Hello lovely people!

Today’s post will be a wee bitty controversial. It will most likely upset my fellow Bulgarians, but hey ho.

“No T, no shade!”

There are many blogs out there, on the world wide web, that talk about the beauty and the loveliness of Bulgaria. And I can’t argue with how unique our nature and history are. (However, this can sometimes have the effect of sugar-coating the reality and aiming to make Bulgaria more attractive for tourists)

However, there aren’t many blogs addressing the issues of Bulgarian society; the small-mindedness, the judgemental and prejudiced thinking, the oppression of the different.

Those are all issues that deeply sadden me and make me less proud of my country. Those are all issues, I’ll be addressing today and in the future.

I apologize to the people that might feel affected by this post.

Sorry, not sorry!

To my friends: Some of you are an exception to those things mentioned, don’t worry! 😉

***

See, today (3rd March) is a very important day for my home country. On March 3rd, 1878 the Treaty of San-Stefano was signed, which marked the day Bulgaria was officially independent of the Ottoman Empire (that was 500 years after Bulgaria was enslaved/ occupied).

Another reason why today is so important is that 3rd March is the only day on which Bulgarians remember their history, ancestors and manage to respect the legacy left to them. Don’t get me wrong there are some of us that do all those things throughout the whole year. (those Bulgarians, however, are a very small percentage.)

On the 3rd of March, everyone seems to love Bulgaria, be proud to be Bulgarian and so on.. only on that day though. We march around, listen to the hymn, carry a flag, in an attempt to be more patriotic than our friends, neighbours, the random person in the crowd. Usually, the celebration happens in the morning, in the city/ town square and is finished by 12 pm. After the celebration, we go home and forget about the fact that on this day Bulgaria was declared free.

And that is deeply saddening.

How come we don’t remember the numerous heroes who fought for freedom every day of our existence?!

How come we don’t wear a flower or something all year round to symbolise our respect and gratitude?!

I ask myself those questions every day, every year… nae answer though

I’m sorry for this post not being as cheery as usual, but I needed to rant. And I usually torture my poor flatmate with all my political views, but today is different (mainly cause he has coursework due soon). Today I wanted to make my views public.

Thank you, my lovely people, for sparing a few minutes of your time and reading this.

I hope I’ll see you tomorrow.

Much love,

Dan x

P.S. I’ll probably be read to filth for writing this. Let the fun begin! 🙂