Bulgaria

After my second stint at Gibraltar it was time for me to move on to another one at a recently acquired company of ours in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. Bulgaria is a beautiful place minus the cold. Sofia is about 1/10th in population when compared to Hyderabad but, it has all the glam sham of a capital city. Bulgaria until recently has been a communist country before it joined the European union. The currency there was Leva and until we got the name and pronunciation right we used to address the change as Mini Levas instead of Stotinki :). The climate was harsh and the food was quite different and difficult at times. Indian food was rare and good Indian food looked like a mere impossibility. Yep you guessed it right - I lost a lot of weight which I am quickly reacquiring now that I am back in India and on home cooked meals and especially them Biryanis (damn! why did they have to be so delectable and fattening at the same time). Actually, Indians themselves are a rare sight in Sofia. I was delighted to meet a fellow Indian in a super market. Nilesh is his name, he works for I-Flex and has been posted to Bulbank in Sofia on a 2 year stint. Nilesh got me introduced to a Jazz club which has a live band playing once every week. It was a terrific experience listening to the live band play. The best part of Sofia I would say is that it attracts both spiritual and sensual crowds i.e., it has a lot of churches and twice as many strip clubs and two of them (churches :) ) were right on my way to office. The most pathetic part being I didn't feel like visiting any of them. All I did was slog like a maniac to setup our new server farm to get it production ready. Now I regret it. Anyways, here are some of my memories from Sofia ...

St. Nedelia Church

Grand Sheraton Hotel

The Happy Bar & Grill. An excellent chain of eateries all over Sofia. Go there if you want a decent meal with very hospitable service from pretty waitresses.

The Sofian Presidency

Christmas Cheer in Sofia

St. Nikolai Russian Church


A smart vendor at the pavement market near Alexander Nevsky Church


Alexander Nevsky in all it's glory


The Electric buses of Sofia with Hotel Serdika, my initial residence in Sofia in the background


The pavement level basement shops of Sofia


I'll remember my First Tram ride ever


The Archaeological Museum of Sofia


I bet you'll have difficulty remembering and / or pronouncing and / or spelling his name :). He's my friend, colleague, deskmate and lunch partner from Sofia - the one and only Mr. Zdravko Dimitrov



The Tsar Osvoboditel (Liberator) Monument


The University of Sofia


More Christmas cheer in Sofia


Alexander Nevsky from the spot above


The park behind my office, one of the many pretty stretches of greenery I have seen in Sofia interspersed with works of art carved in rock.


The (now old) Sofia Office


My Dinner treat @ Don Domat (Don Tomato). Clockwise - Plamen Petkov, Rumyana Simeonova + Stoyan Uzunov, Vladimir Terziev (a.k.a. Vlady), Milena Smilova

continued ... Clockwise - half a Milena :), the one and only Mr. Stoyan Genov, myself (5 large drinks down) and Anton Kolev


Me clad in all my winter gear near the Sofian Presidency

There are couple of important things I learnt the hard way on this trip.

• There is such a thing as bone biting cold and it doesn't leave you (or your private parts :D) alone even after covering yourself with 3 substantially and / or sensibly thick layers of clothing.
  
• A large peg could mean more than 60ml so ask before you order.
• Trying to find Indian food stuff and spices in Sofia could end up being a wild goose chase.
  
• (Hence, ) Ordering Indian food in Sofia could be hazardous to health.
• A thick fog = you being rerouted to half an airport (not being sarcastic, it literally is half an airport) 3 hours away by road after being made to wait in the bone biting (refer above) cold for an hour for the bus and finding yourself waiting in a crowd of one and a half thousand people crammed into a 500 sft waiting hall at the half an airport until BA ground crew gets things moving for you.
• Phew! - The Phew that one Phews after having gone through the above things is one of the most quenching Phews one can Phew.

Initially I had my own qualms about going to Bulgaria, a communist country. During the initial few days while crossing the fog ridden park behind my office at times I used to half expect some communist mugger to jump in front of me with a knife or a gun. But, being in Sofia for a while I have learnt that Sofia is a city of sights and that Sofians are nice cordial people with a simple and merry outlook to life. I will always remember the Ruski Pametnik (The Russian Monument), Rakia (Grape Brandy), the I-raan (Butter Milk) and my 45 minute a day walk home encompassing the busy Blvd.s of Sofia.

/PhaKuDi