Behind the Iron Curtain

When I were a lad at school, we had it drummed into us that anything east of France (except West Germany and that was mostly still occupied by British and American troops left over from the war) was really not very nice at all.  We all heard stories of Joe Stalin and his massacres over a period of 40-odd years, we had the warning of the Cuban Missile Crisis (the closest ever to World War 3, one which would have probably have been nuclear and thus very unpleasant indeed) and Kruschev's antics at the UN General Assembly....banging his shoe on the lectern, for goodness sake, how undiplomatic can you get!  Then growing up, through my 20s, left-wing activists of my acquaintance were all rampant Marxists, but talked a load of old bollocks really, heavy on sloganeering but a tad light on content, and not at all clear on why Communism was so much better and more preferable to Capitalism.  I read John leCarre's excellent spy books, and enjoyed very much the BBCs adaptations (Smiley's People and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and wondered just how accurate his depictions of eastern European cities and people really were.  Surely everything couldn't really be as grim and depressing as it seemed and looked on the odd bit of film that came out of the region (like the Prague Spring in 68, for instance). Could it?

Russian leaders came and went.....Kruschev, Brezhnev, Kosygin, Andropov....all apparently cut from the same cloth, all with the outward appearance of tired old men, and all seemingly with links in some form or other back to Uncle Joe and his numerous terrors.  They all seemed to have links to the KGB as well, so in my possibly simplistic mind they probably had blood on their hands too....but I think not: the more I read about Soviet history, the more I meet people from that region and talk to them and learn about "real life" there, the more sure I am that they were a bunch of murderous old bastards who are now (hopefully) rotting in Hell.

Gorbachev changed all that.  He was younger for a start, and looked and dressed more western somehow.  Thatcher famously said he was "someone we can do business with", and she was right.  Probably because of his age and better education (don't quote me as I'm writing from memory, and haven't read his biography) he seemed to have a better, more pragmatic grasp of the situation in both the Eastern Bloc and the West, and was able to see through 50-odd years of Communist Party bullshit and perceive that it wasn't as good as he officially was supposed to believe and promote.  He could understand that when you have a couple of groups, each armed with massive nuclear arsenals, if the shit did hit the fan there would not be a "limited engagement", but there would instead be annihilation, on both sides, and no-one in the world would escape the consequences.  So with a pragmatism not seen for God know's how many years in the Soviet government, he was prepared to talk to the West's leaders (Thatcher and her toy-boy, ageing Hollywood has-been turned Republican politician Ronald Reagan) and try and do something about it.  Various Treaties were signed that committed both sides to dismantle big chunks of those nuclear arsenals, and all of a sudden the world did not seem quite such a dangerous place.  At least until Islamic Fundamentalism reared its ugly head....but that's another story altogether.

It also gave the Soviet economy, bankrupt for years, some money - what had previously been spent on now obsolete and scrapped weaponry - that could be ploughed back into other things, like food and consumer goods, better clothes and housing and health care.  And along came a Polish Pope, to give things another push.  He made a point of visiting his homeland and elsewhere, and was quite vocal in his opposition to all things Red, as indeed he would be, after living much of his life under the excesses of successive Polish Communist governments (and that after a youth under the even more vile Nazi occupation)..  Then along came more Polish pioneers, this time in the form of a trade union, Solidarity, unheard of in a Communist country.  The cracks were beginning to show across the whole Eastern Bloc.  Solidarity led strikes in the huge Gdansk shipyard and elsewhere, and despite the best efforts of the Party, including the brutal imposition of martial law, the imprisonment of Solidarity's leaders and the murder of a sympathic Warsaw priest by the security services, the whole edifice crumbled and was swept from power in democratic, free elections.  It sparked copycat movements throughout the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and in one country after another, even the USSR itself, Communist governments of various descriptions were swept from office.   Even the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the Iron Curtain itself, was torn down by citizens of both East and West Berlin in one extraordinary evening of manual labour and unbridled joy that was broadcast live on TV screens across the world....it was quite extraordinary.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, the map of Europe changed as new nations were born, some relatively painlessly, others through violent demonstrations and civil war.  East and West Germany joined together again, for the first time in 50 years, to become the Bundesrepublic Deutschland - Germany, to you and I.  Czechoslovakia, meanwhile, split into its two constituent states and became the relatively affluent Czech Republic and its poorer neighbour Slovakia, both changes relatively painless and democratic exercises.  The old Yugoslavia, meanwhile, split into half a dozen states amid a decade of bloodshed, civil war and ethnic cleansing, that needed US and British led NATO forces to intervene and saw new national leaders imprisoned and tried by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity.  The scars and divisions caused by that series of conflicts are still not healed to this day, and UN forces are still there protecting the smallest of the new nations, Kosovo, a tiny state in a greater Serbia that refuses to let it go.   In Romania, the Communist dictator Ceauscescu and his wife refused to go quietly, and in a brief and bloody coup ended up being dragged out of their Presidential Palace and shot on Christmas morning.  A democracy was declared, elections were held, but the country, whilst ostensibly a democratic member of the EU, is still riddled with gang warfare and organised crime, as is neighbouring Bulgaria.

