You have probably heard idioms and proverbs in Bulgarian that read like "The horse went into the river" or "A united company moves a mountain". when translated to English wordfor-word They cause chuckle among your Bulgarian friends, but the only thing you can do is to raise politely your eyebrows. Many more similar meaningless phrases can be found in various websites which make fun of the habit (typical not only for Bulgarians) to translate literally idiomatic expressions and proverbs into English.
The current section of KQ has the ambition to explain the jargon of Bulgarian politics and economy which sometimes is as inexplicable if literally translated as in the above mentioned phrases. Who's Cecoron? Or what "Tsvetan thoughts" means and what for the love of god ladybirds have to do with management?
The current section of KQ has the ambition to explain the jargon of Bulgarian politics and economy which sometimes is as inexplicable if literally translated as in the above mentioned phrases. Who's Cecoron? Or what "Tsvetan thoughts" means and what for the love of god ladybirds have to do with management?
Spas from Kocherinovo
Scamming the elitedefinition: A digital-age scammer who struck at the heart of the "smart and beautiful" community is now a star - of sorts.
Maybe you remember the phrase umni i krasivi, meaning "smart and beautiful,", as explained in KQ a few months ago. It refers to Bulgaria's urban middle-upper class, disliked by both the left and the right for its supposed elitism and shallowness. Well, opponents of the umni i krasivi found a new opportunity to mock their nemesis - a scam said to have been devised by Spas Vassilev, also known as Spas from Kocherinovo (a small town in southwestern Bulgaria).
Under the guise of a fake Facebook profile of one Alexander Nikolov that included photos of an unaware Frenchman working in the air transport sector, Alexander Martinez, Mr. Vassilev managed to lure dozens of his Facebook "friends" into sending him their bank card details to provide them with cheap airline tickets to exotic destinations. Not only did he convince many followers that he lived the life of an Airbus employee, circling the globe, but he also made it into different media outlets as a political and business commentator (over the phone, of course). His popular anti-government opinions were widely circulated amongst by urban elite during Bulgaria's 2013-2014 protests and he even got into business relations with some of the protest movement informal leaders, starting a joint media company. Although the duped people were the first ones to alert the authorities about "Alexander Nikolov's" misdeeds, attacks from both left- and right-wing websites used the scam to attempt to make a laughing stock of the the umni i krasivi.
Bulgaria has a long history of scammers who deceived hundreds of thousands of people - from the financial pyramids of the 1990s up to the so called "Allo scammers", who convince ordinary people, most of them elderly to give over their life savings under the pretext of helping a relative in dire need of help. The Alexander Spas case was unique exactly because he was aiming at the supposedly brighter people, condescending towards the rest of the society. The moral of the story: Everybody can be gullible and you should never buy tickets by giving your bank details to a person on Facebook.
80% Debili
Prof. Ivo "The Doom" Hristovdefinition: A remark by parliament's most apocalyptic member sent a clear message to the public as to what politicians think of them.
The drive of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) under the leadership of Kornelia Ninova to show a rejuvenated face led to the election of some interesting people to parliament last March. One of the most curious cases is that of Prof. Ivo Hristov, a sociologist at the University of Plovdiv, long known for his beyond-somber view of where Bulgaria and the
world are headed - to an Apocalypse. A know-itall analyst or, better said, a conspiratorialist, who voluntarily shares his opinions on topics ranging from demographic trends in the country, the fall of the EU, to world geopolitics, Mr. Hristov resonates with many Bulgarians.
Yet, his candidness took its toll after Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zaharova claimed that it was thanks to the advance of the Soviet Army that Jews from pre-war Bulgaria were not deported to the Nazi death camps during the final days of the Second World War. The comment prompted an outcry within Bulgaria. Prof. Hristov had a different view of the matter, which he shared during a Rotary Club event: " the scandal with Maria Zaharova is a classic! When we take into account
that 80% of the populace consists of imbeciles (debili in Bulgarian), it worked just great,"he said, claiming that, indeed, if it was not for the victories of the Soviet soldiers in 1943-1944, Bulgaria would have ultimately deported its Jewish population. Mr. Hristov was of course correct that had Nazi Germany won the WWII the fate of the Bulgarian Jews would have been tragic, but it was very poorly disguised attempt to justify Mrs Zaharova comments, which tried to deprive Bulgarians of one of their finest moments. A video of Prof. Hristov making this claim went viral and GERB called forhis resignation on the basis of "national treachery", an obvious attempt to shift attention away from the troubles of their own MPs. BSP defended their MP, who later appologized.
Koumgate
A nepotism scandal shakes GERB
definition: A scandal in the branch of governing GERB party in Haskovo revealing widespread appointment of
family members and friends to positions in local government
In the previous issue of KQ you read about "Sujukgate" - a scandal of alleged corruption that shook GERB, the
leading party in the governing coalition, soon after it returned to power earlier this year. (In Bulgarian journalese, the suffix 'gate' was imported to denote political scandals - a reference to the Nixon-era Watergate scandals in the U.S.) Sujukgate was named after a strange bribe the now ex-MP, Zhivko Martinov, allegedly had asked for: four tons of sujuk, a traditionalThen, in an unprecedented move, GERB's parliamentary group decided to put Mr. Dobrev's resignation to vote. It was then voted down - not once but twice. Despite Mr. Dobrev's plea that his resignation was a personal decision, his party did not let him go. A cynic might think GERB did not want to create a precedent of people getting kicked out of parliament due to nepotism.
You have probably heard idioms and proverbs in Bulgarian that read like "The horse went into the river" or "A united company moves a mountain". when translated to English wordfor-word They cause chuckle among your Bulgarian friends, but the only thing you can do is to raise politely your eyebrows. Many more similar meaningless phrases can be found in various websites which make fun of the habit (typical not only for Bulgarians) to translate literally idiomatic expressions and proverbs into English.
The current section of KQ has the ambition to explain the jargon of Bulgarian politics and economy which sometimes is as inexplicable if literally translated as in the above mentioned phrases. Who's Cecoron? Or what "Tsvetan thoughts" means and what for the love of god ladybirds have to do with management?
The current section of KQ has the ambition to explain the jargon of Bulgarian politics and economy which sometimes is as inexplicable if literally translated as in the above mentioned phrases. Who's Cecoron? Or what "Tsvetan thoughts" means and what for the love of god ladybirds have to do with management?
