting on make-shift chairs around a fire. Bent over the iron plate suspended above the fire with a few cobblestones, they tend to neat lines of roasting peppers. Holding long tongs or iron bars, they poke and push the vegetables to blacken them evenly on all sides. Clouds of acrid smoke rise from the fire and twist between the condominium flats while the delicious aromas of roasted peppers float through the entire neighborhood. This rustic scene in the urban environment was typical in Sofia in the early Communist years, and also in later Communist decades, during a time of supposedly advanced industrialization. Canning summer fruits and vegetables for the winter occupied most of the Bulgarian population. Even in an urban domestic context, it did not just consist of making a couple of jars of a favorite delicacy. For many households it was a great endeavor on a grand scale to prepare food to sustain a family through the winter. In Communist Bulgaria, everyone was engaged in preserving food: young and old, conservatively patriarchal and emancipated, blue- or white-collar, farmers, men and women, gourmands or not. Family members dragged sacks of produce. Women queued and fought with each other and with retailers over quality, quantity, and time. Men in vests labored in hot kitchens in unusual roles, under the command of their wives. Children spent days of slavery or joyful enthusiasm, depending on their parents’ ability to present the work as fun. The whole of Bulgaria, rural or those inhabiting cramped flats on high floors of condominiums, was preoccupied with roasting, peeling, mincing, dicing, stuffing, salting, and boiling. An entire nation abandoned jobs in August and September to dive into this basic activity, which imported some part

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of village life into the city, along with colors and flavors that marked the end of summer for the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Modern urban canning was not a Communist phenomenon in Bulgaria, where the domestic preservation of vegetables, fruit, and meat was practiced since there was modern urbanity. Strings of drying red peppers were standard in Sofia at the end of the nineteenth century, when Czech historian Konstantin Jireček settled in Bulgaria and observed with amusement the obsession of the city folk with paprikas, their bright colors decorated each Sofia balcony. They were so ubiquitous and used so consistently, he pointed out, that they could be read like a calendar to follow the advance of the year.1 At the turn of the twentieth century, domestic canning was still widespread across the entirety of Europe. But the urbanization and the industrialization of agriculture filled up the shops with canned produce. In Western Europe this led to the “concentration and the professionalizing of the distribution sector, the rapidly falling number of farmers and the ever widening choice of alternatives such as canned food and fresh food.”2 Home canning started dying out and by the early 1950s had as good as disappeared. Such an evolution was not observed in Bulgaria. Indeed, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the city elite enjoyed imported, long-last-

ing cured meats, fresh meat produced locally, and canned or fresh vegetables from the growing number of greenhouses throughout the year.3 But these novelties remained beyond the financial reach of the poorer population. Canning of fruits and vegetables flourished or even expanded. Cookbooks were still filled with recipes for preserves. The inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods cooperated to purchase ingredients at wholesale prices and were seen dragging hundreds of kilos of products in carts, reed baskets, and in sacks, to process them at home.4 Also in the Communist period, despite the allegedly flourishing canning industry, the domestic preservation of food remained dominant. Looking back, this mass canning during a time of allegedly industrialized agriculture and food preservation may sound almost romantic or at least amusingly absurd. However, canning was not seen as a luxurious choice at the time, it was a matter of necessity. Love of good food was an optional part of the motivation; the essential one was need. Bulgarian Communism did not produce life-threatening hunger, which, considering the experience of other socialist states, should be appreciated. But the scarcity of choice during the winter and the boredom of commercially available food determined lifestyle in this period. The practice of domestic food preservation was stimulated by the regime, regardless of the ambi-

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The Canning Season fig. 79.  Homemade salami drying on

an private terrace. Imaginary Archive.

tion to free women from their kitchen chores. There are records of employers being encouraged to allow their employees days off during the home canning campaign, and the courses organized by the labor unions to improve the material culture of the people taught that “home canning makes savings to the people’s economy by making use of fruits and vegetables during the harvest season, without which they would be wasted and lost to the economy.”5 Still the official discourse was ambivalent, torn between conflicting goals. Home canning, as part of home cooking in general, was often described as prone to mistakes, unnecessary, and by far inferior to industrial canning.6

Whatever clashes took place in the ideological discourse were of little concern to the population, who did not preserve food to spare waste to the national economy and would not give it up on the advice of nutritionists. Their main concern was to survive the winter well, which many thought was impossible if they depended only on the commercial distribution of food. Although the canning industry from the 1960s onward was indeed scaled up, and by the 1980s made up 10 percent of the entire food production,7 Bulgarians did not get to make much use of it. One possible reason is that “due to the rich assortment and the high quality of the produce, 70 percent of

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it is gladly welcome in many countries—from the USA and Canada to Japan,” according to a book on the prosperity of the Communist economy published in 1983.8 Whatever the actual production might have been, consumers recall utterly modest assortments of preserved foods in the shops. The produce available on the shelve did not reflect the long lists of assortments bragged about by the factories but consisting of of just a few basics. Lilia Dencheva recalled that the selection in the shops consisted of tomatoes in glass jars and one brand of industrially produced lyutenitsa (a popular relish made of roasted peppers and tomatoes). She also mentioned green peas and then immediately doubted her own words. “There were just no preserved foods! You needed to make them yourself!”9 Many others confirmed these recollections. Few preserved foods were available on regular basis in the 1970s and 1980s, and besides the canned tomatoes (most often available unpeeled), they featured rose hip marmalade and occasionally vegetables for gyuvech (an oven-roasted vegetable dish similar to ratatouille, with additional pieces of meat). A few kinds of compote, which in Bulgaria stood for a simple preserve of pieces of fruit in syrup (typically, plums), were also possible to find. All of the popular vegetables, such as roasted peppers, eggplants, cauliflower, or fruits like strawberries, raspberries, sour cherries, and apricots were simply not available.

The variety was so consistently poor that in 1969, the main women’s magazine Zhenata dnes abandoned its praise of the canning industry and assumed a critical tone: [The] Canning Industry union needs to prepare and organize the production of much more and varied canned foods for use in daily life and also particu­ larly when travelling. For how long will our country, with its rich crops, lag beyond imagination in the pro­ duction of ready-made soups, dishes, purees, cakes, and other things? In this regard, the experience of other socialist countries should be explored. Good quality and diverse semi-prepared and ready-made foods could save so many hours for our housewives! (Violeta ­Samardzhieva, “Iztochnitsi na ikomia” [Opportunities to save ­money] Zhenata dnes, Nov. 1969, 15–16)

Another problem with the industrial produce was its low reputation for quality among the population. First-hand experience in collecting and canning, as well as with the consumption of these foods, did little to establish trust in consumers. In an article exploring the attitudes to canned food in post-Communist Bulgaria, anthropologist Yuson Jung offers an example of the typical view on cans at the time: Snezhanka said that she had never bought jars during socialist days after witnessing how workers

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worked in the plants with unwashed hands and cig­ arettes dangling from their mouths, without care where ashes might fall. Some of her friends even put insects into the jars just for fun, and nobody noticed. (Yuson Jung, “From Canned Food to Canny Consumers: Cultural Com­ petence in the Age of Mechanical Production,” in Food and Everyday Life in the Post-Socialist World, ed. Melissa L. Caldwell [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009], 29–56)

In this situation, most households saw canning as a chief survival strategy. It allowed for bridging seasons and softening the effects of the market fluctuations. It also preserved and strengthened the connection between urban and rural areas: many people regularly returned to the villages they came from or tended small gardens on patches of land in the outskirts of the city. If the delivery of fruits and vegetables from such sources was unavailable, then people simply purchased produce in the market and processed it in their narrow city apartments.

Around the Fire on the Pavement

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n the decades of Communism, Bulgaria lived through a rapid urbanization, which historians often define as “forced.” The global trend of migration from rural to urban areas triggered by industrialization was further propelled by the nationalization of land and other social engineering projects. The urban population was 24.6 percent

in 1946 and grew roughly 10 percent per decade, reaching 65 percent by 1985. To support its industrialization plans, the state embarked on the swift enlargement of urban zones. At first relatively meticulous and with bricks, and then with increasing sloppiness and in concrete, new buildings with often tiny apartments were constructed and left with unfinished surrounding areas and connecting infrastructure. Increasingly believing that success in life is only possible in the cities, many of the 1930s and 1940s generation left familial houses surrounded by orchards, vegetable and flower gardens to move into these city apartments. But once they faced the greyness of Communist city life, many of them longed to stay connected to their former lives. During the spartan earlier decades of Communism, former village inhabitants easily embarked on the project of adapting rural canning practices to the city, regardless of how inappropriate the new living spaces were for such activities. Of course, making preserves in the cities had little to do with the natural act of preserving the fruit that fell from the tree by one’s porch. The newly constructed condominiums were particularly ill-suited for the practice and required dragging sacks up steep, narrow staircases, working with elbows, hitting the wall, and storing jars in the attics of the top floors of the condominium buildings or in the cellars between the heating and sewage pipes.

