Chalga music, a blend of Turkish rhythms, Balkan folk, and Europop, has become a polarizing force in the Bulgarian town of Dimitrovgrad, where many residents long for their socialist past
Bloc Party
Statue of Memory
Bulgaria commemorates a murdered dissident — and takes a symbolic step toward reckoning with its communist past.
Reconnecting Cultures in the Balkans
In the villages that nestle amid southern Bulgaria’s remote, scenically spectacular, economically underdeveloped Pirin and Rhodope Mountains, Pomaks—Bulgarian Muslims—are reclaiming their name. Marginalized under 45 years of communism, they saw Pomak become “a word you had to feel guilty about,” says Mehmed Boyukli, a leading Pomak analyst. Now, he says, “with the Internet, the term has become acceptable. It has become a symbol of all the cultural heritage we have preserved.” Continue reading “Reconnecting Cultures in the Balkans”
Protests Trap Bulgarian MPs Inside Parliament
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
More than 100 legislators, government ministers, journalists and officials were blockaded inside the Bulgarian Parliament building late Tuesday night and into Wednesday, as the 40th day of largely peaceful street protests in Sofia, the capital, turned confrontational. Continue reading “Protests Trap Bulgarian MPs Inside Parliament”
Kurdish Dengbej Storytellers Revive Tradition In Turkey
In Turkey, Kurdish culture is having something of a Renaissance. Public expressions of Kurdish culture are now legal. Now a new cultural center has opened for traditional Kurdish story-tellers to practice their ancient art. Reporter Matthew Brunwasser sat in on a session.
Continue reading “Kurdish Dengbej Storytellers Revive Tradition In Turkey”
After Political Appointment in Bulgaria, Rage Boils Over
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
SOFIA, Bulgaria — Delyan Peevski’s mother used to head the national lottery and leads a growing media empire with strong political and economic connections in this small, impoverished and notoriously corrupt Balkan nation. So perhaps it was not surprising that the appointment of Mr. Peevski, 32, to head the powerful State Agency for National Security sparked protests that have been attended by thousands every day over the past two weeks and show no sign of losing steam. Continue reading “After Political Appointment in Bulgaria, Rage Boils Over”
Turkey’s Islamic Creationist TV Babes
Turkey’s Islamic creationist guru Adnan Oktar is a regular fixture on his TV channel A9 – for hours and hours, day after day. Today, as he often does, Oktar is talking about one of his many exhibitions of fossils that he says disproves evolution. Oktar and his cult-like organization have been in the Turkish media space for decades. But only last year did he deploy his new weapon in the battle against Darwinism.
A flock of ostensibly attractive, curvy young women.
New Bridge Over Danube Helps Dissolve Old Enmities
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
VIDIN, Bulgaria — The European Union hardly basks in popular favor these days. But in this isolated corner of the bloc’s poorest periphery, leaders and locals on Friday celebrated a tangible benefit of membership — a $340 million bridge spanning the Danube that should help strengthen trade and ties between two impoverished members, Romania and Bulgaria. Continue reading “New Bridge Over Danube Helps Dissolve Old Enmities”
With Many Despairing, Bulgaria Heads to Polls
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
VARNA, Bulgaria — Early one morning this past winter, Plamen Goranov, a 36-year-old photographer, stood on the steps of City Hall in this once grand and now crumbling port city on the Black Sea and held up a sign demanding that the mayor and City Council resign. He then took a bottle of gasoline from his backpack, poured it over himself and set himself on fire. He died 11 days later in a hospital. Continue reading “With Many Despairing, Bulgaria Heads to Polls”
Bulgaria’s Unholy Alliances
By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
SOFIA — His enthronement as patriarch of Bulgaria, spiritual leader of millions of Orthodox believers here, was supposed to stir pride and moral togetherness in an impoverished country confronting a vacuum in political leadership and widespread economic pain.
Instead, the installation of His Holiness Neofit last month, in a ceremony replete with byzantine splendor, served as one more reminder that Bulgaria had never really thrown off the inheritance of 40 years of rigid Communist rule and all the duplicitous dealings that went with it. Continue reading “Bulgaria’s Unholy Alliances”