Even the Soviet Union crumbled and the original Communists swept from power....including Gorbachev himself, who had perhaps unwittingly set the ball rolling with his policies of glasnost and perestroika.  The Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia - broke away preacefully to form young and relatively prosperous nations quite quicky.  The "Stans" - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Krygisztan - also moved quite peacefully to nationhood, as did Azerbaijan.  But in the Caucasus, around the Black and Caspian Seas, there has been continuing unrest in Georgia, Chechnya and other tiny states desperate for indepenance at any costs that has from time to time prompted brutal intervention from Russia.  Nevertheless, the Soviet Bloc is clearly no more, and the Iron Curtain totally destroyed.

For me, eventually, all of these countries represented travel opportunities that I had never dreamed of having.

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After Poland (a subject, as it's my home now, for another day), my first "new" nation to visit was Slovakia.  The bank I was working at in Warsaw was part of a bigger, international group that, being headquartered in Vienna, was particularly strong in Eastern Europe, especially the old Soviet Bloc countries.  Once the Curtain came down, it moved quickly to establish or extend its presence all across the region, and as Slovakia borders Austria it was a prime market to exploit.   So I was asked to go to Bratislava to do a workshop for a week.

The journey from Warsaw was actually quite difficult.  It's changed now, but at that time there were no direct flights, so I had to route via Vienna, leaving me with maybe 40 miles still to travel. across the border.  There were some Slovakian girls working in Vienna on the project, and they travelled between the cities by bus, but told me it was a very uncomfortable journey (Slovakian buses being thirty years old and not in the best repair).  Someone else suggested the train, and someone else proposed a taxi.  In the end I settled for the train, as there was a non-stop service from Vienna Ostbahnhoff. 

The flight to Vienna was uneventful, as was the taxi ride in from the airport.  Then the fun started.  The train was scheduled from platform 9, and I had time to pick up a pastry and coke for the journey.  I settled into the compartment to enjoy the ride.  Departure time came and went, and still we sat there.  For ten minutes: it was like commuting from Cannon Street to Tunbridge Wells again.  Then with a jerk that spilled my coke we were off.  The train lumbered through the eastern outskirts of Vienna for 5 minutes and stopped at a station - odd, as this was supposed to be a non-stop service.  We moved off again for another 10 minutes, then another stop.  By now I'm a bit concerned about whether I'm on the right train.  With no-one else in the compartment and no ticket collector anywhere I had no way of finding out, without wandering off along the train.  I decided to wait and see what happened.  After about three quarters of an hour and another half dozen stops, we pulled into a small rural station, in the middle of a wood somewhere.   Alongside was a long freight train loaded with logs.  The single station building was very picturesque, in a Germanic rural sort of way, but apparently deserted.  Everyone got off the train and left the station, leaving me leaning out the window wondering what was happening.  The guard saw me and yelled something in German, and started waving his arms - I assumed he wanted me off as well, so I lugged my suitcase and laptop out of the train and onto the platform.  I didn't even have time to close the door before the train pulled forward into a siding.  Then the driver got down, walked through the station building, got into a van with the guard and they drove off, leaving me alone.

