Radio Sariyer: Bulgaria Mark 6

Like an annual flood, the coming of my Turkish visa renewal time fills me with dread, some fear, and a lot of loathing. Alas, I must inevitably renew my visa in Bulgaria (not Las Vegas), and it must be done every three months, not every year (I suppose only Bangladesh gets the opportunity to experience floods 4 times a year...). Turkey has land borders with eight countries: Georgia (interesting but far), Naxçivan-Azerbaijan (requires a visa and is even farther), Iran (requires a waiting period of 7 weeks and is very, very far), Syria (requires a visa and is very, very hot), Armenia (border has been well and truly shut, locked, barred and probably mined for about 15 years, plus it's very far), and Iraq (suicidal and is far, even if closer than Iran). This leaves Bulgaria and Greece.

Unfortunately, Greece and Bulgaria have the reputation as being two of the most unfriendly countries in Europe. Greece has beautiful, but tourist-infested islands in the summer, and what's more, they are far. The only reachable parts of Greece are generally held to be fairly boring. Furthermore, Greeks have the unfortunate habit of using the Euro, which means everything is unduly expensive....

This leaves the Turkish visa seeker with one, realistic, relatively painless option: Bulgaria. A 12.00 Istanbul departure time, an 18.00 Bulgarian arrival time (to Haskova), five hours of useless wandering, a 23.30 departure, a 4.5 hour wait at the border while Turkish customs officials consider checking your bag before having some çay in order to properly consider whether they should or should not properly consider checking your bag, and a tired and haggard Istanbul homecoming at about 8.30 the next day.

Relatively painless, other than the sleep deprivation, requiring only interaction with Bulgarians in between. I, however, in the six times that I have now found myself in Republika Balgarija, have developed a very useful coping strategy: I only go to parts Bulgarian inhabited by Turks, which requires no Bulgarian linguistic outlay, and also means that people are somewhat personable when communicating. In my previous journeys to Bulgaria, I quickly deduced that trying to elicit smiles or laughter from the general Bulgarian populace was always a mission likely to end in failure, so I decided that the best course of action when visiting the EU's newest member was to either talk to the country's ethnic Turks or go searching for sunflowers to take pictures of....

Which is exactly what I did.... ....So I will end there abruptly, not mentioning Bulgaria's decaying industrial infrastructure, sidewalks on the city's main road overgrown without about 5 years of various degrees of botanical growth, Soviet-era cars and their Gypsy occupants, the pan-Eastern European techno beat that pervades every sort of commercial establishment, the amazing amount of 20 year old women with children, nor the abundance of cheap alcohol (this time, sadly not enjoyed because of a summer cold) available everywhere.