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Foreigners who witnessed these end-of-summer domestic campaigns watched them with a degree of amusement. From an outside perspective, they were able to evaluate the practice as a living national tradition and an alternative to the food industrialization with all its pros and cons, which they were familiar with in their own countries. In many cases they recall it with more sympathy than the Bulgarians who lived through it. “Oh, I thought it was fantastic! Reminded me of my grandparents, because we in America at that time, in the 1970s, were not doing it…,” commented Carol Silverman. “In America in the 1970s we had very little consciousness of any kind of fresh, healthy food. People were eating . . . fast food, a lot of frozen food.”10 Carol Freeman commented on the intimacy and domesticity of the scenes: “It was cute… It was cute to be out in the street in your bathrobe… My impression probably was that this is something that they always did, that their mothers did, that their grandmothers, so they were continuing the tradition.”11 But even foreigners clearly saw that it was labor driven by necessity. “It was totally practical. That was the only way to have a tomato in the winter. It was not health-conscious at all. In America later on it got labeled as a healthy style of eating. But people did it for practicality,” recalled Silverman.12 Brody, who personally faced the need to conserve while living in Bulgaria, clearly remembers the pain of

the activity. “I don’t think it was a great pleasure for anyone to do it, but if you wanted to have tomatoes or peppers, if you didn’t can them, you wouldn’t have them. And I didn’t realize how labor intensive it was until I tried to do it myself. It’s not fun.”13 Indeed, many elements of preserving food for the winter were challenging to the urban households. But there were also positive sides to it. The first step was to secure the ingredients. For this, people reached out to different sources. The older generation in the family, who often stayed behind in the villages, supplied many of the new city folk with baskets of seasonal produce sent by train, or delivered with a personal visit to town. Around the 1960s, with the increasing affluence of the urban society, vilites became fashionable. These Bulgarian versions of the Soviet dachas were usually modest houses built on a plot of land not too far from the cities. Engineers, doctors, or teachers—the emancipated representatives of the new urban classes—swapped shirts and long trousers for vests and mesh sneakers, and went gardening. They spent many spring, summer, and autumn weekends “na vilata,” where they tended to fruit and vegetable gardens. Apart from connecting with nature and maintaining their shape in times when this was not customarily done for sport, they returned to their urban dwellings with bags, or some in the later years with car trunks full of raw or already processed fruits and vegetables.

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fig. 80.  Brigadeers work in a canning factory in the area of Plovdiv, 1976. Pressphoto-BTA.

Another source of produce was the market, which sold quite a diverse and cheap assortment of foodstuffs grown in the country, when it was in season. Often waiting in queues for what “has been released,” as the popular figure of speech went, people were purchasing nearly industrial quantities of products that they simply canned or transformed into jams, pickles, or more complex preserved foods.

In addition to all of this was the regular trouble of finding the other ingredients like sugar, salt, vinegar, and oil. As soon as the canning season began, they were difficult to find. This made people save larger quantities, which only aggravated the shortages. Once purchased, the products were dragged to the apartments, piled on the balconies, leaned against the walls in the kitchens and corridors,

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gradually overtaking a significant part of the living space. In the typical Communist apartment, the kitchen was not separated from the dining room, so the kitchen table was used to cook, eat, repair the radio, do homework, and keep the sewing machine. To endure these activities, it was usually covered with an oilcloth. During the canning campaigns, the oilcloth was covered with newspapers. Pages from Rabothichesko delo (“Workers’ matters”) or Otechestven front (“Homeland front”), discussing the latest five-year plan or another political sabotage by the “rotten West,” were spread to absorb the humidity from the washed jars, to accommodate removed seeds, peels, stems, or absorb sprays of fruit juice and pits. Another locus for of the process was the balcony. During most of the year it was used to accumulate the packing materials: jars, lids, bottles, and caps. But once the campaign began it was cleaned up. The glass containers were washed and arranged under or on top of the table, and along the walls of rooms and corridors. In the meantime, the balcony was transformed into a workspace. Supplied with electricity via one or more extenders, it was prepared to host part of the manufacturing. Electric cooking plates or a specific pepper-roaster called chushkopek, a low chair, an upside-down crate covered with newspaper, a bowl of vegetables, and a member of the family enshrouded in the choking smoke of roasting eggplants and peppers completed the scene.

“Every September two sacks of red peppers were purchased (we had an installation with two chushkopeks on the dusty balcony, overlooking Stamboliyski boulevard), and terrific manufacturing began,” recalls Iva Roudnikova of scenes from her childhood in the center of Sofia.14 There was a pot and a plastic bag, in which to let the roasted peppers braise. I lined them up on the side to sweat15 so that I could save time. The entire family worked in shifts! Then: peeling over the oilcloth on the table, with a dish of cold water to dip your fingers in [to loosen the sticking pepper peels]. Many of these were stuffed in jars and some of them were used to make lyutenitsa. But the last part of the manufacture was exported two streets away, to my grandmother’s. And then in the winter this was our main side dish and salad. A hideous activity: gets you smoked, hot, you can’t read, you need to remain on alert.

(Roudnikova, interview)

At times, instead of the child, on the balcony stood an adult bent over a large cheese can or another makeshift cauldron heated with a water heater: the best way to boil the closed jars in an apartment. The attic was also occupied by the manufacturing of preserves: those who owned one usually lined up their jars on shelves along the walls, which was tidier than in the cellar. The spaces on the underground floors of condominiums had mostly

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earthen floors under (or above) the various pipe systems that often leaked. The cellars were divided into small cells distributed between the inhabitants and locked with roughly made wooden doors. Many of these dark, warm rooms hosted cats, their families, and their fleas. This did not stop people from storing their jars with preserves there, and sometimes their barrels of pickled vegetables and cabbage. Their specific odor penetrated the walls, shelves, floors, and lingered year-round in the underground world of the condominiums. “I remember the cellar, it was hot there, because the heating pipes passed there. My dad took a bucket and a hose and brought me down to help him to decant the juice of the cabbage. I still can reconstruct in my memory the stench when all neighbors washed their barrels,” said Adela Kachaunova.16 Despite the thorough adaptation of condominium flats to the food preservation, their capacity was still limited. Some families, in particular those in the less urbanized or poorer neighborhoods, chose to light fires outside. A patch of bare earth or pavement among uncollected construction rubble and unfinished public spaces usually served perfectly to install a temporary fireplace. Not all residents fully approved of such practices, and to avoid their opposition, women often allied with friends and neighbors, turning their food campaigns into communal events. Women sat

in groups, working and chatting around the fire, while men walked in circles around them, smoked and drank on the nearby benches, ready to lend a hand. Children ran around, laughing and playing, waiting to be fed with the best bits of what was coming off the fire and living through their Communist version of a scout experience. In the 1970s and 1980s in front of our condominium in Kurdzhali there was a fireplace where cauldrons were steaming at all times,” recalls journalist Violina Hristova, who spent her childhood in the south Bulgarian town.17 To save electricity, home preserves were made on a fire. A large grill was installed above it and there was a timetable. The sacks with vegetables were unload­ ed directly under the balconies and the place, also our playground, was non-stop covered in smoke. Each family was allotted one day to roast, one to peel, and then the large pot for the lyutenitsa was installed. (Hristova, interview)

The scale of domestic food preservation in small towns was larger than that in Sofia, and not because these places were necessarily better suited to host such work—although often this was the case. The main reason was that the shops in the capital city, badly supplied as they were, offered a much better choice of preserves than those in the countryside.

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 81.  Domestic preparation of

preserves. (Probably 1980s). Imaginary Archive.

Still, the positive memories of food preservation in the past are mainly associated with the smaller towns and villages, where the houses often had gardens, and where people felt more at home and spent time in the nature. The familial gatherings that often took place around winter food preparation were remembered for their ritual stirring of jams or vegetable relishes, with their epic effort and fun remembered fondly with the distance of time. “Granny would come from Sliven to Karnobat to make jams,” described the experience Tamara Ganeva.18

They gathered, my aunt from Sofia joined us too, they lit a fire in the yard. We had a giant copper tray, which was tin-plated every year, and in which the jam was cooked. On the one side was the fire­ place, on the other, the table. We, the children, sat at the table. The entire neighborhood gathered. My granny skimmed the foam from the jam. She put it aside and we, we wait! We tremble! Once the jam is poured in jars, she made pancakes. We ate them with the foam. And then grannie would say “I’ve left some jam for you!” To this we would protest: “No, no, we want foam!”

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Sometimes jam was also made while on holidays. Families went to the mountain resorts to pick wild berries and turn them in jams. The practice was so widespread that resorts installed fireplaces to satisfy the demands of their guests. So instead of bicycles, parasols or fishing rods, tourists arrived with car trunks filled with sugar and empty jars. It was usually the children who collected the berries, we were very good at it. We foraged for wild straw­ berries, raspberries, blackberries. Preparation of the jam took place on the spot. . . . We returned with full trunks of jam, sorted and with labels made of stick­ ing plaster which stated the vintage.