There was no-one else on the station, and I could find no timetable to figure out where I was....there wasn't even a name on the station platform or building.  About a mile or so away, through the gathering evening gloom, I could see lights, and assumed it must be a town or village.  I considered walking there to find out at least where I was, but with a heavy suitcase and laptop bag I wasn't completely sold on the idea.  Then a couple of ladies appeared, walked through the waiting room, and clambered into a very battered diesel railcar parked beside the train I had recently left.  I hesitated, then a couple of men and another woman followed them.  I left my bags, walked across and half climbed into the car myself.

"Excuse me, " I said. "This train...Bratislava?"

The men looked at me shiftily but one of the women nodded. 

So I got my bags, lugged them aboard and settled down.  After another 15 minutes or so (by which time it was quite dark) a Ford Transit pulled up outside the station, and a couple of minutes later four armed police led onto the train about 8 prisoners, manacled together, and sat them down.  Two of the armed guys went off in the van, leaving their colleagues to mind the shop.  They did this by walking up and down the aisle in the carriage, rifles in hand, glaring at the prisoners and muttering threats.  One of the prisoners, across the aisle from me,  was staring at me, an idiotic grin on his face.  I did my best to ignore him, but it was disturbing to say the least.  One of the guards saw this, strolled casually across and as he passed the prisoner jammed the butt of his rifle into his face without saying a word.  The guy grunted, dropped his gaze and remained staring at the floor for the rest of the journey.  Shortly after, the Transit came back with another batch of manacled prisoners, they were pushed into seats and off we went.  By this time, I was beginning to wonder what the hell I had let myself in for by accepting the trip!

The ride was a short one.  We rattled noisily out of the station, through the woods, and after about a mile rumbled across an old iron bridge across the Danube and into another dimly lit station.  We had crossed the border into Slovakia.  Here, the armed guards bundled their charges off the train and into the back of a truck, and drove them off in the direction of a huge and brightly lit Skoda factory a couple of miles away.   Slave labour, it seems, was alive and well in the early years of the 21st century, at least in Eastern Europe.  After they had been removed, the border guards got on and checked our passports.  I had no problems, but the guy sitting opposite me did.  He was carrying a plastic bag that contained a newspaper, a torch and what looked like an old angle-poise lamp.  After checking my passport, the guard looked at this bloke's bag, and asked him a question.  The guy shook his head and mumbled something.  The guard called his partner over and they had a brief conversation in (I presumed) Slovakian, then the second guard asked the guy a question.  Again he shook his head, and mumbled a reply.  The guards looked at each other for a second, then grabbed him and dragged him protesting loudly, bag and all, off the train, and started a strip search on the platform.  Nobody else on the train took a blind bit of notice, and a few seconds later the train pulled out leaving the guy to the mercies of the border guards.  I often wonder what the hell it was all about and what happened to the poor sod.  The rest of the ride was uneventful and short - 10 minutes into central Bratislava, and I got a cab to my hotel: from memory, a Holiday Inn but comfortable enough on the edge of the Old Town Square.

That trip I was in town a week, but really saw very little of it.  Like most cities in Europe (particularly the east) there is some splendid 18th and 19th century architecture, much of it bunched in a single central area surrounding a cobbled market square.  Beyond that "Old Town" section, there are the usual grey concrete, poor quality, Soviet era housing blocks and shopping areas, linked by a tram system that while effective is badly in need of investment.  When I was there, all the trams I used were of a quality that in Amsterdam, say (another city with an extensive tramway), would have seen them condemned to the scrapheap 30 years ago.  Not one of them had upholstered seats, and only a handful moulded plastic seats - the norm was rough and uncomfortable slatted wooden benches.  Throw in a lack of adequate heating (as I found out when I returned the following winter) and it really is a system in need of serious attention.  Perhaps by now, nearly 10 years later, it's better....I hope so.

