Local Justice, Bulgarian Style

It’s Bloody Grim

By the start of 1995, I’d been working as a geologist for Rio Tinto *boo hiss* in Turkey for about 18 months. I was unhappy with the terms of my employment -which were rubbish- and to top it off, Rio decided that year to “localise” a lot of expat contracts. This meant slashing salaries and generally being dicks to anyone who wasn’t a full-time expat employee under an existing contract. Hence, I was feeling less than 100% devoted to them.

And then the cavalry arrived. Some drinking buddies who ran Anglo American’s Turkish office *Yay! Huzzah!* offered me a job in Bulgaria. The offer was substantially higher than my my pitiful Rio salary, so after a quick nose scratch and some judicious chin rubbing -it would’ve been impolite to say yes immediately- I signed the contract and enjoyed a jolly nice dinner with my new boss Owen and his wife. A few weeks later I was across the border in Sofia, renting a grotty communist-era 3rd floor apartment. It was tastefully decorated, painted Moscow-approved peppermint green, offset by bright orange tiles in the bathroom.

Post-communism Sofia was grim. It was grey and shabby, full of miserable people who’s social system had collapsed. There was no produce in the shops in the winter and only a handful of semi-decent pubs and restaurants to take the edge off the cold grimness. The gorillas of organised crime were everywhere; muscle-bound pricks in black leather jackets and heavy gold necklaces, driving shiny new western sports cars in a city full of ratty Trabbies.

Sweaty Geologists

Late that summer, our small team headed to the southwest of the country close to the borders with Greece and Macedonia to explore for sediment-hosted gold. We rented a house in the town of Ognyanovo, owned by the local mayor. An interesting character in the Borat style, he would show up at odd times in the evening with a couple of local prostitutes in tow who were offered to us gratis. His treat. There were regular heated but polite discussions between him and my Bulgarian colleagues as we declined the entertainment, but I will admit we were more than happy to accept his home-made slivovitz (plum schnapps.)

The house had one huge selling point for sweaty geologists; the entire basement was a hot spring. A large water pipe brought naturally warm water from an underground source into the cellar, which had been converted into a giant Romanesque wall-to-wall bath. The basement stairs led directly into 3 feet of warm, sulphurous water. After a day of sampling or prospecting work, it was a bloody ace to have a nice soak while sipping a cold beer.

Turkish Delight

Large swathes of southern Bulgaria are ethnically Turkish, and the people still speak Turkish as their first language. Between 1984 to 1989, the communist administration put enormous pressure on their Turkish minority to “Bulgarianise” their names. It was called the Process of Rebirth, although they seem to have forgotten to ask their Turkish compatriots if they wanted to be reborn as non-Turks. As with similar “assimilation” efforts around the world, the objective was to erase their minority cultural heritage.

I’d lived in Turkey for close to 2 years, exploring along the Black Sea coast for copper and precious metals so I was familiar with the culture and loved Turkish hospitality. Ognyanovo itself wasn’t Turkish, but there were Turkish communities nearby, and we ended up in one a few days later, close to the Greek border in an area criss-crossed with scenic tree-lined farm roads. The village had an attractive mosque with a white minaret.

I can’t for the life of me remember who worked with me that day. I’ve asked all of my Bulgarian colleagues from the time but none of them recall the episode. No matter. We parked our beaten-up Lada truck under some Poplar trees to keep the sun off and grabbed our packs and sampling gear for the day’s traverse, leaving a lot of our stuff in the truck, including passports, money and luggage as we thought the truck would be safe where we’d parked it (spoiler alert, it wasn’t.)

Traversing We Will Go!

It was a glorious sunny day which promised to be uncomfortably hot, so hats and sunscreen went on. Our traverse took us up into some limestone hills. We knew the carbonates hosted Carlin-type gold systems in other parts of southern Bulgaria, so the objective was to prospect for jasperoids and sanded carbonate rocks -possible evidence of gold mineralization- but it turned into an unremarkable day from a geological perspective. Lots of dead limestones with no mineralization.

Eventually we stopped for lunch at the top of a hill in a small round depression hollowed out of the limestone rubble. It was a perfect spot for lunch albeit a bit exposed to the sun. The hole was obviously man made, but old; lichen covered the rocks. We took in the view as we munched on dark local bread and hard, fatty sausage with a few tomatoes we’d scrounged at the village. The 360-degree view was amazing; we could see down across the Greek border toward Thessaloniki, over miles and miles of limestone hills.

The Germans Are Coming.

Done with my modest lunch, I lay down on a large, sloping slab of limestone to take a brief nap before the afternoon’s fieldwork. Which is when I saw the graffiti. Scratched into the face of the slab was a swastika. It was covered in lichen, but it was clearly a swastika, nestled within a large letter V.

