A new Bulgarian star shining in the UK

You can read my comment on the star performance of Slavi Binev during the UKIP conference here. I won’t even try to translate it, because of the specific background knowledge about Bulgaria that reading it would requiere anyway. : )

P.a.t.i.e.n.c.e.

It’s been ages since my last blog post, but this doesn’t mean that I have forgotten that TeaStoryBox exists. I just wanted to write a post with two good news – that I got my yellow card on the 8th of March and that I have an interview with someone from UKIP. It seems that the second won’t actually happen. Their choice. Despite this, I often feel like a movie star, because we (Bulgarians and Romanians) are still the most discussed topic in the UK and we even appear to be the reason why Cameron was accused of shameful rhetoric by an European watchdog. 

Let me leave the BulRom issue on a side for a moment and tell you that I realized how important patience is. In the beginning of my realization process, which lasted for a good month, I thought that it is important only for a journalist – in the end, they are extremely dependent on other people for everything they do – editors, interviewees, cameramen etc, etc. As if people are not enough, but you have additional factors as technology and even the weather. But soon(ish) I found out how important it is to be patient in every day life, as well. And I’m usually not. Now when I have my work permit and my National Insurance Number, I want to start work asap. (My UKIP readers, sorry that I’ll be taking your job. You started too late with the campaign against Bulgarians and Romanians and I decided to come to study here. Before you now start hating me, remember what amount of money I am giving for the tuition fees in the university. Better now?)

Which somehow leads us back to the semi-star status of the Bulgarians and Romanians in the UK. Forget what I said! There is only one real Bulgarian star here! No, it’s not Berbatov! No, it’s not Stiliyan Petrov! (When he gets better, he would probably be offered a position as a trainer of the kids in Aston Villa, by the way.)

Photo: Slavibinev.com

His name is Slavi Binev! Never heard of him? Shame on you! He was the star speaker on the UKIP conference last weekend. Apart from that his celebrity career is also really impressive: he is a MEP for Bulgaria and a vice chairman of the Bulgarian taekwondo federation. As if it’s not enough, but he is also the chairman of the political party GORD (Proud), for which I am not sure at all if it stands any distinctive chance on the upcoming elections. He was elected to be a MEP from the Bulgarian equivalent of UKIP – Ataka (it means “attack”. Hitler’s party was called Sturm, which means…. “attack”. Just some odd facts.), but then left it.

His biggest achievement, however, should be his title of an archon, although he has never had something to do with the church. His past is quite dark – he was abducted back in 1993, because of his business. Some of the most famous Bulgarian night clubs were (are?) his. And yet this guy is being welcomed with the Bulgarian anthem and all UKIP fans admire him. In the same time, however, they find Bulgarians and Romanians that come to work legally in the UK, awful.

Mr. Binev started his speech with a couple of jokes, so that he could win the UKIP delegates on his site: he assured them that he has bought a return ticket and that his horse is not traveling with him. Haha. (Betting what percentage of the people in this hall actually believe now that every Bulgarian rides a horse to work now? Wait… we are beggars at home – we don’t have work…) Binev also told them about his dream – to be like Farage.

In Bulgaria we have a TV show for kids, where they sing songs and tell what they want to become when they grow up. In the end of each show there are two winners – one girl and one boy. The presenter asks them if they want to merry and regardless of the answer they have to kiss each other at least on the cheek. An year ago the social media suddenly found one old clip from this show. There a boy was telling that he wants to be a dealer, because he was eager to hear the noise of the money. The year of this admission was somewhere around 1996, when the so called mutri (people, usually with a background in a martial arts, whose business was not that legal) were popular in the country. The boy didn’t actually know what a dealer is. Certainly, he has heard the word from his parents and because it sounded as something that everybody wanted to do, he found his dream career. A later discussion with the presenter revealed that the kid actually wanted to be a Batman, but his daddy has told him that becoming a dealer would be more profitable.

Probably, this was just a joke that the boy has taken too seriously, but when we add the song this child sang, I can’t stop making analogies with the speech of our MEP from last week – instead of the song for the Pink Panther the kid chose one about a tiger. And when I say “a tiger,” you should not think just of a tiger, but rather of a man with or without money.This type of music was played in Binev’s night clubs. The lyrics  of that particular song are extremely loving and explain the differences between a tiger with sufficient money and one without any and their relations to the women.

OK, so why am I telling you all this? It ruins the lovely picture of Bulgaria that I’m usually drawing! No, it doesn’t. It just builds a more real picture of Bulgaria – the era of the mutri existed in the first years of the democracy. The soundtrack of these years were indeed songs like the one I described (and that I won’t translate). But this all feels as ages ago. The country has made a huge leap and that’s why it’s ridiculous to think that half of its population will move to the UK as benefit tourists.

Talking about the changes in Bulgaria, I should mention that we have a new Government for some weeks now and that the real elections will be held in the beginning of May. All Bulgarians who are living abroad might register their desire to vote here.

So after you were so patient to make it till the end of this post, I can’t do anything than tell you what I actually found out: until we learn to be patient, the world will offer us again and again a thousand new opportunities to learn our lesson. Breath deep and don’t give up, if something doesn’t happen immediately!