The Old Town was lovely.  In many ways it reminded me of the Old Town market squares I had seen in Warsaw and Krakow, only less developed - fewer bars and restaurants and souvenir shops.  But I did find one excellent Irish bar on the edge of the Old Town and had probably the most satisfyingly cheap and delicious meal of my life.  Country vegetable soup, served up in a hollowed-out (and fresh) cottage loaf, an exquisite cottage pie with a big portion of chips (again, freshly cut potatoes, not frozen) and three pints of Caffrey's beer.....all for the equivalent of a fiver.  Yep, five pounds.  Superb.  I ate there every night and was never disappointed.

My return journey was thankfully less fraught.  I managed to catch the right train, although I had a moment of concern when it pulled out of the station heading north east, in the general direction of Moscow, when Vienna is due west, but it merely looped all the way round the southern edge of the city on its way to the Austrian border, where there was again a delay for passport control.  I had another iffy moment there: the border guard insisted I open my suitcase.  On top was a carrier bag with some gifts for the kids, then another big bag of laundry.  Unfortunately the laundry bag had emptied itself, and right on top was a pair of old boxer shorts with a Bonking Bunnies motif....  He picked these up on the end of his truncheon, gave me a filthy look, muttered something (undoubtedly abusive) in Slovakian, dropped them on the floor and walked out of the compartment shaking his head angrily.  My three fellow passengers found it highly amusing.

When I returned some months later, I avoided the trains and instead arranged, through the bank, a taxi pick up at Vienna airport.  It was much better: a comfortable car (even though a Daewoo rather than a Merc or BMW as was the norm in Vienna) and a very friendly English speaking driver who took care of the border formalities on my behalf.  It's also a nice hours' drive from Vienna, part motorway and then through some beautiful countryside with rolling hills close to the banks of the Danube.  Again I saw little of Bratislava or Slovakia, this time as it was winter and bitterly cold.  But it seems a nice enough place, very cheap, with a good selection of bars, restaurants and reasonably priced hotels.  It's now quite a popular destination for stag weekends (there are some stunningly beautiful girls there, and plenty of clubs to meet them in), and now also direct flights on budget airlines.  I would certainly be happy to go back and have a proper look around the country.....as it borders Poland on the north not too diffcult to achieve.

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Some four years, an engagement and a son later I made my next trip to an ex-Iron Curtain country, this time Latvia.

It was my first trip after Kuba was born, and was a good one to make....short and sweet, one week in Riga to deliver a presentation to a prospective client.  I was only away four nights, and the flights were kind, meaning a mid morning start on the Monday returning at lunchtime Friday, and the flight to Riga from Warsaw only takes about an hour.

The flight was uneventful, and at the airport there were plenty of cabs - mostly Mercs and BMWs, not a Lada in sight.  The ride into the city was down a dual carriageway road, past factories, warehouses, discount stores, high-end car dealerships and IKEA.  It could have been almost any other European city.  Clearly, Latvia was doing pretty well after declaring its independence from the USSR.  The hotel, in the city centre, was good, not one of the usual American or European chains like Holiday Inn or Sofitel, but a genuine local Latvian hotel, housed in an old and imposing building overlooking the Freedom Park and War Memorial (that now doubled up as a monument to commemorate independence).  Beyond the park, perhaps a 10 minute walk, was one of the main shopping and business centres, and there too was the bank.  The walk there on Tuesday morning was chilly - overnight the winter (it was November) had intensified, the temperature had dropped several degrees and there was snow on the ground and more threatened.  The bank was in a small squre, surrounded by competitors, department stores and fast food joints - a Pizza Hut, Burger King and McDonalds, all next to each other, opposite a Subway and a couple of local cuisine cafes.

Over the few days I was there, everyone I spoke to, from the bank, the hotel, the restaurants and market stalls (there was a great street market just along from the square), spoke fluent English and was very friendly and helpful.  And almost all of them were young: I was told Latvia had the youngest average age population in Europe, with something around 60% under 35.  The chairman of the bank was less than 40, and only one board member was over 50.  There was an ambition and energy and vibrancy about the whole place, with everyone incredibly optimistic about the future.  It made a pleasant change from the tired cynicism so common elsewhere.  Since then, Riga too has become a popular destination for stag and hen parties, and tourism generally is on the up....it helps that it's on the Baltic coast (although while I was there I saw nothing  at all of the sea). 

