TRIUMVIRATE EPISODE TWO, SCENE ONE

Story-line for Triumvirate Episode Two, Scene One

Flash back to 1888 when the synthetic prototype of the Russian Avian Influenza was unleashed within a secluded Siberian penal colony and two isolated communal villages in Greenland and Canada’s Northwest Territories. The inhabitants of each of the camps died a horrible death, which because of their isolation went undiscovered for months. The H2N2 strain of bird flu was produced by the Czar's scientifically corrupt Imperial Ministry of Health and disbursed under the authority of his doting Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security.  It was destined to be unleashed to the general population in the Russian Capital and then, by human hosts, be transported over the global rail and vessel systems throughout the civilized world.

Winter, 1887-1888 -- Siberia, Russian Empire

The village’s number was 121 and like the other numbered villages, few services were provided to it. Its sixteen plank cabins were set protectively close to one another, but not uncomfortably so, and were arranged roughly in a square. The manufactured coal-gas lit quarters were built years before on the gentle rise of permafrost prairie, five hundred or so kilometers south of the Arctic Circle and a half kilo north of the road that bridged the named settlements in this, the harshest segment of Siberian Russia.

In the community's center, there existed a humble dry goods store with a crude but functional distillery in its rear quarter. The store also held a small bar space with a smattering of tables and chairs. The focal point of the bar was two 31-liter capacity hazel-wood barrels containing grain vodka that had been produced in-house. The beverage leached the essence from the barrel’s heady wood slats, giving the fiery spirit a pleasant Hazelnut flavor.

A carpentry shed sat in the center of the camp with tools useful to help slow the decay of the weathered cabins.

A trained army cobbler, under life sentence for deserting his post to protest the Czar's treatment of unsophisticated citizens, tended to the shed’s upkeep and should his specialized shoe repair services be needed, was available for a small bounty. Lastly and also in the center quadrangle, there sits a small but durable stable with two horses tethered in tightly enclosed stalls next to an equally sturdy, heated hen coop with rooster in residence. These buildings were positioned convenient to all cabins – insuring easy access to a ready supply of consumable and fertilized eggs.

The inhabitants all were tough-spirited political dissidents: turncoats, artists, deserters, writers and journalists cast out from all regions of the Empire as enemies of the Czar. They were provincial to a man, a single generation away from Serfdom. If they hadn’t become resilient following their first winter in that foreboding camp, they’d have died trying. Each person had been deported by the Czar’s Interior Minister to one of several eviction centers that dotted Siberia’s bleak landscape: units with no walls or boundaries, where wandering about was unchecked because to check was irrelevant.

The men had nowhere to escape to and no desire to try – they were raised in the millennia-long Russian culture of obedience, even though compliance was a concept abhorrent to them. Individual rights had been subordinated to the common good of the Czar’s community, as well as to his officials that managed each facet of a Russian’s life. They could but never would escape from the camp, and they’d fight to the death to protect it along with their fellow rebels.

The cruel climate, coarse family histories and skepticism about ever being able to secure a good life brought them to a point where they over-valued their personal stability, social order, security and predictability. They tended to avoid risk in captivity but found their lives to be treacherous nonetheless.

Domiciles accommodated two men in an open room with beds, dressers and small tables. The kitchen area contained a wooden table with two chairs, a combination wood-burning stove / heater with a bakery drawer, cook top and a larder. Dishes and utensils were washed in a large pot with stove top-heated water.

There was an unattached outhouse for each two cabins that had within it a small shelf to keep tools, fishing equipment and personal effects that would not freeze.

Temperature in winter could drop to -58°C necessitating the daily use of a community sauna – its temperature rising to above 90°C – a most popular meeting place from November to May. It sat adjacent to the store, carpenter’s shop, hen coop and stable. A lubricated fulcrum well-pump for extracting artesian water had been installed within a tiny walk-in shed that was likewise located in the central compound.

The closest city of any consequence to Village 121 was Vilyuysk, two-hundred kilometers west. The recent discovery of abundant gold and silver reserves in the Sakha Republic afforded that city a period of prosperous growth. The distinction also allowed strangers unnoticed entry into the city.

It took the four men two hard months overland to reach Vilyuysk from Sankt Peterburg. They arrived in the dead of morning, deposited their horses and coach at the transient livery and found nondescript lodging where they bathed and donned fresh clothes. At a café in the city center, they ate the first decent meal they’d had in weeks. One man toted with him a medical satchel that he handled with the doting care a mother would give to her newborn baby.