(Hristova, interview)

The Choreography of Preserve Preparation: A Family Dance

P

reserving food for the winter occupied the entire family, an act as well coordinated as the movements of horo. But the distribution of labor was not always equal or just. In addition to challenging the urban environment, the annual canning cam­ nity as well. paign often challenged familial u The woman often took over most of the work. To stay alert and then queue for ingredients was her first task. It was an unnerving experience, which often involved hurrying to the market, waiting in line, and arguing, paying attention not to be

cheated with the price, the quality, or the weight of the purchased goods. Then the products needed to be carried home. Sometimes her husband would help her with that. “I didn’t cook until my 50s—I worked; my mother cooked at home. But I still remember the triumph which I experienced when I succeeded in buying a large crate of red peppers from the ­Women’s market,” reminisced Kina Neikova.19 At home, the woman coordinated all the activities. Even in households where the man had the last word, a matriarch ruled during these periods. The voice of the housewife gave out harsh orders, and the gaze of the others conveyed obedience and surrender. It was not a relaxed period. “Many quarrels erupted during these campaigns,” recalled Violina Hristov. “My mom got nervous, and for days she bossed us around like an army colonel. She had breakdowns. And my father just carried on. We were not allowed to come any closer. She only needed somebody to close the jars.”20 Naturally the dynamics in different families varied, and sometimes men were more active in the preparations. But in all cases, this was a period when they were more involved in the household than during the rest of the year. “The preparation of jars was an obligatory part of our home nutrition in which we all were involved, even my ever absent father,” recalls Rayna Gavrilova. She says her family processed a hundred kilos of peppers every year

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and made a hundred jars of tomatoes for cooking purposes. Other items included at least a hundred jars of compote, mostly from peaches and cherries, and twenty jars each of pickled cucumbers and the favored relishes lyutenitsa and kyuopoolu, as well as jams of sour cherries, apricots, strawberries, and white cherries. “It is remarkable that all this produce was purchased—all, except the sour cherries, cherries, and quinces, which grew in our yard.”21 Even though men were usually less involved in the process, certain tasks were exclusively theirs. One of those tasks was the closing of jars, another was maintaining the few necessary electric and mechanical appliances. Men were also responsible for taking the ready-made jars to the familial storage place. There were also parts of the cooking that were considered to be “manly,” like the pickling of cabbage, which was often done in vessels too heavy to be handled by a woman. Also, the preservation of meat was thought to be a man’s job, especially cured meats, but it general, it was practiced in fewer households. The involvement of children in the process greatly depended on the parents, and most of all on the mothers, who sometimes made use of them and at other times decided to spare them the work. In any case, the mothers’ decision was rarely disputed. Children helped with shopping, roasting, peeling, and washing the fruit or the jars. Some people remember doing that unwillingly, while for others it

was an adventure. “In the neighborhood of Hladilnika, we, the children, came together and went from one family to another to help. While tending the chushkopek, a friend of mine and me developed an entire plot for a book—a fantasy, which we planned to publish under the title Condors,” recalls Emilia Zafiraki of her childhood in the 1980s in Sofia.22

The Equipment

T

he Communist period was the era of Soviet brands in Bulgaria. From refrigerators to shaving gear, and from vacuum cleaners to cars, Bulgarians walked the path to modernization with user manuals in Russian. But most crucial to the canning process was an instrument of Bulgarian origin, the chushkopek. The chushkopek was invented sometime at the end of the 1970s, and like most great successes, had more than one father: more than one person claimed the invention in the post-Communist years.23 This electrical device is a cylindrical vessel with a ceramic interior that heats up like an electric plate, roasting the pepper inside simultaneously from all sides. Brilliant in its simplicity, this invention was further enhanced, and one of the later models was a “Mercedes” upgrade: its compartment was able to fit three peppers at a time, instead of one, roasting each of them on all sides thanks to its construction, which from above resembled the Mercedes logo.

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The Canning Season fig. 82.  Domestic preparation of preserves. (Probably 1980s). Imaginary Archive.

The device was an instant success, and people queued for it just like they did to purchase a Lada car, a washing machine, or refrigerator. But not everyone was equally enthusiastic. Particularly irritating to many was the name of it, chushkopek, which sounds like a word resurrected from the dictionary of a language purist. Rosa Radichkova, daughter of the legendary Bulgarian writer Yordan Radichkov, recalled that her father loathed the

word and sometimes raged against it: “Chushkopek?! Such word cannot exist in the Bulgarian language! This just can’t exist!” he exclaimed in indignation.24 The poorly chosen name made many consider the chuskopek a triumph of the generally unpleasant Communist pop-culture. But many Bulgarians chose to neglect the chushkopek for another reason: because they perfectly satisfied their needs for roasted peppers using sim-

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COMMUNIST Gourmet fig. 83.  “Nikolae Ceaușescu and his wife

Elena Ceaușescu visited the Factory for vegetable, vine, and fruit seedlings. Plovdiv, October 8, 1987.” Photo B. Todorov, Pressphoto-BTA.

ple old-fashioned hot plates. Charring peppers and eggplants directly on the heated surface, with pungent smoke raising up and filling kitchen and lungs, was such a ubiquitous cooking practice that those who practiced it would be stunned to find out how eccentric it might seem in other European countries. Another popular object of great importance was the electric immersion heater. A simple device, it was popular around the world. In places with sufficient equipment, it has long been a traveler’s accessory, a cheap way to obtain some comfort during challenging trips. In the Bulgaria of the 1970s and

1980s, the water heater, most often made in Russia, was an irreplaceable utensil. It was widely employed to sterilize jars with food which, once closed, were placed in large containers of water and cooked to seal. Some used old cheese tins as containers, and others, the basins of their washing machines, but in all cases the water was heated with such an electric heater. Twist-off caps were a luxury in the Communist period and could be found only on the small jars of baby food produced in some Bulgarian factories. Consequently, those who possessed jars with screw

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top lids rigorously guarded them. People often exchanged and gifted preserves, but the giver would usually expect to have their jars returned. “My mother was very strict in this regard; she was like a Cerberus about it!” remembered Violina Hristova.25 More widespread were the lids, which were made of thinner tin and needed a special device to close. Of all the equipment, the cap-closing device, a round main body supplied with a large orifice, was the trickiest. It needed to be handled with a combination of dexterity, patience, and force. Positioning it over the shaky lid required a watchmaker’s precision, after which one needed to let all his weight fall on it several times to make sure the jar was well closed. This method led to many accidents, and multiple butchered fingers and wrists pushed inventors to seek a safer option. At some point a complicated construction was sold in which a larger frame covered the closing device: it featured a bottom surface to place the jar and a system of levers to transmit the pressure from the handle, moved on the side, away from the glass. Even if not as rare as the screw top lids, the simpler tin lids were also difficult to find. One could not just walk into a shop and buy them, but needed connections to obtain them. Elaborating on the methods to acquire these objects in high demand, journalist Evgeniy Todorov recalled how once he went to film in a canning factory near Plo-

vdiv. As soon as he and his female colleague finished the interview with the director, their host opened the top drawer of her desk and took out a pack of the precious tin caps. “You were asking for lids, right?” she addressed Todorov’s colleague. The journalist, who had apparently called to arrange this before coming for the interview, enthusiastically accepted the gift.”26 Even if these lids were for single use, people tried to reuse them. If you bought a jar of compote in the shop, you would normally only need a knife to loosen the lid. But this was rarely done. Everyone in the family was trained how to take off the lids in a most careful and sparing way, by using another device, especially developed for this purpose.

The Many Meanings of a Jar of Preserves

M

aking preserves was undoubtedly a way for Bulgarians to get through the winter better. To some it was a way to ensure a richer menu, to others to have preserves that corresponded to their tastes and standards. While many people recall that it was a work of necessity and that there was not much otherwise to eat in the winter, people were often insistent in preparing their pickles, relishes, and jams the way they liked them. People took pride in their preserves even though they were usually made with widely shared recipes. There was even competition

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among people over the quality or quantity of what they made. Possessing significant quantities of preserves showed resourcefulness and economic stability. Evgeniy Todorov recalled a newspaper announcement from the 1990s in which a sixty-year-old widower from Haskovo sought a partner and advertised himself as the owner of “a house with spacious garden and 260 jars of preserves.”27 This sort of pride seems reasonable, considering that people’s canned foods were valuable enough to steal. The downside of keeping jars in attics and cellars was the increased risk of theft. “We had neighbors who canned food year-round. They had hundreds of jars. And one day they were stolen. It was such a tragedy!” remembered Hristova. “The Militia came to investigate.” She said her own family was robbed of some twenty sausages, which her father made for them to last for an entire year—those disappeared from their balcony on the second floor.28 Food preservation allowed urban folk from the countryside to partake in the sort of life that they knew from their childhood and which they lost by moving to the city. With the smells and colors of nature, the working with their hands, it was therapeutic labor in the coziness of their own kitchens. It healed them from the cold and greyness outside, the lack of meaning in their work, and the lack of perspective and motivation that the Communist regime had efficiently destroyed. Preserving

food meant being involved in something human and familiar, something under one’s own control, a domestic protection from the harsh reality of Communist modernization. As painter Andrey Daniel described it, there were times when you felt as if you were falling into an abyss, time and time again: And if you seek to regain balance, and if the smell of roasted peppers reaches you between the con­ dominiums, you suddenly feel better… People tried hard to look at the world humanely, and they hoped it would become human, and when the world smells of roasted paprikas, it is much more human than when it doesn’t smell of anything.

(Andrey Daniel, interview by

­Albena Shkodrova, September 14, 2012)

Notes 1 Konstantin Josef Jireček, Putuvania po Bulgaria [Travels in Bulgaria] (Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1974). (First published in Czech in 1888.) 2 Yves Segers, “Food Recommendations, Tradition and Change in a Flemish Cookbook: Ons Kookboek, 1920–2000.” Appetite 45, no. 1 (August 2005): 8 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2005.03. 007). 3 Georgi Georgiev, Sofia i sofianci 1878–1944 [Sofia and Sofianites 1878–1944] (Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1983), 237–39. 4 Georgiev, Sofia i Sofiantsi, 237–39. 5 Maria Tsolova, Materiali za kursovete za povishavane na bitovata kultura na rabotnichkata [Householding courses for the working woman] (Sofia: OF, 1959). 6 Kiril Voynov, “Fabrika za vitamini” [A factory for vitamins], Zhenata dnes 12 (December 1957), 5. 7 Atanas Petrov, Milladin Sharatov, and Dimitur Krustev, Hra­ nitelnata promishlenost v Bulgaria: minalo, nastoyashte, budeshte [Food industry in Bulgaria: Past, present, and future] (Sofia: Tehnika, 1983).

