Facebook comment by Bulgarian cultural historian and curator Margarita Dorovska:
WITH LOVE FOR THE LEV
Before 1996, I don't remember what I spent the pennies in my piggy bank on - it might have been ice cream and chocolates.
My first clear memory of the value of money is from the winter of ‘96-7. I came home from school and told my mom that I needed a new roll-on deodorant. I needed it mostly for the days with physicals (you know, the vain puberty battle with sweat). Mom handed me her deodorant and said “Use this one, I'll buy you yours later”. That's how I learned firsthand what inflation was.
In the fall of '97, I was officially in math, preparatory class (in the seventh grade, you're neither in nor out, neither fish nor crab). I was going out with the coolest boy, a few grades older. And with the money from the piggy bank, I became a cool kid. I bought Egoist and CDs with music. Georgi Gospodinov and Alek Popov. Victor Pelevin and Irvine Welsh. Cool T-shirts and baggy pants.
Once I was late to buy an issue of Egoist and we went around Pleven's bars and gas stations in vain with my best friend. One day he didn't come to school, and in the evening he showed up at the door with the issue in question - he went to Sofia, to the editorial office. In the office, he said, they had transparent Macintoshes. Bogdan Rusev handed him the magazine and wished him success with his classmate. The coolest boy had become a student in America. And my friend's success was instantaneous.
As a student, I spent my money on rags and books. And my first visas. My first trip abroad was to Switzerland. Professor Dichev (then an associate professor) had arranged two scholarships at the University of Freiburg. He "tied my finger" with going abroad.
By 2005, I had been working for a long time and, along with some unexpected fees, I had saved the colossal sum of 1,200 leva. I had a boyfriend who was always finding cars to sell. He had gotten his hands on a green Fiat Punto for exactly that much. I counted the hours and imagined where my car was on the way from Vienna to Sofia. Alas, after Kalotina, someone offered him 1,400 for the Punto and he threw it away. He was happy that we would have money to go to the sea. He must have gone to the sea. I learned from that job that the only man you can afford to rely on is your father.
Soon after that I discovered the charm of the company car, and the money I saved turned into plane tickets and hotels - I went on business trips and to see exhibitions in Helsinki, Berlin, Manchester and Liverpool. On business, but back then there was no one to pay for business trips, so this money was a professional investment. I came back with contacts. Then they turned into partnerships, joint projects and many new trips.
I have bought myself a lot of joys in this life with the lev, now I remember these. Well, I couldn't buy a roll and a green Punto.
Thank you to the politicians who didn't allow the winter of '96-7 to be repeated. Not that I've always had money in my pocket for deodorant, but deodorant has never been out of reach in my life. Nor in my son's.
I send the lev with much love and gratitude. And with dignity.