Clearly the fall of Communism and gaining its independence has done Latvia the power of good, and its future, if the people I met have anything to do with it, can only be rosy.

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After that, I shipped out to Kazakhstan for several months, another extraordinary ex-Communist location (see Go East, Old Man) and on my return, after a week or two doing not very much, was sent to Bucharest for a month.  Romania.  I seemed to be cornering the market for Iron Curtain locations in our company.

But again I was pleasantly surprised.  For a start, the commute was good.  There is only one flight a day from Warsaw, leaving at 11:30.  Bucharest is an hour ahead, and with just over an hour and half's flight time, the earliest I could get to the city was around 3:00 p.m.  The taxi ride into the city took about an hour (traffic was bad and there were roadworks all the way).  It all meant arriving at the bank no earlier than 4, and usually closer to half-past....just enough time to say hello, I'm here, then leave again (no-one ever worked after 5).  Similarly on Friday, the flight home was at 2:30, meaning we had to leave the office by about 11.  And the time difference meant getting home to the apartment in Warsaw by about half 3.  Excellent.

The hotel, again a local, was no more than average.  It was small and in the centre of a terrace that also contained a pretty good pizza restaurant, a cheap and nasty clothes shop and an off-licence.  Its advantage was being a 10 minute walk from the office, which was in a huge and crumbling ex-government building.  Mind you, it was a dangerous walk during rush hours: the traffic was heavy, driving quality questionable and traffic lights, even on pedestrian crossings, generally ignored....invariably I would have to run the gauntlet of car horns, accelerating taxis and buses, and Romanian abuse to get to work.  But after eight months in Kazakhstan I was used to that.  The food in the hotel (and I only had breakfast) was edible, but the bar not particularly well stocked.  And there was wildlife.  One morning I found a dead cockroach, maybe 2 inches long, on its back, legs in the air, on the bathroom floor.  I left it there for the cleaners, but it was still there when I checked out three days later.  I think the cleaners merely made the bed each day and hoovered the carpet, and never bothered with the bathroom.  Another week I had mice or something in the drawer of my bedside table, possibly dining on Gideon's Bible.  The scrabbling and squeaking kept me awake half the night, but as it was Thursday and I was flying home the next day I didn't report it.

I was there in a scorchingly hot August, so spent my evenings sitting outside an Irish bar, just round the corner from the hotel, enjoying the cheap beer and food, watching the world (and highly attractive local ladies) go by, and getting sunburned.  There seemed to be an underwear shortage....  It made a pleasant change from Almaty, where taking your shirt off in a public park was an arrestable offence.

Romania had gained its independence from Communism in one of the more violent uprisings, but by the time I got there the worst of the damage had been repaired and the city was undergoing a massive plan of work to modernise it.  The road in from the airport was being widened and improved, and that meant the traffic crawled along past a whole series of temporary traffic lights and labourers who, if they weren't driving a bulldozer or JCB, seemed to do nothing except lean on shovels smoking.  I suspect they're still there now.  As you come into the city proper, there is a big and attractive park, with a river running through it and a boating lake, and beside the park stands what seems to be scale model of the Palace of Culture in Warsaw.  It's an identical building but perhaps 60% of the size.  I assume it was another gift from Stalin.  The Presidential Palace, where Ceaucescu lived (and was shot) was close to the hotel, at the top of a hill.  It is a collosal building, ugly and ridiculous in its size and multiple architectural styles.  Apparently most of it still stands empty and little disturbed since its previous owner was popped off by the mob.  Externally it's kept clean and free from layers of pigeon shit, but it seems the government just don't know what to do with it.