We had a quick hunt around and found others on some of the larger slabs. We’d stopped for lunch in an old Nazi German observation post or machine gun nest. The border region had been awash with partisans in the second world war, and it must have been a lonely spot for the young German squaddies posted up there to keep watch on the rebellious Greeks. It was easy to picture them, scratching away with their bayonets during the long, tense days waiting for shit to kick off.

The afternoon wore on. The hot sun and barren rocks eroded our enthusiasm for the traverse, so we decided to head back to the village to grab the truck and drive back to Ognyanovo for a soak in the hot spring. Our little blue Lada truck was where we left it but not so our belongings. The truck was empty. Passports, gear, money: all gone. Someone had jemmied a window -which isn’t difficult in a Soviet era Lada- and cleaned us out while we were away.

Call The Police!

To say I was pissed-off would be an understatement. The cash I needed for a 2-3 week field stint was gone along with my passport and permanent residence papers which were vital in a country that delighted in the sadistic application of pointless red tape. So, feeling like an idiot for leaving my stuff in the truck and with a less than charitable attitude toward the bastards that nicked it all, off we went to the village looking for a policeman.

When we got there, it took only a few minutes for someone to come over and ask if we needed anything. I said “Hello, how are you?” in my simple Turkish which drew a few interested glances. Then my colleague explained in Bulgarian what had happened and asked for the local police to report the crime to.

Now, it’s important here to remember that 1) the village was Turkic and the police force was largely Bulgarian (whatever that is), and 2) there was a lot of bad blood between the Turks and the Bulgars for good reason. So, when the word “police” was mentioned there were some furtive glances exchanged in the growing crowd of onlookers, accompanied by lots of muttering and some louder, heated exchanges in Turkish. The word had touched a nerve.

Leave It To Us.

An elderly man with an orange beard spoke to us; the village Mukhtar, or chief. His dyed beard signified that he was a Haji who’d made the pilgrimage to Mecca. In broken Bulgarian, he politely asked that we not involve the police just yet. The village folk wanted a chance to sort this out themselves because theft from travellers brought shame upon the village. If we agreed, they guaranteed to return our things. I reluctantly concurred, skeptical that they would come through with the goods.

They suggested a couple of hours might be needed to find the perpetrators so in the meantime, we were their guests. They placed some wooden chairs under a shady tree and tea and cake appeared from nowhere. The Mukhtar made polite conversation with us while the newly appointed village detectives disappeared purposefully into the village on a man hunt; they seemed to have a good idea who they were looking for.

A Swift Slap

An hour later, a small group of villagers arrived back, heading our way. In the middle were 2 teenage boys, literally being dragged along by their ears. They were carrying 2 bags, our bags, loaded with our stuff. The bags were placed at our feet, and some old school smacks around the back of the head were meted out by the elder to a soundtrack of tutting and bad tempered name calling directed at the boys. When one kid had the temerity to complain he got a swift kick up the arse to realign his attitude.

We checked through the stuff. It was all there, even my passport, except for the contents of my wallet. My Bulgarian leva and some US dollars were gone. It wasn’t a huge amount for us, but in a small village in rural Bulgaria it was a couple of months money for a family. I pointed out the absence of cash. More swift slaps were administered and off they went again, with a few more kicks up the backside to help them on their way. When they came back, it was all present and correct. We had everything back, just as promised.

We’re Really Very Sorry

The Mukhtar apologised profusely. The kids -known trouble makers- had seen our truck under the tree and figured they could help themselves. But this was NOT how his village was and he was deeply embarrassed that it had happened on his watch. There were some veiled comments about how it wasn’t over for the 2 boys and they’d soon learn not to do it again.

The assembled parents and other folk all stepped forward to take turns to apologise and shake our hands, and then the boys were pushed in front of us, eyes downcast, and made to swear they’d never do it again and could we please forgive them and not tell the police? We agreed, that in the changed circumstances, it wasn’t necessary. The Mukhtar sighed a huge sigh of relief and clipped one of the boys again for good measure.

I was left with some fond memories of that village. After months of watching the untouchable mafia swanning around Sofia in their Porsches, it was refreshing to come across some straight up bucolic honesty and a bit of old-fashioned justice in a village where everyone knows everyone else’s business. God only knows how the kids thought they’d get away with it because they really had nowhere to hide.

And remember…

If you don’t subscribe to this blog via the orange, post-communist subscription box at the top of the page, I’m going to come round to your house and nick all your stuff and drive off in my Lada Niva. You have been warned.