In the morning, they began a five day journey east to Village 121. The daylight was meager – barely three hours of slivering light in twenty-four. The temperature ranged from -15°C each morning to -5° at noon. They stopped for food for themselves and their horses and to sleep indoors on a bed when possible, otherwise they pitched their over-sized tent.  These men knew the land of Russia, and what they needed to do to survive on it. It was not lost on them the importance of their mission to the Czar.  Failure would not be forgiven; retaliation assured.

Upon arrival at Village 121, they found the ‘bar’ and purchased some soup and cheese, along with thick slices of heavy black bread. They drank Hazelnut vodka with the townspeople, the four strangers sitting at a single table; the man possessing the medical bag sat farthest away from their new company.

The visitors told their hosts that the project that enabled them to pass through Village 121 involved a replacement bridge that was to be constructed over the proximate Vilyuy River. They announced that they were engineers from the capital who were charged with deciding a favorable location to build the bridge and to determine whether or not it would be constructed to accommodate railroad traffic as well as coaches. They elaborated that a Trans Siberian railroad was under engineering design in Moscow, to extend from both that city and Sankt Peterburg to Vladivostok on the eastern coast of Russia.

The strangers were tall, lean and lanky, each of them, as though they were brothers were it not for the variety of hair colors and different eye shades. Hair was trimmed short; there were no beards and no one had dirt under his fingernails. They all drank vodka in moderation. Their appearance was in stark contrast to their hosts who were long-bearded, hard-faced and unconcerned about the reason the four had alighted in their desolate camp that winter evening.

They were generally welcomed by the outcast residents, but because their benefactor was the Czar’s Minister of Transport, the extent of the hospitality extended to them was tainted by skepticism and derision. They were allowed, after a time and for a price, to board their horses at the village's meager stable, pitch their winterized tent and wood stove next to the sauna, and draw limited supplies, including vodka, from the dry goods store.

The men asked for the use of two horses to supplement their own. The terrain, they said, would likely not be suitable for their coach once off-trail. The townspeople had just two horses, but agreed to rent them to the men. After a few slurred toasts and hearty bowls of chicken soup all around, two of the men left to pitch their single tent and fire up the heater while the other two fed and groomed their horses. They met in the sauna for a relaxing sweat and, in lieu of dunking in a lake or river cut open to accommodate them, they strolled naked back to their tent.

Later, the engineer carrying the medical bag left the tent and ambled to the nearest outhouse. He waited several minutes in the toilet before exiting it and moved to the hen coop. He opened its door and entered as he quickly and quietly as he could. The hens stirred, a few rustling, some cackled – the aged rooster though, couldn’t be bothered to make even the slightest noise. The man donned heavy gloves. He reached into the bag and removed a container and deposited fresh feed into the trough. He was in and gone in fifteen seconds.

In the morning, the engineers pulled their tent, extinguished the stove tinder with an ice pack. They gathered their gear onto their carriage, saddled the four horses and rode slowly west to the river. They set camp along the Vilyuy's banks two kilometers from Village 121. There they brewed a pot of black tea, ate cheese, bread and root vegetables and passed the time reading, playing chess or engaging in conversation. They covered the horses with blankets, fed to them oats from a bag and quenched their thirst with water warmed in the tent. They each saddled and rode a horse several times to limber its muscles and raise circulation.

On the second day, with the sun merely brushing the horizon, a man rushed toward them from the direction of the village screaming that a sickness had overcome his comrades – he needed a horse to ride for help! A single rifle shot from two hundred meters drove a bullet into his left eye socket at nine-hundred meters per second and restored the calm.

The following day, two of the engineers returned to Village 121. From a safe distance they observed no lights and all the chimneys were without smoke. The hamlet’s population of thirty-two appeared to have been exterminated – and if the contagion they’d unleashed was not the primary cause of death, freezing temperatures contributed to it.

A laboratory mutation of the H2N2 avian flu virus, named FHH for its uncanny ability to vault from an original Fowl host to a Human by physical contact with eggs, meat or feces, and then vault again, now airborne, to other Human hosts. It attacked the respiratory system and often brought pneumonia as a secondary infection. In that, and with an impoverished provincial population that had little or no access to medical care, it would prove itself to be a most effective weapon against the socially deprived. The four men, part of a larger team of eradication engineers, as they liked to refer to themselves, were eager to learn if identical contagions activated in the Northwest Territories of Canada and in Greenland were as lethal as their biological agent was in Siberia.

