Relationship breakdown

October 29, 2009 — Istanbul
Writer: Matthew Brunwasser

There are good reasons to condemn Israel for its incursion into Gaza last December: some 1,400 Palestinians were killed as Israel got tough on Hamas a month before parliamentary elections. But Turkey’s diplomatic response has snowballed to enormous proportions – leaving Turkey-watchers wondering whether Gaza wasn’t just a convenient excuse for the Islamist government in Ankara to shed a historical ally it really considered distasteful all along. Continue reading “Relationship breakdown” →

Taking offence, Turkish style

Offending Turkishness and common sense

October 14, 2009 — Istanbul

Writer: Matthew Brunwasser

Turkey is schizophrenic about human rights. The country has made important steps towards protecting minority rights at home and reducing conflict in the region. But at the same time it continues to brutally silence critics – unable to tolerate either political opposition or those who challenge the myths of the Turkish nation. Continue reading →

Socialist Coalition Loses in Bulgaria Election

July 6, 2009

Socialist Coalition Loses in Bulgaria Election

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Mayor Boyko Borisov of Sofia, a burly former black-belt bodyguard with a penchant for tough talk, cigars and leather jackets, led his center-right opposition party to a larger-than-expected election victory on Sunday over Bulgaria’s governing Socialist-led coalition, which was weakened by a severely deteriorating economy and voter fatigue with chronic corruption. Continue reading “Socialist Coalition Loses in Bulgaria Election” →

Kosovo Ex-Prime Minister Arrested on War Crimes

June 25, 2009

By DAN BILEFSKY and MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

PRAGUE — The former prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, a former rebel commander wanted in Serbia on war crimes charges, has been arrested in Bulgaria, Bulgarian officials announced Wednesday.

Continue reading “Kosovo Ex-Prime Minister Arrested on War Crimes” →

Memo From Pravda: In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities

January 5, 2009

Memo From Pravda

In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

PRAVDA, Bulgaria — The name of this isolated spot in the lush Danube plains means justice or, in Russian, truth.

But little of either seems to have penetrated the home for men with mental disabilities and illnesses here, a bleak establishment reached most easily by a bone-jarring, six-hour ride from Sofia, the capital.

In the Communist era, this is where authorities hid the mentally ill from public view. Today, the Pravda Social Care Home for Men with Mental Disorders, a small complex of scrappy, two-story buildings, is still a favored destination for city folk to send away relatives with a mental illness or disability — and not worry about hearing from them again, employees and residents here say. Continue reading “Memo From Pravda: In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities” →

A Bulgarian care center for disabled children excels

VARNA, Bulgaria — State institutions in Eastern Europe devoted to the care of children and the disadvantaged are most often the subject of negative news stories in Western media.

So after the British Broadcasting Corp. aired an upsetting documentary last year about conditions at a home for mentally impaired orphans, advocates for the disabled were relieved they could focus attention on good practices and all point to Karin Dom, a nonprofit day care center for children with mental and physical disabilities. Continue reading “A Bulgarian care center for disabled children excels” →

Macedonia dispute has an Asian flavor

SKOPJE, Macedonia — It is one of Europe’s most bizarre – and stubborn – international disputes, and certainly the only one that invokes an argument about Asian tribes stretching back to Alexander the Great. Continue reading “Macedonia dispute has an Asian flavor” →

A Book Peels Back Some Layers of a Cold War Mystery

September 11, 2009

Sofia Journal

A Book Peels Back Some Layers of a Cold War Mystery

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

SOFIA, Bulgaria — It was one of the legends of the cold war: a Bulgarian dissident writer, Georgi Markov, dying in a London hospital of a mysterious fever after being injected with a poison pellet from a specially adapted umbrella as he walked to work across Waterloo Bridge.

A prominent novelist in his native land when he defected to the West in 1969, Mr. Markov had become a journalist at the BBC’s Bulgarian service and an unflinching critic of Communist rule and Bulgaria’s longtime leader, Todor Zhivkov. Continue reading “A Book Peels Back Some Layers of a Cold War Mystery” →

Nuclear ambitions fan controversy in Bulgaria

SOFIA — As governments around the world struggle to secure energy supplies, cut carbon emissions and adapt to rising oil prices, Bulgaria has adopted an ambitious solution: Construct a new nuclear power plant, the country’s second, near the northern town of Belene, across the Danube from Romania. Continue reading “Nuclear ambitions fan controversy in Bulgaria” →

A Ride to the Afterlife

story by MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
published in Archaeology Magazine Vol 60 Issue 5

STANDING OVER AN EXCAVATED PIT in a lush field between rusting grain silos and an aging dairy, archaeologist Veselin Ignatov explains, in helpfully unscientific language, the difference between two Thracian chariots he has just uncovered. “This one is a Mercedes,” he says, as we look over the remains of a chariot and horses buried in Bulgaria sometime between the first and third centuries A.D. “The other one,” he says, indicating a pit 10 yards away, “is more economy class.” Continue reading “A Ride to the Afterlife” →