There seemed to be a lot of poor people around, beggars on every street corner or department store doorway, mostly ignored by their more prosperous neighbours who had a tendency just to step over them.  Most of them looked like Roma gypsies, who seem to be victimised wherever they go (witness the recent forced deportations from France).  There were also people, who could possibly be loosely termed entrepreneurs, most of them elderly and desperately lined up along the side of the road trying sell anything they could get their hands on.  One guy was selling cigarettes, one by one; another half empty books of matches liberated from hotel bars.  An old fellow, who must have been 80, was armed with a set of cracked and probably inaccurate bathroom scales and let you weigh yourself for 10 forints (maybe 50p).  I never saw anyone take up his offer.  The welfare state is virtually non existant there, and organised crime rife, so people were forced to do whatever they could just to survive.  Usually I ignore beggars myself, as it's often impossible to guess how genuinely poor they actually are (nor what the money might go towards - beer?  Drugs?) but here I made an exception: the people were so obviously destitute.  I hope things improve.

Public transport was mainly taxis (yellow, and mostly God-awful Renault Logans) and buses, plus a metro that I never used - the entrance of the closest stop to the office stunk like a toilet and the air down there seemed hot and stuffy and unclean.  There were no trams.  I walked pretty much everywhere...but not far, basically hotel to office and back every day, the shopping mall next door for lunch, then from hotel to pub for dinner in the evening.  Most days it was too hot to do more.

Bucharest was on ok place, at least for a relatively short trip.  I probably saw it at its best, in summer sunshine, with no autumn rains or winter snows.  I'm not sure I'd like to return, though I'm glad I had the experience.  It has a long way to go to catch up with Warsaw or Krakow, Riga or even Bratislava. 

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Which brings us to my last Iron Curtain trip.....Sofia.  I spent eight months there, over the winter and early summer, so I saw it pleasant and crappy.....mostly crappy.

Bulgaria is another poor country that is riddled with corruption and organized crime, and its infrastructure is crumbling and decrepit .  The roads are very poor quality, there is a lot of traffic, again with incredibly poor drivers (in cars that in the UK, Germany, France...most western countries in fact....would have been scrapped years ago) so the city centre is gridlocked most of the time.  On my first visit, it took me over 2 hours to get in from the airport, partly due to weight of traffic on roads that just can't cope, but also because the area around the parliament building was jammed with demonstrators.  They were teachers, striking for a living wage (so more than their $300 a month), supported by various other public sector workers and large numbers of unemployed and sympathetic students.  It was the first of a number of demonstrations I witnessed in the months to come.  They all seemed to pass off peacefully, without the violence associated with similar events in London and, particularly these days, France.....the police presence was very low key, no riot shields or tear gas in evidence at all: in fact, everyone seemed to have a jolly good time.

The drains usually couldn't cope, so if it rained heavily (not an infrequent occurrence), ot there was snow melt, then they backed up and flooded roads and footpaths alike in the city centre....God knows what the suburbs must have been like!  Drivers of course made no allowance for the lying water, so getting doused by spray was a daily risk on the short walk to the office.  Mind you, drivers generally made no allowance for anything: pedestrians, other vehicles, traffic lights - all considered in intereference to be ignored, mowed down or forced aside.  My mate and I counted once, at a particularly busy road junction by the office: when the lights changed, no less than 21 vehicles, including 2 buses and three heavy trucks, ignored them and went through red lights - a not uncommon statistic.  It made crossing the road, as a pedestrian, a lottery.

So Sofia, by and large, is a very shabby city in need of massive investment.  But it does have some nice areas, and interesting buildings.  There was a cathedral, Orthodox, quite close to the office, that stands in a quite attractive park, and has some quite stunning stained glass windows and decorated ceilings inside.  A beautiful place to worship.  The park also contained an open air market, that seemed to specialise in army memorabilia, particularly for some bizarre reason WW2 German.  There were stalls packed with Nazi helmets and uniforms, complete with bullet holes and bloodstains, medals and even weapons - Luger pistols, rifles, rusty bayonets, even a hand grenade on one.  Other stalls were piled high with books in a variety of languages, including English, and records - the old vinyl kind, mainly LPs and collectors items abounded.  I saw Beatles and Rolling Stones records, in their original sleeves, that appeared to be in mint condition.  Also Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" in the original sleeve with about 40 naked women on it, lying around as at an orgy.  My mate and I spent a few hours there, in the spring, haggling with the stallholders but without buying anything.  It passed a lunch break or two.