The two men returned to the river from Village 121, where they reported their observation, gathered their gear, and with the other two comrades, set off on their return to the the Czar’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security in Sankt Peterburg.

The Enchanting Rocio

Inclusivity, Exclusivity, and the Enchanting Rocio

©2016 By: Thomas G. Tait

About eleven years ago, a friend of mine called seeking an opinion.  He owned a bunch of full-service eat-and-drinkeries in Cancun and grappled with an issue that was pivotal to his profitability. All-inclusive hotels, with food and beverages fixed into the room price became the rule in Yucatan rather than the exception. 

 

He pointed out that as a stand-alone restaurateur, his outlets relied on a transient public – not one held captive by in-house buffets and Bahama Mama's.

 

He wondered if I had encountered this phenomenon in the US and Europe, and if so, what steps were taken to re-level the playing field for external service providers like him.

I hadn't encountered the phenomenon, but I said I'd look into it.

The concept of inclusivity was introduced by Club Méditerranée in 1950.  Through the years, Club Med acquired 'homes' in a plethora of sun-filled destinations and on two luxury cruise ships.  The homes were mostly planted in 'primitive' sub-tropical sites where the notion of venturing out for a bite was neither practical nor recommended.  In some locales, a guest might come back bitten, and not just by mosquitoes.  Out of necessity, all services were included in the price of admission – hence inclusive.

Cruise lines have for years been applying a modified inclusive strategy make them more competitive: lose money on a lobster fest and make a killing on daily carb-rich smorgasbords.  And, put a price point on everything a vacationer uses.

It didn't take long for the cruise line slant to extract pennies from all profit centers to find its way into land-based tourism leaders in the early 1990s.  They asked, 'Why should we unleash our customers into the wild, allowing them to snub our expectation that they spend their disposable income with us?' That notion had particular appeal in South Florida, the Caribbean and Mexico's coastal marketplaces to where snow birding Canadians and Americans were a-flocking.

And on that abstemious note, the first 'fully-captive' destination resorts were born in select US and Caribbean markets, along the Baja Peninsula, and on both coasts of Mexico.

In those citadels of an architectural style known as Near-a-Beach, every activity was available in-house: drinks, gourmet dining, nightclubs, entertainment, sports and recreation, films, shopping, tours, gaming, and, let's not forget the ubiquitous buffet.  One Nevada-based mega-resort brand offered its guests unlimited buffet action at seven of its properties for one daily low price.

A writer for the Chicago Tribune interviewed as part of a panel on touristic food trends said, "What's so special about these resort buffets?  I go to an all-you-can-eat joint in Chicago and its okay."  To which a reporter from the Philadelphia Enquirer said, "Yeah, that's all good – but can you eat there until you're sick?"

Later adjustments saw once-free commodities like in-room bottled water, parking, internet access, airport shuttle service, and lounge entertainment become new profit centers. Those value-added amenities converted to penny-wise entries on Ebenezer's balance sheet, adding fresh proceeds to the resort's bottom line.

Then, a parallel marketing concept to inclusivity emerged: fractional ownership, timesharing and destination club membership! Exclusivity in the marketplace allowed investors the right to use a piece of the sand.

Prospects for exclusive club membership are motivated to visit a sales office for a One-hour sales presentation. Rewards will be exchanged for their time.  Sugary enticements are dangled before them: epicurean gifts, suite upgrades, cruises and activities like golf, zip lines and swimming with turtles.

Entering the sales loft you see lots of glossy photos hung hither showing animated and beautified people: they're eating, drinking and frolicking.  There too are montages of lush surroundings including portraits of recognizable gents like Nicklaus and Norman, implying simpatico with the organization.

 

The crescendo of the three-plus hour sales pitch is a multi-tiered, intimidatingly aggressive, deal-closing full-court press, reminiscent of the grapefruit scene in Public Enemy where Cagney smashes citrus into Harlow's face to exclaim his point.

Inclusive and exclusive resorts alter the face of tourism in Earth's northern tropical zone, and with it healthy interaction between the people that inhabit the region and visitors is also altered. Aside from sun-drenched beaches, in/exclusive resorts replicate amenities found in four and five-star hotels in northern temperate nations, to create familiarity and a comfort zone that shouts out, 'Why leave?'

