i learnt that somewhere time ago [the 30s; here] on the jours they went, there were no alcohol and cigarettes like now. there was music, and they used to dance, and play the tricks of the Amour of course, but they didnt drink and smoke like now.

It took me some time to decode what is jour. :)


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oh, my bigger sister (kaka), your grandmother, was the princess of the Neighbourhood! and your granpa Kolio, he was a very handsome man, he knew very much how to wear himself! How to dress himself. My girlfriends would say - "hey, when we see the man of your kaka, we turn around after he passes, to have a look at him a 2nd time ;-)".
Besides, he was a very good man, very nice and good soul!

my kaka cared very much for me!
then I had many plaits - from here, here, to the back, like a ring around my head. she would wake up every morning very early to comb my hair, before I go to school. We had then uniforms, ...[]... she would iron and ...[]...


[the part above about the jours]

When I was going to a jour, she would give me her civil dress, so that I dont go in uniform on the jour. She had a dress, she was a miss already then! She is 10 years older than me. But she has changed alot now - last two years. she remembers almost noone anymore. she still remembers me but because i visit her very often.

I had no tcheiz [trousseau, dowry]. My sisters had big tcheiz, but I didnt. Mom used to say - "Lets first prepare the two bigger, then we will think of the younger." So she did well. But later happened the war. And after that, they took away everything. So I was all like I am now. But kaka Genka took me to the city centre, and bought me a cloth, there were standart towels at the wedding in those times, but she gave me to have a beautiful cloth embroidered to give to the parents-in-law. [a part of the old wedding custom was to give to the parents-in-law "karpa", a hand-drying cloth] And also got me a pair of slippers - "no, you wont go barefooted on the wedding!"



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Hehe, your mother is remembering the time when Stalin died, and people thought the world is coming to an end, my son!

 - But did they believe it truly, or only medias showed like that?

Hmm, dontknow...
Yes, I think they did...

 - Did YOU believe it, then?

Heh, I was a little girl then...

 - For Russia, I see why, but here Stalin has appeared just a 10 years earlier. I mean, same people have lived happily without him just 10 years earlier, Why would they be so affected?

Lived happily!? Dont believe to all the things the SDS-ars [the anticommunist party] are speaking.

Well, it is true that they pushed the peasants to go into the TKZSes [agricultural collectives] and its true for example they didnt allow to my 2nd cousin Ivan to study, and well, that they threw out of the windows the blankets of your grandmom`s neighbours... But generally they made the things alot better for the common people. And for the workers, for them the party leaders really did care warmly!

You know the villas at Biala Tcherkva, for example? we`ve been there with you. (They are very old villas - they were built before the war by the local big.) In the summer the staff of the mill would be on a holiday in those villas. We`ve been there with your grandmother. All the women would be there, and they will be cooking in common, the mill shef helping them out. And the mill director would be there with everybody!

Even the big superior from Sofia would come! Next wall to ours he was staying. With his family would eat and entertain along with everyone else from the Mills!

Or, on the 9.IX when they give out big dinners in the enterprises. There would be the factory-heads on the same table with the workers. And they`d speak with people!

Today`s public relations are hypocritic. Just enough to show "we are listening to the masses". Where would you see today a first man to meet his subordinates? Then, they would go in the factory to meet people. Not deliver speeches on the gatherings, even! They would come to the workplace to ask you, how are things?

Well, later, time after Stalin`s death, their work grew up, and they started separating from the people. The usual.

Most people benefited from the change. Only the ones with the factories have reasons to complain. They were chased down. And they were very few in Bulgaria.

Hahah, like your granddad was waiting all life for the americans to come... your granddad had timber-yards, you know that - he was a merchant. So they took from him the timber-yards, and he was waiting for the americans to give him the robbed of him. In his old age everyone was kidding him "When are the americans going to come, friend, hehheh?" He was saying "Nah, they`ll come! Nitz! The world is going the way to communism!". Heh-heh.


Plovdiv,
12.II.2004

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yours, Kolio