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8 Petrov at al, Hranitelnata promishlenost, 97. 9 Lilia Dencheva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, May 2, 2015. 10 Carol Silverma, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Oregon, May 23, 2015. 11 Carol Freeman, interview by Albena Shkodrova, New York, June 4, 2015. 12 Silverman, interview. 13 Lauren Brody, interview by Albena Shkodrova, New York, June 2, 2015. 14 Iva Roudnikova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 23, 2012. 15 The Bulgarian manner of roasting peppers is practically to burn the vegetable’s skin before taking it off. Leaving an already roasted pepper in a small closed vessel makes it “sweat” further and makes it easier to peel. 16 Adela Kachaunova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 20, 2012. 17 Violina Hristova, interview (via Skype) by Albena Shkodrova, Leuven-Rome, September 14, 2012. 18 Tamara Ganeva, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Brussels, September 21, 2012.

19 Kina Neykova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, February 14, 2014. 20 Hristova, interview. 21 Rayna Gavrilova, interview by Albena Shkodrova (in writing), Sofia, October 16, 2012. 22 Emilia Zafiraki, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, April 25, 2012. 23 The argument over authorship erupted in the post-Communist years between engineer Velizar Stoilov, who in 1977 led a team of technologists in an equipment factory, and David Davidov, who claimed that he invented the first chuskopek in his garage in the town of Veliko Turnovo. In any case, neither of the two had any rights over the patent, which was acquired by the no longer existent state institute. 24 Rosa Radichkova, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Sofia, September 11, 2012. 25 Hristova, interview. 26 Evgeniy Todorov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Plovdiv, April 21, 2012. 27 Todorov, interview. 28 Hristova, interview.

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fig. 84.  An advertisement photo of the space bread, 1975. “Thanks to certain additives, the astronauts’ bread does not harden and remains tasty for a long time. It is made from wheat or rye flour, but the size of the bread is completely different. Each one weighs 4.5 g. Therefore, it does not crumble and does not make crumbs, so dangerous under zero-gravity.” Pressphoto-BTA.

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Chapter 13

Tarator in Outer Space How the Soviet Brotherhood Helped Bulgarian Cuisine Spread into the Cosmos

B

y 1988, many things may had gone terribly wrong in Communist Bulgaria, but at least one thing was on the rise: the space race. On October 3, less than a year before the (not yet foretold) end of the regime, a group of cosmonauts arrived in Sofia: German Titov—1 day and 1 hour in open space on Vostok 2; Russell Louis Schweickart—10 days and 1 hour in outer space on Apollo 9; Yuriy Romanenko—429 days and 43 hours in outer space on Soyuz 26. Altogether 70 astronauts from 17 countries around the world gathered for an international congress. The event was chaired by the first Bulgarian in space, Georgi Ivanov. Alexander Alexandrov, who followed in his footsteps, had completed his first flight four months before the congress. Also, by that time, the first Bulgarian satellite, Intercosmos-Bulgaria 1300, had orbited for seven years around the Earth. Launched to mark the 1300th year anniversary of the establishment of the ancient Bulgarian state, it was one of the reasons that the Bulgarian ruling class believed that Bulgaria ran one of the most important space forces on the planet. When the cosmonauts gathered in Sofia, they were hosted by the newly built luxury hotel Vitosha-New Otani, a state-run part of a Japanese hotel chain. A welcome cocktail was organized to greet them: the freshly rolled out carpets smelled new, the venue shone with all the luxury of the 1970s that the Japanese– Bulgarian venture could muster, and the tables were set with… cosmonaut food. Cosmonaut food “made in Bulgaria.” The futuristic setup featured prominently one of the marketing prides of the state, a variety of fruit. Indeed, they were served in an unexpected form: lyophilized strawberries, honey melons, apricots, and apples were arranged on serving platters on the white tablecloths. Almost weightless, their intense aroma was surprising, especially the strawberries. Biting into them must have felt like burying your teeth in polystyrene (it still does), but once in your mouth, they would quickly recover their texture and become reminiscent of dried fruit.

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Another part of the treat was to be found in bowls: the soft, dark balls resembling large jelly bonbons were in fact the drinks. The mysterious delicacies came in two colors and presented a choice between doses of cabernet sauvignon and brandy from the local brand, Preslav. The drinks were reduced in volume, but not in alcohol content. The guests—foreign cosmonauts, their partners, and their Bulgarian hosts—passed by the buffet table to take bites that were actually shots. They chased the slippery alcohol balls around the plates, trying to pin them with their cocktail sticks, sniffed, stuffed them in their mouths, tasted, waited a little, and came back for more.1 In 1979, approximately a decade prior to this intriguing party in Sofia, Bulgaria became the third country in the world to produce food for space flights. Along with the USSR and the USA, this small and not particularly developed Eastern European country tried to put a foot in the first space league. Behind this ambition stood just one man, Tsvetan Tsvetkov, an academic. Born in the small village of Stubel, after completing his obligatory army service he embarked on an impressively consistent career plan. Accepted to study in the Technological Institute for the Refrigeration Industry in Leningrad, Russia, he graduated with the intention to apply the latest technological progress of Soviet science in the field in Bulgaria. After another period in the USSR, during which he

defended his doctoral thesis in Harkov, he indeed returned with an assignment: “They wanted Bulgaria to develop part of their space program,” he said. “There were topics in which they were interested, such as how to increase the radiation immunity of cosmonauts during lengthy flights and what were the consequences of spending longer period of time in open space.”2 Space programs were a central point of competition between the USSR and the USA during the Cold War, and many satellite regimes found themselves involved, even if their capacities remained far behind those of the two major forces. Tsvetkov ended up in the eye of this storm. He arrived back in Bulgaria with a formal letter recommending the creation of a cryobiology lab.3 After a personal meeting with Todor Zhivkov, Tsvetkov opened the lab in 1973. One of the tasks he was assigned was to research “the reversible preservation of life and its export into open space.”4 Against the background of this ambitious plan, space flight food advanced as a mundane detail. The scientists developed methods and products for reconvalescent nutrition: life-saving substances. The “big science,” as Tsvetkov called it, was the medical part—the reconstruction of tissue, bones, and blood. The lab grew rapidly and acquired equipment from the USSR, Germany, France, and Great Britain. The research team soon published its results in

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Tarator

fig. 85.  Georgi Ivanov on board of a spacecraft, 1979. Pressphoto-BTA.

the international scientific journal Cryobiology, and their lab quickly gained authority. In the meantime, the experiments with astronaut food started in 1974. The lab employed a chef to cook the dishes and prepare the products before other experts subjected them to lyophilization. This process involved instant freezing and then dehydration, which took place under controlled

pressure to allow the water content of the ingredients to sublimate (to transform from solid substance directly into gas). In his private archive, Tsvetkov keeps a short documentary made by himself and a friend. It shows women, dressed in white protective clothing, disinfecting packs of vacuumed-sealed lyophilized fruit and arranging them in a wooden box

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with the Soviet and the Bulgarian flag, and with a label that reads Intercosmos. The technology was developed within five years, and in 1978 a menu for space flights, produced in Bulgaria, was approved by the Soviet Space Commission. Two joint Soviet-Bulgarian flights in 1979 and 1988 were supplied with Bulgarian food. Lyophilized tarator: Bulgarian yogurt with ­ added cubed cucumber, garlic and salt. This cold soup stim­ ulates the appetite and refreshes. It has significant biological value on the basis of active microorgan­ isms: Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. Popular food with extraordinary taste in the space menu. To consume after adding the prescribed quantity of water. Lyutenitsa: Original Bulgarian product with toma­ toes, red peppers, garlic, onion and herbs. Renowned for its pleasant appetizing taste. Wonderful snack with important nutritious and taste qualities and high energy values. To use after reconstituting with the prescribed quantity of water.

(Excerpts from the labels of

lyophilized food packs produced by Tsvetkov’s lab)

Mussaka, goulash, fruits, nuts, deserts: mouthwatering descriptions were found on the labels of all the dishes on the Bulgarian space menu, and according to Tsvetkov, they were there not for marketing purposes. He said one of the major problems for astronauts in space was the possible loss of appetite. It occurs for various reasons, one of which is

the zero gravity. The notable spiciness of many Bulgarian foods is very helpful in such situations, he argued. “Food for shorter flights is closer to common food and is easier to prepare, as it doesn’t need to be particularly durable. But the longer flights are challenging. Not only it is crucial to preserve food, but also to reduce its weight, as every gram matters.”5 Tsvetkov explained that when lyophilized, foods lose an insignificant part of their nutritional value, barely a couple of percent, while their weight can be reduced up to seven times. The vacuum packing prolongs their life at a temperature of 21–25 degrees Celsius (70–77 degrees Farenheit), and they are easily reconstituted. To make this process easier, some of the Bulgarian-prepared foods were placed in containers with a mouthpiece and allowed for the addition of just the precise quantity of water. At the end of the 1970s, the first Bulgarian food flew in outer space. Probably typical of the situation in the Communist Bloc, it was also the moment of its first smuggling. As Tsvetkov, only half-jokingly evoked: At the time, alcohol was completely forbidden on board the space crafts. But we had these little bot­ tles of [Bulgarian] cognac and these pellets of wine. Had they caught us… that would have been the end! I was violating the regulations. I gave Rukavish­

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Tarator fig. 86.  Cosmonaut foods, produced in Bulgaria, 1979. Pressphoto-BTA.

nikov the bottles, and later he told me how during his

whatever God has offered!” suggested Nikolay Niko­

flight with Georgi Ivanov, when there was an incident

laevich (Rukavishnikov). Serving at zero-gravity is

during Soyuz-33’s docking with the space station, he

entertaining and sharpens your appetite. And “God

found them in their pocket. He said: “I gave one to

had offered” small bread rolls, canned meat, spread­

Georgi, I also took one. We drank them and our minds

able wedge cheese, various foodstuffs in tubes, cof­

started clearing up!” This is a true story! It saved the

fee, juices: all kinds of goodies. I took them out and

flight!

we had dinner at 5 am on 11 April 1979. Then we rolled

(Tsvetkov, interview)

out our sleeping bags, tied them up at both ends and

Georgi Ivanov himself describes the Bulgarian space food tenderly in his book Poleti (Flights): We looked at each other with the commander and de­ cided that we would skip the adaptation period. A very important and reassuring fact was that we felt ­truly hungry. “Let’s see, Georgi! Let’s have a snack with

prepared to rest.