 

Resort captivity defies the definition of touristic and doesn't bode well for a country that needs customer wealth spread throughout a community.  There is little or no experiential trading of customs or interaction with service workers other than that which occurs through performance of duties.

I told my restaurateur friend that he could either collaborate with the resorts and become an official off-property dining/entertainment option for guests, or differentiate himself from the hotels.  He would need to hype his brands and provide better service and experiences than the customers could find in their captive hotels (the desirable option).  He's still in business.

The "real Mexico," like my friend's cantinas, can found off the beaten path in every beach city. There are many local restaurants with excellent offerings prepared by first class chefs.

This brings me to Rocio, a testament to traditional tourism.  She's a charming 50-something mother of four, grandmother of six, breast cancer survivor (for which she prays every day) and bar-cafe owner in the Zona Romántica of old Puerto Vallarta.  Her club, always crowded, is named Monchi's Third Base Sports Cantina.  It was deeded to the scrappy Rocio, a long-time employee, by its previous owner, Christine Hammer, who passed from cancer in July 2016.

  

Rocio, aside from possessing a work ethic our parents would appreciate, has a local disclaimer: she inserts the words 'F..k You' before each drink order.  "You want a F..k You Margarita? With salt?"  God forbid you're male and order wine.  Gutsy Rocio has been known to chase a sarcastic customer around her bar with a baseball bat or Taser – both the reprobate and Rocio laughing the whole time.

All meals are homemade from scratch – over forty are served a day in humble, immaculate surroundings.

   

This engaging woman is a magnetic tourism provider who represents Puerto Vallarta proudly with humor, camaraderie and service.  When I asked her about how the new in-exclusive resorts would affect her, she shrugged and smiled.  She said, "Just more friends for me."

Discovering Bulgaria

Creating a Positive 1^st Impression

Thomas G. Tait ©2011 / 2016

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, Bulgaria

I am neither an accidental tourist nor an accident prone traveler.   Early in my journeys to foreign nations, I realized there were practical safeguards I had to take to guarantee long life, serviceable limbs and an intact wallet.  As a result, I haven’t taken many chances; neither have I placed myself in harm’s way.   While my eldest daughter is fearless – I am more introspective, embracing sage caution when unusual conditions arise.

Life in the United States differed from life in Eastern Europe, and the differences did not make for polite conversation.  America, held up as a decadent land filled with conspicuous consumers by a Soviet population subjected to decades-long totalitarian rule.  ‘Do not emulate the American way of life,’ they decried.    Similarly, US news agencies pictured Soviet citizens as tired, frumpy and sad.  That same media sent us images of a population who more often than not donned thick coats and fur hats. Men and women snaked through long lines in frigid weather to collect a measured quota of bread, meat, milk and cheese.  Because of our basic and idiosyncratic differences, tempers on both sides flared with regularity.

Parents and teachers taught us we should hate communists because they hated us.  Each night in October and November 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I climbed a hill near my parent’s house and sat with friends in terrified silence.  We’d gaze to the southeast, waiting for Russia’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles to pounce.  I shuddered that our new rulers, middle-aged males and women, reflected the unattractiveness of both Nikita Khrushchev and his wife, Nina. 

Then in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I visited the Czech Republic, nee Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. There I observed immense potential to attract Western travelers.  Those two nations were on the fringe of Eastern Europe.   Compulsory Soviet doctrine became their policy only after the Empire assimilated those nations and others following World War II.

My visits painted an enlightened picture of culture and humanity within the communist Bloc.  The blanket of misinformation that had obscured my vision disappeared; allowing new, focused perspectives on old lies.  I wondered how many other Soviet nations had such rich and impressionable cultural endowments as those two countries.   Imagine my elation when I received an invitation to visit the 'real' Eastern Europe, a nation that by choice enjoyed a long-standing communist affiliation.   My mission was to test one country’s self-reported flaws in its tourism zones.   I made my way to the library and collected baseline data for the assignment.

My strengths in the visitation arena included destination marketing, branding, rural and environmental tourism, infrastructure, air service expansion, gaming, spa, events, shows and conventions.  So, when in 1996 the summons from the US State Department to conduct a comprehensive tourism survey of Bulgaria arrived, surprise and elation reigned supreme.  A solid measure of self-confidence, the trademark characteristic instilled by my parents and mentors, remained in command.   I embraced the invitation and soon received an agenda outlining three weeks of various activities in-country, commencing on January 21, 1997.  That special day marked the eve of the swearing in of Bulgaria’s first social-democrat elected president, Petyr Stoyanov.

