It's just past noon on election day. Two men - a muscular, younger bloke and a middle-aged, ample man, both wearing black t-shirts, sit on a sofa and start a Facebook live video through the profile of the young one, entrepreneur and social media personality Ivelin Mihaylov. The latter has 31,000 followers on Meta's platform and 57,000 more - on YouTube. The two debunk (alleged) claims that a national radio reporter has made about their party's surprise election result according to the first exit polls and call on their supporters to "protect the vote." While the second man - Nikola Markov, who is known as "the colonel," but is, in fact, only a retired lieutenant colonel from the long-demilitarized National Security Service - rambles on about "manipulation", Mihaylov nibbles on some nuts.
But this doesn't do justice to their ludicrous social media activities. Mihaylov has hours-long videos in which he promotes his so-called Historical Park - an amusement center based on a fantastic version of Bulgarian medieval history, which is funded in a very problematic way. The self-appointed colonel has an interview, in which he explains how he's not only a colonel in Bulgaria, but has also been awarded the rank of general by the Russian army and the rank of major - by the US.
For an outsider, the two come across as a parody. But for their followers - at least 100,000 of whom apparently took it to the polls and sent them to Parliament last Sunday - they are quite serious. With a campaign that mostly focused on interviews for social media influencers, vloggers and in-person meetings around the country, Mihaylov and Markov's Velichie (which means "greatness" in Bulgarian) party passed under the radar of all major pollsters and analysts. So who are they, where did they come from and - most importantly - what are they fighting for?
Who are the Colonel and Mihaylov and where did they come from?
Mainstream media and sociologists missed the rise of the duo because of the downplayed scene they inhabit - Facebook, Youtube and TikTok. Their rise is connected to two separate, but intertwined phenomenon - the controversial creation of the Historical Park and the rise of "alt-media" vloggers, who are popular disseminators of conspiracy theories (i.e Covid denial and anti-vax) and outright anti-Western, pro-Russian propaganda.
An example of the conspiracists is Kiro Breyka, who has 123,000 followers on Youtube and often invites Mihaylov to promote his amusement park. The latter, in turn, is exemplified by disgruntled former journalist Martin Karbovsky, whose latest video with "colonel" Markov attracted 150,000 views. In his appearances - as well as in his Facebook posts, Markov shares his exuberant, over-the-top readings of geopolitical events - always with a pro-Russian slant. He is teaching National Security at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia and has acquired the image of a renegade after being kicked out of the National Security Service in the late 2000s. His explanation is that he exposed corruption practices that went as high as the then-president Georgi Parvanov. According to information from court cases it's more likely that he disobeyed mundane orders from one of his superiors and offended another.
Mihaylov - the mastermind behind Velichie - is a former financial consultant who entered the spotlight with his founding of the Historical Park tourist attraction in the village of Neofit Rilski near Varna. The company was financed through the sale of shares on the black market, completely circumventing the Public Offering of Securities Act (POSA), but for a long time was not investigated by the financial authorities. Subsequently, Mihaylov and his acolytes bought out the village of Neofit Rilski, along with numerous properties in neighboring villages of the municipality of Vetrino, and created a structure resembling a cult of personality for the park's executive director, Mihaylov. And this is not our own verdict - former members of the community describe it as a cult.
In recent years, Capital weekly has published a series of stories describing the militarization of the park through the creation of an informal militia group and the takeover of official power in Vetrino municipality through the fictitious settlement of hundreds of people who voted for the newly created party of Mihaylov - Velichie; and the obscure way the park is financed, which is fuelled through massive loan withdrawals by individuals.
Notably, it took the National Revenue Agency years to become interested in the finances of the park and the investigation began the day after the party's electoral success last week. The state police were a little bit quicker - they launched four investigations into the alleged armed militia of the park a few weeks prior to the vote. But in any case, Mihaylov's park was long tolerated by the national and local authorities - likely because its residents consistently voted GERB before they created their own party.
What does Velichie fight for?
Typical to similar formations, Velichie expresses anti-systemic conservative opinions with patriotic pathos and pro-Russian flavor, which appeal to those dissatisfied with the political status quo. In this sense, the new party also "robs" some of those disillusioned with previous similar formations such as TISP and Vazrazhdane, which have remained in parliament for quite some time.
Markov and Mihaylov have backed the revival of the Belene nuclear power plant project, and against the EU's Green Deal and the development of the country's renewable energy capacity, which are all in line with Moscow's energy policy. They have also claimed to oppose Bulgaria's membership of the eurozone and campaigned to preserve the Bulgarian lev. But caution is needed - on the day of the vote, when it became clear that Velichie was indeed making it into Parliament, the two made much more wary and carefully worded comments vis-a-vis their attitudes towards Europe and Bulgaria's NATO membership. "We have no doubt that Bulgaria should be in the EU and NATO. We have signed treaties with obligations. We need to see which 'obligations' are being imposed on us by our politicians," Mihaylov told BNT, saying that his red line is stopping military aid to Ukraine.
In their election campaign, Velichie also rode on the anti-corruption ticket, using the niche that practically remained vacant after the formation of the Denkov-Gabriel rotating government. The party's representatives took various spins on it during their meetings with voters in different places around the country.
Again, like other protest parties, Velichie has recruited a colorful plethora of minor public intellectuals, local bureaucrats and businesspeople and renegades from other parties, including TISP, BSP and even WCC. It is unclear how long these cadres will remain loyal to their new party - since the rise of GERB to power in 2009, there have been dozens of MPs who've left their minor protest party to join Borissov's team and Velichie might turn out to be the next donor.
And even if the description of the new player might seem amusing, there is a serious aspect to all this. Firstly, it is likely that the party's MPs will remain overtly or covertly pro-Russian, which makes the weight of the pro-Kremlin bloc in parliament quite significant - almost 90 MPs from Velichie, Vazrazhdane and BSP, or a third of all Bulgarian parliamentarians are hardly hiding their sympathies for Putin's regime. And if their sheer size might not look scary now, their voice will certainly be amplified in the coming months, especially bearing in mind that they will act as an opposition to the pretend pro-Western government of GERB and MRF that is coming. This might easily give them an even better score in the next elections - especially if they join hands with the likely upcoming party of President Rumen Radev
It's just past noon on election day. Two men - a muscular, younger bloke and a middle-aged, ample man, both wearing black t-shirts, sit on a sofa and start a Facebook live video through the profile of the young one, entrepreneur and social media personality Ivelin Mihaylov. The latter has 31,000 followers on Meta's platform and 57,000 more - on YouTube. The two debunk (alleged) claims that a national radio reporter has made about their party's surprise election result according to the first exit polls and call on their supporters to "protect the vote." While the second man - Nikola Markov, who is known as "the colonel," but is, in fact, only a retired lieutenant colonel from the long-demilitarized National Security Service - rambles on about "manipulation", Mihaylov nibbles on some nuts.
But this doesn't do justice to their ludicrous social media activities. Mihaylov has hours-long videos in which he promotes his so-called Historical Park - an amusement center based on a fantastic version of Bulgarian medieval history, which is funded in a very problematic way. The self-appointed colonel has an interview, in which he explains how he's not only a colonel in Bulgaria, but has also been awarded the rank of general by the Russian army and the rank of major - by the US.