(Georgi Ivanov, Poleti: Zapiski na kosmonavta

[Flights: The diary of an astronaut] [Sofia: Voenno izdatelstvo, 1981], 87)

After the furthest-from-Bulgaria dinner with Bulgarian food in history, the cosmonauts woke up the following morning to find themselves in unexpected trouble.

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I showed the commander the unpromising leftovers from the dinner, hardly enough for a breakfast, and he contacted the Flight center to report the calami­ ty with no hesitation. He admitted that we had a wolf­ ish appetite the previous evening and that we had gulped down a whole day’s ration… The Center for Flight Control was forced to allow us to open the food reserve.

(Ivanov, Poleti, 88)

This space gluttony might not be entirely exceptional. In the last years, Tsvetkov repeatedly quoted numerous astronauts who expressed strong enthusiasm for Bulgarian space food, which according to him they preferred to any other. He described their preferences to the press in funny little stories, which he recounted in surprising detail. One side of his work, which he spoke less about, was the other purpose of the food prepared in his lab. A significant part of his research was considered confidential by the Bulgarian authorities. The program supplied the army with food, specifically military units like submarine crews and spies. “There was an air troopers’ platoon in Plovdiv, with which I conducted tests. The goal was to enable people who found themselves in a hostile environment, perhaps behind enemy lines, to survive for up to two weeks.”6 The amateur documentary that Tsvetkov produced to feature the Bulgarian space menu in the 1980s ended on a high note: “Voyager was carrying a Bulgarian song on board. It is now followed

fig. 87.  Tsvetan Tsvetkov, the founder of the first cryobiological lab

in Bulgaria. 2014. Photo Albena Shkodrova

by Bulgarian space food, which is also on its way to outer space.”7 The story of his scientific lab is not as glorious. By the end of the Communist rule, when it reached its highest point, it was employing fifty people. After the 1990s, it started slowly declining: the post-Communist state invested very little in education, culture, and science, and did not find

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Tarator

it important to support the development of cryobiology in Bulgaria. Most of the scientists who once worked there, and who according to Tsvetkov collectively patented over fifty-five inventions, found employment in scientific centers in Western Europe and North America. Intercosmos-Bulgaria 1300 might still be in orbit, but the chance that more Bulgarian tarator will follow it seems small.

Notes 1 The party as described here was filmed by Tsvetan Tsvetkov in the 1980s. The documentary titled Bulgarian Space Food remains in his private archive. 2 Tsvetan Tsvetkov, interview by Albena Shkodrova, Varna, November 29, 2013. 3 Central Laboratory for Cryobiology and Lyophilization. 4 Tsvetkov, interview. 5 Tsvetkov, interview. 6 Tsvetkov, interview. 7 Tsvetkov, Bulgarian Space Food.

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fig. 88.  A private birthday celebration. Late 1970s or early 1980s. Imaginary Archive.

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Appendix

Recipes 1. Garash Cake While my generation was attending secondary school in the mid-1980s, the Bulgarian state sunk into a deeper and deeper crisis. The centrally-run economy has always made use of students as a workforce in the summer, but the crisis prompted the state to involve us throughout the year. At that time, the state was intensively using workers from Vietnam in the construction of new neighborhoods in Sofia, but then something went wrong with the bilateral agreement, and we were sent to plaster walls in new residential buildings once a week. My sympathy goes out to those who lived there afterwards. When I reached the last school year, a new arrangement was made, and each and every student from central Sofia secondary schools had to choose a working-class profession to learn before graduating. Choosing between operator of a biological unit (i.e., farmer in a dairy farm), waiter, or food technologist, I opted for the last one. It is written in my secondary school diploma from an

elite school in the capital: chef. Voilá! My early credentials to write this book! The great temptation of the profile I chose was the required month-long internship in a restaurant: it sounded like an adventure. The director of a new, trendy eatery in the center of Sofia was a distant relative, so it was easy to arrange a place there for my best friend and me. This is where I saw for the first time how Garash was made. Two young men roasted almonds and walnuts, melted chocolate, and mastered the thin sheets of the cake like magicians. The smell that rose from their underground workshop was heavenly—almost as good as the cake itself. The beauty of this Garash was not representative of Communist restaurant cuisine. Even in that very restaurant, which stood out as excellent, we made the mushroom soup by burning sugar on the bottom of the pan and the few flakes of mushrooms, easily spotted by their neon-green color, came from a can.

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The origin of Garash cake trails back towards the beginning of the twentieth century and remains somewhat uncertain. It is considered to be an invention of the Austro-Hungarian pastry chef Kosta Garash, who prepared the dessert in a luxurious hotel in Rouse at the end of the nineteenth century and then in Sofia in the beginning of the twentieth century. It is a chocolate cake with crispy sheets, filled up with lush chocolate ganache. Under late Communism, Garash stood out as the pearl in the crown of pastry production and its consistent high quality was maintained, but the price made it available only to urban elites. Afterwards, private bakeries felt free to sell a product only remotely resembling the cake by the same name, so today people often associate the “real” Garash with the Communist era. The recipe is from a 1970 professional cookery manual, obligatory for the restaurants of Balkantourist, known as The Blue Cookbook (Dimitur Ashlev et al., Recepturnik po gotvarstvo i sladkarstvo [Recipes for cooking and pastry making] [Sofia: Technika, 1970]). But as the instructions seemed sketchy, I have added information from other recipe books or from my own experience.

For the crispy sheets Ingredients:

8 egg whites 200 g (7 oz) icing sugar 220 g (8 oz) walnuts 20 g (0.5–1 oz) flour Method:

• “Mix all ingredients, and once the sugar is dissolved, spread into six layers on baking trades and bake at medium temperature,” advises the book. I suppose it would be better if you first beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and a drop of vinegar and then follow the instructions. Another book states that 4 sheets are needed for one cake. • “Bake at a moderate heat,” says one book. Another says nothing. For the ganache Ingredients:

400 g (14 oz) cream 150 g (5.5 oz) sugar 500 g (17 oz) melted chocolate Method:

• Beat the cream with the sugar until stiff. Melt the chocolate and pour it in, mixing continuously. Refrigerate well.

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Recipes

To finish:

• One obligatory feature is the wreath on the top. Un-

Ingredients:

der Communism it was always green. It could be that the

120 g (4 oz) dark chocolate, melted 20 g (0.75 oz) peeled and uniformly chopped coconut shreds (colored in green!)

original was made with pistachios, but the industrial production utilized colored almond crumbles. For best effect, sprinkle them while the chocolate couverture is still warm.

Method:

• Serve chilled, in thin slices (Ideally, says the book,

• Spread the cream between and over the sheets. Re-

wrap the top of each slice in green foil).

frigerate. Pour over the melted chocolate.

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2. Tarator When Bulgaria scored against the Germans, sending the national football team for the first and last time to the semifinals of the World Cup in 1994, an angry German journalist described Bulgarians as the eaters of a disgusting cold soup made of yogurt and cucumbers. I wish consuming tarator was the worst thing Bulgarians did! Like many other dishes, tarator is not of Bulgarian origin, and its consumption in Bulgaria does not date from the Communist period. But it was in the Communist years that one particular version of the old dish appropriated the name, and the industrialization of the dairy industry made the dish a summer staple. Tarator is known from Persia to the Middle East, it is more a sauce than a liquid, and the only quality that ties together the variations is the presence of tahini (i.e. seeds or nut paste). Sesame tahini is used in the Middle East and walnut paste in Bulgaria and Turkey. In fact, some of the earlier versions in Bulgarian cookbooks are made of nothing but walnut paste spiced with garlic. In Communist Bulgaria, people ate tarator just like they do now: throughout the summer in canteens, restaurants, or at home. But it was typical for the canteens and restaurants to save on walnuts, and so finding them in your watered-down tarator was quite exceptional. In this sense, it was a Com-

munist contribution to distinguish the Bulgarian tarator from all the other versions. Here is a recipe of tarator as I like it. It is the popular contemporary version, but in reaction to the Communist public catering tricks, experienced in my childhood, I prefer it extra thick and with lots of walnuts. Ingredients:

1 cucumber, peeled. 2 cloves of garlic 10 g (1/3 oz) salt 500 g (17 oz) yogurt a handful of finely chopped fresh dill 500 ml (2 cups) cold water 2 good handfuls of slightly crushed walnuts 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil 3–4 ice cubes Method:

• Now, first, the cucumber. Forget the EU marketing standards (they were recalled in regard to cucumbers ten years ago anyway) and look for really thin cucumbers, which are usually much crisper and do not contain many large seeds. Then peel them and dice them into small cubes—whatever advice you may hear from other Bulgarians, do not grate them. And beware of encouraging the spread of this offensive practice! If you are ever

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Recipes

served tarator with grated cucumber you should return

• For a medium-thick tarator, fill up the yogurt pot with

it! The cucumber needs to remain fresh and crispy in

cold water and add to the mixture, while slightly beating

your tarator, and not in watery, slippery flakes, half-dis-

with the fork.

solved in the yogurt.