The Republic of Bulgaria

Stoyanov became Bulgaria's 2nd elected leader since the country’s break with the Eastern Bloc in 1990.  The 1st president of the country a Socialist, Mr. Stoyanov represented the St. George's Democratic Party. In a bold step toward democratization, Stoyanov’s service had to prove fruitful for Bulgaria to embrace, with success, free-market economics.  Further, he’d become an important player in the alignment of US and Western European trade policies with countries of the former Soviet Union.  This project’s importance had not been lost on me.

President Petyr Stoyanov

I was to be housed in an apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital.   My transport, meetings and tours throughout the country coordinated by a Bulgarian national representing the US State Department, Nikolai Gerazimov.  On familiar terms with the length of time needed to move any tourism initiative through a bureaucracy, I studied the mechanics of Bolshevik parliamentary procedure.  Thus I came to question the likelihood of this assignment’s success within a relative period.  Balancing that, my communications with Nikolai were thorough, positive and professional.  I felt in good hands, but the nagging disquiet lingered that the trip might prove unpredictable, or worse, unsuccessful.

Nikolai Gerazimov

             

The afternoon of January 20, I started my excursion with a short hop from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.  After a brief layover, I connected with an overnight flight to Frankfurt.   Upon arriving in Germany, the climate took a turn for the worse.  Throughout central Europe heavy snow and skin pelting ice chips delayed incoming and outbound flights; made vehicular traffic bleak and pedestrian travel gloomy.

The trials of international travel had by then become second nature to me.  On that night, the bars were open inside the massive Frankfurt terminal: I was happy.

At that point, I had served as the executive director for the Nevada Commission on Tourism for eight-plus years.  In 1989, my first year, with executives from Las Vegas, we launched a first-ever marketing blitz in several foreign countries. Our mission was uncomplicated: boost new visitation, or with the Japanese, boost and encourage visitors to linger in Las Vegas longer.  Japanese guests historically stayed in Las Vegas just long enough for a meal, a show and a tour of the Grand Canyon.  After three years of gentle persuasion, we influenced Japanese tour-operators to pitch longer stays.

That reality afforded me a barometer to gauge the timeliness of effective change in delivery of tourism products or services.  I predicted Bulgaria’s tourism transformation to be years in the making.

By the time of my visit, the cultural uniquenesses of non-English-speaking foreign countries excited me.  For example, before crossing any street, I checked for oncoming traffic in both directions.   I overcame embarrassment when a male companion grabbed my hand and held it on our way to an appointment.  Vigilance in which pocket a gained business card should be placed became important; likewise, watching out for disreputable others who might pick those same pockets.

I speculated on what surprises the former communist-era leisure destination had in store for me.  In my prep for the assignment, I uncovered elfin documentation focused upon Bulgarian tourism.   Two key points rang out in everything I read.  The Black Sea Coast on its Eastern border served as a favored summer vacation and medical-spa destination for Soviet workers.  And, Bulgaria’s inland contained steep mountain ranges with heavy snow accumulation, allowing its three resort communities to be proclaimed winter sport havens.

I had seen a report hinting that women who vacationed on the Black Sea coast sunbathed topless and looked nothing as unappealing as Khrushchev’s wife. That lurid bit of information penetrated my consciousness – alas, I was to visit that shoreline in winter.

I wanted this journey to unveil eye-opening examples of untapped cultural jewels shrouded from the West until then by a restricted press.   So, after a few hours delay, I joined the queue for a bus ferrying us to the Balkan Airlines plane that served Sofia. It was necessary for me to experience multiple aspects of Bulgarian tourism, so Balkan Air became my first of many products to test.

I climbed aboard the unique, Soviet-built Tupelov 154M airplane, configured to seat 180 passengers, six across with a central aisle.   As we passengers streamed through the passageway, I saw no overhead baggage bins.  Instead there were tubular metal racks faced with bungee cord, the same as those found on trains and buses. Because of the threat of turbulence, I placed only my jacket on that rack, and lay my briefcase under the seat in front of me.

Tupelov 154M

My window seat, mid-cabin, had legroom akin to that in the economy cabins of US domestic air carriers.  The forward seat back contained a scrappy fold-down tray table made of a tin-like material.  It had seen better days, but remained functional.  My seatmates, a husband and wife from Bulgaria named Irina and Dimitri had just completed a trip abroad.  They were a handsome couple which I learned to be a Balkan characteristic.    I spoke no Bulgarian or Russian as they did.   But, they understood rudimentary English and wanted to brush up on small talk in my language.  So, we chatted up Las Vegas, Hollywood, New York and the sexual antics of Bill Clinton.

