Author: Gabriela Sevova
"I hope to motivate Germans to pass through Bulgaria before going to Bali", says Milica Tekelieva. The Bulgarian is the creator of the mini podcast series Der Heimweg ("The Road Home"). In 2023, she sets off by train from her village of Zmeyovo, located on the outskirts of Stara Zagora, to her home in Berlin. To get there, Milica passes through three countries - Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and along the way she meets and talks to locals about their country and culture.
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Berlin and Love
In addition to exploring the heritage of Eastern Europe, along the way, Milica tries to unravel her own identity - she tries to understand whether she feels more Bulgarian or German and where her true home is. All these stories are woven into the podcast, released at the end of this year.
"I still haven't found the answer to where I belong, I'm rather asking myself new questions", says Milica. She has lived in the German capital for 13 years, and for the past 4 years she has been working as a podcast producer at the company Pool Аrtists. "There are many people who go abroad because they are looking for a better job, a better education - absolutely legitimate reasons. It wasn't like that for me, I left for love and I also stayed for love." When she was 19, Militsa moved to Berlin to be with her boyfriend, but soon after, the two separated.
Still, she decided to finish the bachelor's degree in "Journalism" that she had started. "My plan was to then go home to Bulgaria and apply to the organization "Together in Class" to teach. Shortly before graduating, however, I met my current boyfriend and decided to stay." 10 years have passed since that decision, and today it is difficult for Militsa to imagine living anywhere other than Berlin.
"To come and eat a Shopska salad"
Yet she eagerly awaits every return to Zmeyovo. Maintaining a connection to her homeland feels like a duty. She tries to return as often as possible and to take friends with her to get to know the country. And in Berlin she tries to provoke more conversations about Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. "I often get asked if Bulgaria was part of Yugoslavia, if it was part of the Soviet Union, and if we are in the European Union. That amazes me immensely."
According to her, the problem is not so much prejudice, which she says she doesn't encounter often, but rather ignorance. "My favorite example is that someone once asked me if I speak Cyrillic. I know many Germans who prefer to go to Taiwan or Bali - literally to the other side of the world. They fly over Eastern Europe without thinking that maybe there are interesting things to visit there too. I hope the podcast will spark their interest so that they will come and see and eat a Shopska salad."
Before Christmas, Militsa returns to Zmeyovo. Every year she tries to be the village for the wormwood festival, for which it is famous. It is held on the last Saturday before Christmas. "People come from all over the country, there are ensembles, dances, sings, plays. In Zmeyovo, almost every house makes wormwood, so everyone brings their wormwood to the square. Tastings are held, kebabs are baked, old-fashioned guns are fired and, of course, there is a competition for the best wormwood", she says.
For Militsa, returning to Bulgaria in recent years has been accompanied by "small cultural shocks". The bad jokes, the everyday sexism and the conservatism, which she says is widespread not only among older people but also among some of the young, is something she is not used to in Berlin. She shares that even in her family, which she describes as relatively liberal, she occasionally encounters unpleasant comments, but she takes them rather innocuously. "I once had a conversation with a young man who told me that he didn't understand why women should go to work. In Germany, far-right movements have also been growing in recent years. Maybe in Bulgaria conservatism is more visible and more accepted, but that doesn't mean it's only there", she shares.
"It's a little hard not to love her"
Yet Milica is deeply attached to her homeland. "I still miss Bulgaria a lot, as do my parents. There are moments that are absolutely familiar to every emigrant, when you stand there and you want to scream that you are not there", she says. As a child, Milica sang in a Bulgarian choir, and when she moved to Germany, she discovered "Bulgarian voices Berlin", where she spent 2 years. There, in addition to performing Bulgarian folk songs with the women, they also went on tours, one of which took them all the way to Korea. "I don't know if there is anyone who doesn't love Bulgarian folk choral music. It's a little hard not to love it. That was a big inspiration for the music in the podcast."
In Der Heimweg we hear choral vocals from Milica, whose compositions she invents herself and records in several voices. She says that this podcast is one of her favorite projects that she has worked on at Pool Аrtists. "The work was extremely rewarding because everything happened within the team itself. I did the writing, but of course I had support from the editors. The music was specially composed for the podcast by my colleague Benjamin Meyer, and the cover photo is by Greta Verlage."
In the photo in question Milica is dressed in a traditional costume from the Northwest. She inherited it from her great-grandmother Vuta, who is from that region, and all the fabrics are woven by her by hand.
"I very often ask myself what I can do for Bulgaria, even though I don't live there. We can certainly contribute by going out to protest and going to the polls (...) I hope the podcast will encourage people to think about what they know about this part of Europe and whether they want to learn more."