• Crush the walnuts in the mortar without washing

• In a larger mortar, crush the garlic with a teaspoon

it beforehand: in this way the walnuts will have lovely

of salt. Scrape over the cucumbers and keep the mor-

salty-garlicy aroma.

tar as it is.

• You can keep the tarator in a cool place for some 30

• Beat the yogurt with a fork in the pot and then, when

minutes, but better not longer. Add oil and a couple of ice

creamy, pour over the cucumbers. Remove the stems of

cubes just before serving it. The walnuts can be mixed in

the dill, mince it and add to the mixture.

or served on the side.

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3. Agnesi This dessert became very popular in the late Communist years, and its recipe is found in almost every private cooking scrapbook, always slightly adjusted to individual taste. I discovered the recipe in the most influential women’s magazine Zhenata dnes, but it is not found in the cookbooks from the period. Today it remains a favorite; it also easily makes friends on the other side of the Iron Curtain once dividing Europe. The dessert somewhat resembles the French Calissons, but it is made with walnuts instead of almonds and eaten in larger pieces. My experience is that even these are never enough. This recipe is as I found it in many scrapbooks from the Communist period. Now one can find many recipes online that suggest reduced quantities of butter and sugar, but I have kept the good old proportions.

Method:

• The agnesi are made of a biscuit-like layer and glaze. • To make the dough layer, beat 4 egg whites with a pinch of salt. Add gradually a cup of caster sugar. Carefully mix in the walnuts, butter, and flour. Spread on the bottom of a shallow rectangular baking pan (33 x 23 cm) over a baking paper or over greased and floured surface. Bake at 180°C (350°F), until golden brown, for about 20–25 min. • In the meantime, make the glaze: beat the egg yolks with 1 cup icing sugar and vanilla until very light in color. • When the biscuit is slightly cooled, spread the glaze over it. Return to the oven at 50–60°C for 15 minutes to let dry. • Leave it for at least several hours, but preferably for an entire night for the glaze to set before serving. • To get to the real thing, you need to cut the agnesi in diamonds of an average size of 4 to 6 cm.

Ingredients:

4 eggs, separated 1 cup flour 1 cup walnuts, roughly crushed 1 cup butter 1 cup caster sugar 1 cup icing sugar vanilla

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Recipes

4. Stuffed eggs Socializing in private homes was one of the main pastimes in communist Bulgaria, which put housewives under pressure to excel at preparing snacks. The basics of such festivities were the sandwiches with Russian salad, spread over thin slices of baguette, cold meat cuts and yellow and white cheese and home-made pickles and vegetable relishes. While usually very enjoyable, such menu was repetitive, and most housewives had their own little specialties to add character to the food. One of my mother’s favorites were stuffed eggs: requiring some planning, as they need to be cooled before eating, but otherwise simple to make and easy to love.

Method:

• Cook the eggs thoroughly (6–7 min.), put under cold water to stop cooking, peel and cut in even halves lengthwise. • Remove the egg yolks, wait for them to cool, and mix with the butter and herbs until it becomes an even soft paste. Shape it into balls with the diameter of the yoke nests in the cooked eggs, and place them there. • Leave in a cold place (3–4°C, about 40°F, in a fridge or out on a winter balcony) until the butter becomes hard.

Ingredients:

6 eggs Butter (approximately equal to the weight of the 6 egg yolks) Salt Pepper Basil, thyme, or dill

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5. Roasted Peppers in Tomato Sauce This is an all-time favorite in Bulgaria, a beautiful dish, made of the most ubiquitous products of the Balkans. Laborious but foolproof, versatile, durable, and good at any temperature, it is a domestic cooking masterpiece par excellence. One does not find it often in restaurants, although the state canteens cooked it once in a while, and today a brief enquiry on my online social network showed that people mostly eat it at home. It contains two important ingredients: green peppers (roasted with the typical Balkan method on a hot plate), and thick, lush tomato sauce, both exuding the quintessential aromas of Bulgarian summer. The recipe below is as it was cooked in Communist Bulgaria. The sunflower oil used for the sauce was the only one widely available, and most people added parsley, although you could replace it with basil, or scrap it all together.

For the sauce:

2–3 spoons sunflower oil 2–3 cloves of garlic, diced 1 small onion, diced 1 spoon of sweet paprika powder (optional) 5–6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped or minced salt, pepper parsley (optional) • The method of roasting the peppers is one of the most typical Balkan experiences. There was hardly a household in Communist Bulgaria, rural or urban, that did not engage in this spectacular practice. In a rural environment, the roasting was done on metal plates over a fire. City dwellers used mostly electric iron hotplates or special devices called chushkopeks (see the chapter “The Canning Season”), which served perfectly to burn the skin of the pepper on all sides, but sometimes women made fires between apartment blocks and organized communal cooking sessions.

Ingredients:

• The most important part of the roasting process is

10–12 green pointed peppers, smaller-sized (­Bulgarians make distinction between peppers, which are big enough to be stuffed, and smaller-sized, which are usually ­roasted. The smaller ones usually also have a finer skin and flesh).

seriously burning the skin of the pepper until it is black, which gives a wonderful smoky taste to the dish. Method:

• Roast the peppers on all sides using an electric plate, until the skin burns. Place them in a closed container (a small pot, for example) as they become ready and let

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Recipes

them sit for about half an hour. This will let them cool and

ka powder, fry for a few seconds and add the tomatoes,

the skin will come off much more easily. Peel the pep-

salt and pepper. Simmer at very low heat for an hour or

pers and spread them on a platter. It is handy to have the

more, until the sauce is quite thick, only slightly thinner

stems sticking away from the center of the dish and the

than relish.

points gathered in the middle.

• Pour the sauce over the peppers, starting from the center of the plate, so that the stems remain clean and

The sauce:

could be picked by hand, but most of the rest is covered.

• In a deep pan heat up the oil to medium and fry gen-

The dish can be eaten warm (but not hot!) or cold, and is

tly the onions and the garlic until golden. Add the papri-

excellent with white chewy bread.

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COMMUNIST Gourmet

6. Tikvenik If you wish to offend a Bulgarian, you could call him a tikvenik. It is a mild insult, the exact meaning of which remains fluid. It might refer to anything from blockhead to scatterbrain. Literally, it means “pumpkin pie.” Tikvenik is the most popular sweet version of banitsa, the Bulgarian phyllo pastry that resembles the Turkish/Bosnian burek or the Greek bougatsa. It was a much loved dessert, which was prepared frequently in the autumn and winter. Buying readymade pastry to eat at home was not a common practice and baking cakes or other sweets was a regular weekend pastime that solidified people’s love for their tikvenik. The dessert had a particularly important role for the New Year’s celebration that replaced the Christmas holiday banned by the Communist regime. For New Year’s, tikvenik was often used as a carrier of fortune—little objects that were supposed to predict your luck, health, and wealth in the coming year. Sometimes women kept the older tradition and hid shiny coins or three tiny branches of Cornellian cherry that had to have one, two, or three buds. At other times they tested their fortune-telling skills by writing predictions on little pieces of paper and tucking them inside the phyllo. My mother was particularly bad at this, but she never gave up trying: at the age of seven I was to obtain a professor-

ship before the summer, my dad was assured he’d be given a pair of ice skates, and my baby cousin was promised a business trip to an exotic land. Despite their improbability, we enjoyed my mother’s fortune-telling attempts as they allowed us to dig further in the tikvenik and eat more of it, quickly. Ingredients:

1 kg (35 oz) of cleaned and peeled pumpkin 1 cup of roughly crushed walnuts ¾ cup caster sugar a pinch of cinnamon (optional) raisins (optional) 1 pack of phyllo pastry (ask for the thick variety) 60–80 ml sunflower oil icing sugar Method:

• First, make the filling: • Grate the pumpkin • Mix in walnuts, caster sugar, cinnamon and raisins Assembling the tikvenik:

• Prepare a tray (ideally a 30 cm round one, but any of similar size will do), laid out with baking paper, or greased and powdered with flour. • Roll out on the cooking counter a sheet of phyllo and spread over it two spoons of oil.

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Recipes

• If you use thin sheets, add another one on top and

• Bake in a preheated oven for 20 min at 200°C (375°F),

repeat spreading two spoons of oil. Spread five or six

reduce the heat to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another

spoons of the filling, avoiding the ends, and roll into a

25–30 min.

tight roll. Try to work quickly and move it into the tray be-

• You can check if it is ready the old Bulgarian way, by

fore the filling has softened the phyllo too much, to avoid

pulling a straw out of the broom and poking the tikvenik

creating holes in the dough. You could arrange the pieces

to see if any crumbs stick to it.

in a spiral (a Bulgarian cook would mostly start from the

• Once baked, the dish is treated like strudel, rolled in

outer side, going inwards). Or you could just leave them

or sprinkled with icing sugar. It tastes best at room tem-

straight and order them one next to the other.

perature.

• Repeat until all but one sheet is used (the tray should

• With the first bite in your mouth, you could test your-

be full by then). Tear the last sheet into small pieces and

self on Bulgarian phonetics. Try saying “chichkovite

scatter them on top. Sprinkle a couple of spoons of sun-

chervenotikvenichkovcheta.” The phrase means more or

flower oil or butter on top.

less “our dear uncle’s little red tikveniks” and was specially invented to torture foreigners.

