For returning native,a new Bulgaria awaits

October 05, 2003|Tom Haines, Globe Staff

ARBANASI, Bulgaria -- It was with a particular mix of surprise and satisfaction that, while walking down a lane tucked on the north side of the Balkan range, and surrounded by friends from Argentina and France, Italy, and the United States, Alexandar Kirov said, ''You know, I always knew my country could be so beautiful, but I just hadn't seen it."

It was, this comment, both true and false.

False, because for more than two decades, during a childhood that was witness to the decline of communism behind the Iron Curtain, Alex had managed to grab the rewards of sport and study, friends and family. But it was true, too, because while his country did not, like its neighbors, suffer a violent climax, or the wars that followed, it muddled along in the cradle of the Balkans, offering up a life that was, essentially, full of frustration.

So Alex left, four years ago, for Paris, where he and I met amid a crowd of journalists and quickly joined an Argentine and Italian in a circle of friends dubbed ''la famille." When we would talk about Alex's country, he would speak with affection, or disdain, but always distance. Not so when I joined him this summer for his return visit to Bulgaria.

We met in a village in southern Serbia and drove his family's vintage orange Lada sedan east, a rumbling ramble at 50 miles per hour, past signs pointing south to Skopje and Thessaloniki, then into the hills and through three border checkpoints to Sofia, the capital and Alex's hometown.

While on our way to pick up two friends, Alex spoke with simple authority, about the star taken from the top of the Communist Party headquarters soon after the decades-long regime of Todor Zhivkov fell Nov. 10, 1989, or quieter memories from a shady schoolyard. I noticed that Alex had changed pronouns, from ''they," as in ''the Bulgarians," to ''we."

''You see this one," he said critically, pointing to the cracked, sagging facade of an old building in the city center. ''There are nice offices inside, some are very expensive. But on the outside, we just don't care."

With turn after turn, particularly after the Lada got towed from a seemingly valid parking spot at the train station, Alex's tone turned toward disdain.

This did not fit for Alex, a tall, lean man who prefers calm, earnest conversation, or for the occasion, a gathering of 10 friends. As we returned from the station to Alex's childhood apartment, set in a sprawling quarter of high, modern buildings, he looked stressed.