Once airborne, the storm ramped up, but not enough to bring air-safety anxiety. The flight would be just two-and-one-half hours.  We could smoke upon lift-off I learned as most passengers lit-up just then.  My seatmate offered me a Russian Sobranie Black, and I passed him an American Marlboro Light. His wife chose a Sobranie Pink.  Any nausea I experienced from the bumpy takeoff ended with the calming effect brought by a cabin full of rich tobacco fumes. 

Vodka bottles made their way from pockets and purses onto the tray tables.  A cabin attendant with a taut blouse and large enough bosoms to guarantee its snugness strode by with plastic cups.  A little later, a different attendant whirled a beverage cart down the aisle.  This she did, so those who didn’t know to BYOB could have a taste of the airline’s proffered and formidable Ukrainian grain spirit.  Aside from that, frills were non-existent: no in-flight movie and the sole airline publication contained no English translation.  I reviewed the agenda for the weeks ahead; the coming adventure pleasing me.   In celebration, I had more vodka and toasted my seatmates, who exchanged more cigarettes with me.

When we had been at altitude fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, the pilot addressed us in Bulgarian over the plane's intercom.  I expected his message to be repeated in English.   When it wasn’t, I summoned an English-friendly cabin attendant and asked her to interpret his message.   Rather, she made her way to the cockpit and spoke with the flight crew.  In perfect English, the captain said that Sofia became inaccessible due to fog.   Our flight sped to a new destination, a place called Burgas.

If I had learned a driblet about Sofia, I possessed less than a dram of knowledge about Burgas.  Did it even exist in Bulgaria or was it in a neighboring country?  Turkey?  Romania?   Inconclusive thoughts about the pending dilemma coursed through my alcohol-warmed brain.  Dimitri poured me more vodka from his personal stash and told me where Burgas resided.

Forty-five minutes later we started our descent into Burgas, touching-down in another twenty.  Upon landing, the passengers broke out in thunderous applause. I learned from Irina this grateful out-pour to be the customary response when a landing resulted in no injury to the plane or its passengers.

Out the window I saw what I suspected to be the airport’s terminal; its lights being turned on.   The pilot told us that the Burgas airport operated during warm seasons, serving a popular travel destination from May to October.  Seasonality, he apologized, also meant that there would be no border police or customs officials present to process us into the country.  Feeling like Gilligan, I wondered how this challenge would play out. 

Burgas Airport

 

We deplaned, directed into the tiny terminal complex by our crew into a reception hall built to house passengers until screened for admittance.  The room accommodated 200 people without chairs.  Its stark white walls on three sides held no decoration and the forth, large windows, faced the tarmac.   Four unmanned glassed-in cubicles signed Passport Control stood opposite the windows.  There were no restrooms, but I noted when the need became great, squirming passengers had received escort to the proper chamber.  We stood in those close quarters, littering the floor with cigarette butts for two hours awaiting the border guards. 

As if on cue, four starched officers marched into the room from the building's interior, took their positions in the booths, and started the arrivals screening.  The passengers divided themselves into four even lines.  After another thirty minutes, I received official permission to enter Bulgaria.  From the look on the screening officer’s face, I might have been the first American he’d seen fly into Burgas.   

Passing into the spacious Customs' hall, I noted my fellow passenger’s personal effects appeared to be accounted for on the rotating carousel – except mine.  The two bags containing the clothes and toiletries I needed to complete my three-week assignment had not arrived.

Seeking a Custom's official or airline employee who spoke enough English to aid me, I found a cooperative but not bi-lingual officer named Stefan.   He had a kind face, deep-set eyes, salty brown hair and a Balkan weightlifter’s physique.   His stiff, sharp-pressed uniform contained most of the twenty extra pounds he carried (holiday weight gain?).  He wore well-worn brogues, but they sported a proud high gloss.    To him I explained my predicament and saw he knew what I needed.  Most important, I sensed he wanted to help me.   As the passengers filed out of the terminal with their bags, Dimitri and Irina came by to wish me well.  They told me they had family in Burgas who were coming to retrieve them.  I bid them goodbye and continued the hunt.