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COMMUNIST Gourmet

7. Maslovki with potatoes This is a simple dish with a heavenly taste, the exceptionality of which I fully appreciate only now. In a sense, it is a real Communist gourmet treat, no irony intended. It was not delivered by the state food industry, though it was allowed to happen by the specific pace and kind of modernization that it led us through. The Maslovka mushroom (Suillus luteus) was abundant in the forests of the Rodopi mountains in the early 1980s, when my father and his colleagues (astronomers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) spent time there. I often spent my holidays on the wild hills above Chepelare, where the new telescopes were placed. The compound, luxurious for those times, was surrounded by a fence on top of Rozhen peak. It was located as far as possible from city lights. Outside the fence was a wild pine forest. There were bears and there were mushrooms. Mushroom picking was one of the very few entertainments that the astronomers enjoyed. So, every two or three days, I was taken on outings with a basket and a pocketknife. Picking mushrooms was not a common activity for city dwellers in Bulgaria. But Russians, who were famous foragers, had trained my father in their art during his doctorate studies in Leningrad. My father, in turn, trained the Rozhen mushroom picking group, including me. We knew by heart the foragers’ manual, excelled in cutting mushrooms without destroying the roots, and were

familiar with the changes in each edible or inedible variety after it is cut. We often came back with a full basket of mushrooms and some potatoes that we collected from a small field lower down the hill. My dad cleaned the mushrooms, grumbling slightly, and then we cooked them in one of the observatory’s apartment kitchens. Then we gobbled them down, delighted, but not quite aware of how precious the meal was that we were treating ourselves to. Ingredients:

500–600 g (17–21 oz) mushrooms (Slippery Jack [Suillus luteus] or Ceps /Polish mushrooms) 1 kg (35 oz) potatoes, large cubes 2 medium onions, diced Sunflower oil Method:

• Clean the mushrooms (discard tubes and glutinous cuticle), cut in large pieces. • Precook the potatoes until almost ready. • In a deep pan, add some oil and fry the onions gently until golden brown. Add the mushrooms. • Fry briefly, until you see the meat of the mushrooms soften (3–4 minutes, medium heat). • Add the potatoes, cook for another 1–2 minutes, regularly stirring. • Serve immediately.

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Glossary Altai: A Bulgarian soft drink invented under Communism. The

original recipe contained a rare root from the Altai mountains, a region that belonged to the Soviet Union at the time. APK (Agrarian Industrial Complex): Large agricultural units created in the early 1970s through the unification of several TKZS to achieve concentration of production. bakalii: Small grocery shops, usually in a neighborhood, that carried basics. Balkantourist: The Bulgarian state tourist organization from the Communist period charged with managing hotels and restaurants for tourism. banitsa: A popular Bulgarian phyllo pastry similar to the Greek tyropita or bougatsa and to the Turkish and Bosnian burek. It can be made with many different fillings, but when not specified, the word usually refers to a banitsa filled with crumbled white cheese and eggs. bumbar: A sausage stuffed with offal and finely chopped meat. The main specialty of the legendary restaurant Bumbarnika in Plovdiv. boza: A thick, non-alcoholic drink made from fermented wheat or millet. Probably of Persian origin. Cockta: The Yugoslavian version of Coca-Cola developed in 1953. chushkopek: An electric roasting device invented in Bulgaria. The name literally means “pepper-roaster.” Durzhavna Sigurnost (DS): Lit. State Security. The Bulgarian Communist secret service. fransela: The Bulgarian term for baguette. gyuvech: An oven-roasted dish similar to ratatouille, that includes pieces of meat. halva: an Arab delicacy made of nuts, seeds, and root paste. It was brought to Plovdiv by an Armenian artisan in the nineteenth

century and has been produced in the city ever since, achieving great popularity in Bulgaria. Hayduk: It was the word used for rebels and fighters for national freedom during the nineteenth century. These people mostly lived secret lives in the wild, hiding in forests, hunting, and murdering Turks in surprise attacks on the roads. “Hayduski” means “one belonging to the hayduks,” or in the case of food, “cooked/eaten by hayduks.” Horo: A Bulgarian folk dance that is usually danced by people holding hands and performing many synchronized, sometimes very complex steps and movements. There are thousands of styles of horo in Bulgaria. lukanka: A much loved Bulgarian dried salami, and one of the most expensive and treasured cured meats, which was considered a luxury under Communism. kachamak: Corn porridge, similar to Italian polenta. kashkaval: Yellow cheese; one of the two types of cheese considered to be staples in Bulgarian households. Similar to Italian caciocavallo. kebapche/ta: Kebapche and kyufte were the two most popular restaurant items. Both were made of ground meat and cooked on a grill. They differed slightly in the types and amounts of herbs, garlic, and onion added, and in shape. Kebapche is elongated and kyfte is a flat meatball resembling a small burger. kebapchiynitsi: Typical Bulgarian joints serving grilled meat. Kofola: The Czechoslovak version of Coca-Cola developed in 1957 at the Research Institute of Medicinal Plants under the guidance of Zdeněk Blažek. kruchma: The Bulgarian word for an unpretentious restaurant; an eatery. Kruchmichka is a diminutive from kruchma. kyopoolu: A vegetable relish made of smoked eggplants and peppers seasoned with garlic.

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COMMUNIST Gourmet

kyufte/ta: Round-shaped grilled meatballs. See also kebapche. lelichki: Lit. “aunties.” The word was used for the service per-

sonnel in kindergartens, schools, and canteens. lyutenitsa: A popular relish made of roasted peppers and tomatoes. mastika: A local anise drink similar to French absinthe and pastis, Greek ouzo, Arab arak, and Italian sambuca. mehani: A type of folk restaurant aimed mainly at tourists, evoking a rural Bulgarian lifestyle and featuring live folk music and dance. nestinarski dances: Folk dances, performed bare foot on hot coals. Once a mystic ritual, it was trivialized as a regular tourist attraction in mehani restaurants. Moskvich: A brand of Soviet cars popular under Communism. musaka: The Bulgarian version of moussaka. A dish made of vegetables and minced meat. Under Communism, the most popular version was one in which the eggplants were replaced by potatoes. Narmag store: An abbreviation for Naroden magazine, meaning the people’s shop. obshtestveno hranene: Lit. “Public nutrition.” The system of cafés, canteens, and restaurants, analogous to the Soviet ­obshchepit. perestroika: The political reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s which spilled over into Eastern Europe. plod-i-zelenchuk: The popular name of fruit and vegetable shops. Pokazen store/shop Pokazini shops: “Exemplary” shops. A chain of centrally located shops that were supposed to display the advancement of Bulgarian food production and food trade. They became most popular as the place where citrus fruits and bananas were sold around New Year festivities. rakia: An alcoholic drink distilled from fruits and other plants, including plums, grapes, apricots, pear, quince, and rose petals. It is the most popular local spirit in Bulgaria, produced at

home by many. The drink is popular under more or less the same name across the Balkans. salata: The Bulgarian word for “salad.” shashlik: A sort of large skewer, the shashlik, which is several times larger than the typical Bulgarian meat skewer, became popular through the tourist menus of Balkantourist. The word shaslik is of Crimean Tatar origin. shkembedzhiynitsa: Tripe soup eatery. The word derives from the Turkish işkembe çorbası salonu. shkembe chorba: Tripe soup. A thick soup made of tripe and milk and spiced with a mixture of crashed garlic, crushed hot pepper, and vinegar. skara: Grilled meat. In the language of the Balkantourist menus, it included kebapcheta, kyufteta, or pork chops. stotinki: The cents of the Lev, the Bulgarian currency. TKZS: Lit. “Labor Cooperative Agricultural Estate.” An entity based on the Soviet model, created through the collectivization of agricultural land and producers. It was promoted starting in 1945; at first it was voluntary to join and then the government used increasingly coercive means to pressure people to join. The process of forming these cooperatives only ended in 1959. vila: Weekend house; the Bulgarian equivalent of the Soviet dacha. These were usually modest houses built on a plot of land too far from or in the outskirts of the city, although with growing social stratification there was a wide variety of dwellings. Many city families had such a vila where they grew fruit and vegetables and preserved them for the winter. vruzki: Lit. “connections” (Bulgarian). The specifically Communist art and practice of obtaining things unavailable. An analogue of the Soviet phenomenon “blyat.” Zhenata dnes: Bulgaria’s popular women’s magazine, which was first published by the state in 1944. It was one of the most consistent publications of the Communist period and continues to exist, now in private hands. Zimnina: Food preserves for the winter. The word is etymologically connected to “zima,” the Bulgarian word for “winter.”