I stayed in two hotels.  The first was quite small, and in a shopping sidestreet about 10 minutes walk from the office.  It was comfortable enough, the food was okay in the downstairs restaurant, and the bar was ok.  The staff were friendly enough, but we found out after a few months that it rented rooms by the hour.  We found this out when my mate was off sick one day, and the room next to his was rented out to a film company making a porno movie.   For about 4 hours he was lying in bed, suffering from flu, and listening to the action next door.  The thing that annoyed him most was that they didn't invite him in to watch.

So we moved after that week to another hotel, closer to the bank.  It was much bigger, about 14 floors I think, with a casino and a swimming pool that was pretty good.   But it had two problems.  One, it was a longer walk to the Irish bar we inevitably used in the evenings - not an issue when the weather was good, but if it was cold and wet then it was a pain (but one we accepted as the price to pay for good food and drink).  Two, we were placed on the 8th floor, with the rest of the project team.  Normally that would be fine, but out of a 22 person team 18 of them were Indians.  So, they were not happy about the food on offer in the bars and restaurants in Sofia and made their own cooking arrangements - which basically meant taking turns to cook something over a primus stove on the floor of each others hotel rooms.  Apart from the obvious fire hazard, the strong spicy Indian cooking odours filled the entire floor, plus two above and another two below.  The hotel management told them to stop, but were ignored.  My mate and I asked them to stop and we were also ignored.   So I sent an extremely strongly worded and sarcastic mail to their manager, that caused an absolute storm and I ended up having a blazing row with the program manager (English, of Indian descent) who couldn't understand the problem and accused me of deliberately undermining his authority and attacking the team's morale.  Wanker.  It made no difference, except that I left the project about a month later (when Ally was born).  The Indians were still cooking up a storm and ignoring everybody's pleas to stop.  I heard later the hotel management eventually had enough and kicked them out of the hotel on 48 hours notice (we re-housed them in apartment block somewhere on the edge of Sofia).

Most evenings we used an Irish bar in a little side street close to the hotel.  It was good: an excellent value menu of part Irish and part local cuisine, good local beer at sensible prices and good company.  We got to know all the bar staff, which guaranteed top quality service and some influence over what was on the TVs every night.  Basically there were three of us from the project, all English and all around the same age, so we had some cracking evenings sitting there reminiscing about the 60s, 70s and later, talking football, music, and generally complaining about anything post 1995....we were like the Grumpy Old Men on BBC1.  I haven't seen the other two guys since we all left the project a couple of years ago, but that is typical of this job.  We stay in touch by mail, on an infrequent basis, and no doubt we'll meet up again sometime, somewhere.

Final observation.  If the beggars were bad in Bucharest, they were worse in Sofia.  At least in Romania they attempted to retain some self respect by offering something in return for the cash - a cigarette, a match, a turn on the bathroom scales or whatever.  In Sofia they didn't bother with such niceties - they just demanded money, sometimes with menaces.  My mate had his pocket picked on the way back from the pub one evening, by a scrawny little girl about 16, who grabbed him by the balls and offered him full sex for 50 leva (about a pound), and while he was distracted dipped his coat pocket with her other hand and lifted a couple of hundred leva.  Fortunately he had left his wallet in the hotel safe, so it was no big deal.  She tried it on me about two weeks later, but forewarned is forearmed: as soon as she reached for me I gave her a slap around the head, not hard but enough to put her off.  It's the only time in my life I've raised a hand against a female.  She followed us back to the hotel, screaming abuse, and threatening us with "her brother", but nothing came of it.  To play safe, we went into a different hotel, had a beer and then left by a side entrance.  We never saw her again.  There was another guy, who we saw regularly by the bank, who was pitiful.  I guess he was around mid twenties, and his legs were useless, withered and twisted, as was his left arm.  He sat on a piece of wood, with pram wheels attached, and just held his right hand out for donations.  We often gave him a handful - the poor bastard.  One of the local guys from the bank told us that the guy had had his legs and arm broken deliberately when he was about 5, simply to make him a more efficient beggar, by his parents.  There were many others like him apparently.