Stefan took me to the Balkan Airline’s cupboard and by jiggling the door showed its security.  I told him through a mixture of signing and speaking single words that I must not leave the airport without proof my bags hadn’t arrived with me.  I needed a certificate signed by an official of the government or the air carrier.

My rescuer pried open a cabinet he believed contained lost luggage forms.  He smiled upon finding one and presented it to me.  Beyond the title line of the form, not one word of English existed.

 

Stefan assisted me in completing the form by miming its requirements. The other border police officers said good night to Stefan, and I noted that only he and I remained in the terminal. He signed, dated and stamped the form, and presented it to me, wishing me a good visit to his country as he motioned me to the exit door.    

Briefcase in hand, I moseyed away from Stefan, exiting the warm bright terminal into the frigid black night. The lights of Burgas tinkled in the distance, reminding me that I had only a glimmer of a notion where I stood in relationship to Sofia.  I then realized that my fellow passengers and the plane’s crew had moved on without me.

Stefan turned off the terminal's lights and locked its doors behind him. He approached and told me, as best he could, that the coaches hired to transport passengers to Sofia departed thirty minutes earlier. He pointed me to a taxi stand about 100 hundred yards away.  A lone cab sat at that curb, its driver standing beside it smoking a cigarette. As I approached, I saw even though dressed heavy for winter he had great height and a reed thin ruddy face sporting a few days of beard growth.   His hair appeared at once both combed and wild.  He glanced in my direction and nodded. I said hello and asked him the way to Sofia.

He said, “Very Far,” and pointed to his right.  Beyond bedraggled, I reviewed my bleak situation, now bleaker. I had no phone to call Nikolai, no local currency and no idea how much time it would take to reach the capital.  Should I stay in Burgas or try to reach Sofia by taxi?  That I had no way to measure the honor of Bulgarian cab drivers or Burgas-based cabbies crossed my mind.  I decided to take the chance and head to Sofia.

I asked him his name (Alexander) followed by asking the cost to ferry me to Sofia.   He gave me a number using American dollars. I offered a smaller number, to which he said "okay."   His response seemed too fast, leading me to believe I might have shimmied my offer south. Shrugging my shoulders at the learning experience, I slid into the chilled leatherette rear seat of my Sofia-bound Soviet-built Lada taxicab.

Lada Taxi Cab -- (not mine)

  

I looked around to find non-existent seat belt seconds before Alexander set off for the capital with a flurry of resolve and a noisy tail pipe.  I hoped I might nap for at least part of the trip, but the muffler's racket, cavernesque potholes and the lack of restraints made that choice improbable.  In between teeth jarring thumps, Alexander and I tried small talk.  I learned his wife's name was Maria; he had three children and hailed from the ancient Byzantine, nee Thracian, city of Nessebar.  Pictures of his handsome kids dotted the dashboard, mollifying me.

Forty minutes into the drive we slid into an immense fog bank which I inferred to be the same mist that kept our flight from landing in Sofia.  As thick as a decent milk shake, the shroud afforded twenty-five feet of visibility.  Upon leaving Burgas, the one lane available to us became burdened with slow truck traffic we had to pass.  Oncoming cars and trucks passed their obstacles by dangerously gliding into our lane, which only served to intensify my ennui.  Road challenges didn’t appear to bother Alexander very much.  I never learned how much anxiety he felt about the dismal highway conditions.  He didn't tell me, or if he said, it must have been under his breath or in a language I didn’t understand.

Fog on the Bugas - Sofia Highway

After four white-knuckle hours, we rose above the fog and entered the foothills of a craggy mountain range due east of Sofia.  Now early morning; the scenery took my breath away.  Alexander asked if I wanted to eat.  I said that I would, but added that I had no Bulgarian money.  To which he said in fair English, "I buy breakfast."

He left the highway onto a dirt road and we descended for five minutes.  After two, the fog re-blanketed us in a wave thicker than thieves eating pea soup.  Even though worn out beyond recognition, I went on full alert.  There were no signs of life anywhere.  No vehicles, no pedestrians, no buildings, nothing but dense forest and shrubs and fog, and Alexander. It wasn't creepy like Transylvania, but a damned good replication of its film portrayal.  Nefarious thoughts raced through my mind.  Would I ever see my family again?  Would I live another day? 

We crept into a thick grove of trees and approached a building that appeared much like a World War II Quonset hut.  Painted in shades of green and brown, it blended in camouflage to the surrounding flora.  Three lone cars sat empty on its far side – yet no sign identified its purpose.  With trepidation, I walked with Alexander toward a door in the front of the shack. 