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Index Albania, 109, 194 Alexandrov, Alexander, 227 Alsace, 192 Angelov, Kosta, 137–38 Australia, 183 Austria, 96, 97, 192, 194, 236 Balkantourist, 18, 76, 117, 120–23, 125–49, 161–67, 173, 202, 203–205 Baltzer, Eduard, 191 Baychev, Ivan, 6, 11, 14, 18, 22, 24 Bedrosyan, Bedo, 142, 161–67 Belgium, 4, 14, 34–35, 129 Belgrade, 71–72, 180, 190 Blažek, Zdeněk, 109 Boshev, Milcho, 30n Brestovitsa, 155 Brody, Lauren, 126–27, 129–30, 214 Bulet, 104–107 Bulgakov, Mihail, 90 Bulgarian Communist Party, ix, 4–9, 11, 16, 22, 27, 43, 47, 70, 76, 79, 83, 87, 98–99, 105, 108, 123–24, 143, 146, 148, 157, 164–66, 170, 174, 181, 185, 200, 203 Bumbarnika (restaurant), 145, 179–84 Buchvarov, Stavri, 121 Canada, 167 canteens, 1, 9, 55, 119, 126, 127, 134, 169–77 Chaushev, Asen, 138, 143, 145, 153–55, 158 Chervenkov, Vulko, 41, 200 China, 105 Cholcheva, Penka, 201, 205 Cifal, 98, 101 Coca-Cola, 69, 89, 95–113 Cockta, 109 Corecom, 87–91 Cuba, 86, 95, 105–106

Czechoslovakia, 4, 90, 109, 120, 142, 194, 198, 210 Damarche, 180, 182 Danailov, Danail, 139, 143, 147, 154, 155, 182 Danailov, Blagoy, 145 Daniel, Andrey, 185, 224 Danube, 46, 123 Dencheva, Lilia, 58 Denmark, 14, 96 Dimitrov Georgi (of Republika factory), 30, 33–37 Dimitrov, Georgi (political leader), 4, 34, 45, 47, 156, 195–96, 200 Dimitrova, Tatyana, 68, 81 Dimitrovgrad, 45–46, 55 Doychev, Petur, 120–21, 125, 144–46, 162–63, 165–66, 202 Durzhavna sigurnost (DS), 146–48, 164, 166 Epler, Alexander, 126, 128–29 Escoffier, Auguste, 191 Ethiopia, 105 Falmouth, 161 France, 3, 71, 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 133, 200, 229 Frankfurt, 125 French Communist Party, 98–99, 101–102, 104–105 food factories 17 Partisans, Vidin (canning factory), 61 Hristo Nikolov, Sofia (confectionery), 23 Malchika, Sofia (confectionery), 19, 61 Mesokombinat Ruse, meat processing plant, 11, 14–15, 16, 22, 24 Mesokombinat Burgas (meat processing plant), 13

Mesokombinat Lovech (meat processing plant), 19, 24, 27, 138 Republika, Svoge (chocolate) (previously Velizar Peev), 12–13 15–17, 20, 33–37, 24 Rodopa, Levski (meat processing plant), 38 Serdica, Sofia (dairy), 21 Stoyan Syulemezov, Sofia (soft drinks), 3, 104 Vasil Kolarov (later Krystal), Plovdiv (confectionery), 10, 19, 22, 25 Vitamina, Krichim (fruit preparations), 15 Freeman, Carol, 214 Gabrovo, 48, 49, 57, 133, 137 Gadzheva, Katerina, 141, 174 Ganeva, Tamara, 67, 77, 140, 218 Gavrilova, Rayna, 67–68, 80, 219 Gerasimova, Lilia, 124 Germany (East and West), 4, 86, 95, 105, 109, 200, 229 Gencheva, Boryana, 54, 81 Georgieva, Stoyana, 61 Germany, 23 Greece, 17, 45, 101, 125, 167, 195 Hadzhiev, Boris, 106 Hristova, Violina, 217, 219, 223–24 Hungary, 12, 14, 45, 85, 109, 116, 120, 169, 198, 236 Iliev, Vasil, 125, 158 Interhotels, 124–25, 137–38, 146, 158 Iran, 106 Iraq, 105–106 Iron Curtain, 12, 71, 95–96, 99, 102, 108, 111, 146, 204, 240 Istanbul (Constantinople), 162–63, 180, 189–90

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COMMUNIST Gourmet Italy, 96–97, 165, 200 Ivanov, Georgi, 227–33 Japan, 124, 212 Kabaivanski, Yancho, 120–21, 129 Kachaunova, Adela, 217 Kalazs, Kristine, 126, 128 Karavelov, Lyuben, 180 Khrushchev, Nikita, 6, 110 Kirilov, Hristo, 140 Kjell Engelbrekt, 128, 130 Koenig, Martin, 130 Kofokola (Kofola), 109 Kolarov, Vasil (political leader), 156 Koleva, Darinka, 23–25 Kremikovtsi, 172 Kubadinsky, Pencho, 100 Kugiyski, Angel, 173 Kyosev, Alexandur, 53, 56, 59 Kyulhanov, Nikola, 146, 148, 183–85 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 116, 165 London, 5, 41, 123, 165 Lukanov, Andrey, 143, 158 Makinsky, Alexander, 99–100 Manolova, Evgenia, 60, 174 Markov, Georgi, 5, 11, 22, 41, 42, 46, 80, 153–54, 181 Marshall Plan, 3, 71, 101 Mavrodinova, Velina, 147–48 Mihaylov, Toncho, 97–102, 106, 108, 110 Mihaylovgrad, 78 Mikoyan, Anastas, 111, 198–200 Mircheva, Vassilena, 39, 54, 56–57, 60–62 Mitterand, François, 158 Mongolia, 105 Moreau, France Bourque, 129–30 Moreau, Yves, 129–30 Moscow, 100, 165 Moskvich (car), 110 Naydenov, Georgi, 100–108 Nessebur (ship), 162 Neykova, Kina, 40–42, 46, 80

Neykova, Maria, 54, 61 Nikolova, Olympia, 71 Nixon, Richard, 14, 19 North Korea, 105 Nosov, Nikolay, 12 Ocean Monarch (ship), 162 October Revolution (Russia), 116, 198 Odessa, 163 Orwell, George, 9 Peev, Velizar, 4, 12, 27, 34–35 Penyo Penev, 45 Pepsi Cola, 98, 106, 109 Peshterlieva, Elena, 30, 33–37 Petrov, Tilko, 141 Pewex, 90–91 Pireus, 165 Planica, 109 Pleven, 81, 137 Plovdiv, 10, 19, 22, 25, 27, 36, 44–45, 83, 124, 126, 139, 140–41, 143, 145–46, 154, 182–85, 215, 223, 232 Pogled (newspaper), 77 Pozharliev, Raycho, xi, 136 Prague, 192 Prague Spring, 107, 110 Pravets, 155 Radichkov, Yordan, 221 Radichkova, Rosa, 80, 85, 221 Raeva, Bilyana, 46, 55 Rangelova, Gena, 19, 24–25 Renault (company), 104–105, 110 Ribicoff Abraham, 107 Rice, Tim, 125, 150 Romanenko, Yuriy, 227 Romania, 14, 116, 162, 195 Roudnikova, Iva, 68, 216 Rozhen, 246 Ruse, 6,11, 14, 16, 24, 56, 61, 123, 137 Scargill, Arthur, 123 Schweickart, Russell Louis, 227 Sheraton Hotel Balkan, 124–25, 130 Sherhart, Mary, 57, 186

Silverman, Carol, 127, 129, 214 Simov, Hristofor, 14, 33–37 Slaveykov, Petko, 189–90. Sliven, 131, 140, 168, 218 Slovenia, 108 Smrikarov, Dimitri, 189–90 Smolyantsi, 78 Sofia, 3–6, 19, 23, 34, 37, 40–42, 46, 53, 58, 65, 66, 68, 70–73, 75–76, 78–82, 85, 88, 90, 98, 100, 104–106, 117, 119, 121, 124–27, 130–31, 135–36, 138, 140–41, 147–48, 165, 174, 180, 182, 192–94, 189, 203, 209–10, 216–18, 220, 227, 228, 231, 235–36 Sofiyski hali market, 69–70 Solakova, Ganka, 30, 33–37 Spain, 200 Stefanova, Yovka, 19, 24–25 Stalin, Joseph, 2, 36, 39, 102, 108, 110–11, 195, 198 Stoyanov, Zahari, 179 Sweden, 128, 162, 186 Swedish Hotel, 124 Syria, 152 Stoichkov, Yordan, 154, 156 Stoychev, Todor, 164 Sudan, 105 Takov, Peko, 1, 76–78, 84 Teteven, 18 Texim, 100, 103–108 The Netherlands, 14 Tito, Josip Broz, 71, 72, 154 Titov, German, 227 Todorov, Evgeniy, 77, 82–83, 138, 141, 185, 222, 224 Tolstoy, Leo, 191 Torgsin, 89–90. Touropa, 163–66. Trimontsium, Hotel, 27, 146, 179, 182–83 Tsetkin, Clara, 116 Tsigularov, Petko, 133–34, 139, 142, 161–67 Tsvetkov, Tsvetan, 228–33 Turkey, 17, 103, 180, 192, 195, 238, 244 Tuzex, 90 United Kingdom (UK), 45, 123, 163–64, 229

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Index United States, 3, 14, 28, 71, 74, 95, 101–102, 106–107, 110–11, 197, 214, 233 Varna (the city), 57, 86, 120, 121, 124, 131, 133, 137, 140, 142, 161, 165 Varna (the ship), 161, 163–67 Veliko Turnovo, 146 Vezhinov, Pavel, 179 Vienna, 192 Vietnam, 105, 235

Vitosha-New Otani, Hotel (Sofia), 124, 154, 227 Vladimirova, Sonya, 10, 22, 25, 36 Voice of America, 107 Vutov, Petur, 106 Yugoslavia 45, 71–73, 101, 103, 195 Zafiraki, Emilia, 220 Zamfirovo, 49

Zamiatin, Eugene, 9 Zhenata dnes (magazine), 170, 171, 212, 240 Zhivkov, Todor, 1–2, 6–8, 11, 17, 39, 47–59, 76, 82, 87, 100, 106–107, 110, 131, 143, 153–59, 228 Zhivkov, Zhivko, 14 Zhukov, Georgi Konstantinovich, 108 Zlatanov, Ivan, 133, 142 Zlatni Pyasuci, 137, 188, 191

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