Quonset Hut

 

My adrenaline was spiking, senses on full alert.  If I was to be victimized, it would be soon.  Alexander grabbed the door handle with me standing behind him and turned it as though he'd done it a hundred times.  I expected to see the Bulgarian equivalent of Freddie Kruger waiting on the other side; my eyes closed involuntarily.

When he opened the door, fears dissolved; the ganglia in my nose went into overdrive, excited by pleasant aromas wafting outward, including fresh bread, rich coffee, and chicken soup.  My eyes focused on the minimally decorated, well-kept diner-style café before us.   Bright curtains hung on its windows and festive Bulgarian cloths brightened its dozen-plus tables, two of them occupied. My obvious hunger showed – Alexander sat us near the kitchen.

I learned the scrumptiousness of traditional Bulgarian soups that morning, consuming copious amounts of hearty stew along with bread, black coffee and organic orange juice.   I gained keen appreciation for Bulgaria's morning staples.  Alexander added Bulgarian yogurt to his meal.  My stomach reacts when I eat a soured dairy product including yogurt.  Sadly, I missed sampling that much-loved Balkan treat.

Fresh Bread

Bulgarian Chicken Soup

                     

After breakfast and back on the highway, Alexander said we'd arrive in Sofia within an hour.  He asked where he should take me when we got there.   I didn’t have an idea where to be deposited and shrugged: which is the international sign for befuddlement.   I likewise didn’t own the street address of my intended apartment, or where Nikolai lived, or where the Sofia airport sat relative to city center.   What I knew equaled a lot of nothing. 

We drifted out of the mountain's clear skies and settled into the irrepressible fog bank.  At least I had briefly appreciated the Bulgarian landscape.  I hoped that the fog dissipated sometime during the coming three weeks.

Alexander suggested he drop me at the Sheraton Hotel, the only Western brand hotel in his country.   He understood that English-speaking employees worked there.  It sat in the city center, near important offices, he said.  I told him that it was a wise choice, making him smile.   Within the hour, we approached the historic edifice of the Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan.

Exterior of the Sheraton Balkan Hotel Sofia

Interior Lobby of the Sheraton

I paid Alexander, offered him my heartfelt thanks, and with my briefcase in hand, I entered the hotel.  With no other guests present in the lobby area and only one person staffing reception I approached the employee, a woman in her early thirties.   As I came near, she looked up, gave me a generous smile and said, “You must be Mr. Tait.”

Given the craziness of the past several hours, it shocked me that a measure of surprise remained in me.  She had no reason to blurt out my name – I had no reservation at that hotel, or at any other.  I must have given her my most confused look.  She smiled as a mother does her child and added, “Your colleague has been frantic to find you.  He told me he left messages at every hotel in the city thinking you might surface at one."

She added after appraising me top to bottom, "You appear to be worn-out from your difficult trip.  Why don’t you take a seat in the lounge and I’ll bring you a cup of cappuccino?  Then I'll call your colleague and tell him you are here.”

I went to the lounge, which she opened just for me, and sipped on the lush cappuccino, a beverage only caffeine-addicted Europeans can craft.   After collecting my thoughts for ten minutes, Nikolai arrived.  We exchanged greetings, and I filled him in on my Frankfurt to Sofia journey.  He listened intently and asked questions in near-perfect English (as he could in French, German, Russian, and Bulgarian, I learned).  I felt in good hands and looked toward the disruptions complicating my visit fading into memory. 

Nikolai took the lost luggage report from me and we hustled to a market to buy toiletries.  Then we drove to my temporary quarters for a shower and shave before the Presidential Inauguration ceremony.  I remained in my travel clothes but I'd attend on time as planned.

Balkan Airlines staff didn't lose my luggage; the Western European carrier I flew from Los Angeles to Frankfurt did.  My bags arrived at the Sofia airport the following day by way of Burgas as the fog had not cleared.   Nikolai arranged for a young man to transport my belongings to the apartment.

Upon completion of my survey, President Stoyanov reviewed it and invited me to return and discuss it.  From that meeting and later consults with in-country tourism leaders, several initiatives took form, jump-starting the restructure and rekindling of their industry. 

It’s safe to say that my first impression of the Bulgarian people, their cuisine and spirit reached my highest levels of praise.  Today, I call Bulgaria my second home, and my many friendships established there: lifelong.

© 2011 / 2016 Thomas G. Tait