Veselin Stoynev's comment:
A few years after the Russian Empress Catherine the Great annexed Crimea from the Ottoman Empire, her favorite Prince Potemkin took her on a triumphal journey through the new lands to show her how they flourished immediately after her rule. To this end, he erected "facades" of beautiful villages with happy peasants, which would deceive the Empress that these lands were prosperous under Russian rule. The expression "Potemkin villages" becomes a byword for PR stunt.
"Geshev is a joy"
On September 11, 2019, a Roma group, brought to the center of Sofia in defense of the election of Ivan Geshev as Prosecutor General, held posters reading "Geshev is a racist", and read them as "Geshev is a joy". They also held up a poster reading "Attorney Velichkov – Prosecutor General", while at the same time, lawyer Velislav Velichkov led a protest in front of the Courthouse precisely against Geshev. This self-revealing stunt remains in our latest PR story as "Geshev is a joy". In 2023, he was dismissed from the post of Prosecutor General - to the delight of both his opponents and his patrons.
The following year, another sham plot unfolded: in response to the PP-DB's request for a "sanitary cordon" against Delyan Peevski and the accusations of phantom votes for MRF-New Beginning, on the very first day of the current parliament, November 11, 2024, Peevski gathered his supporters, brought in by buses from the country, at Largo for a rally under the slogan "We are not phantoms, we are real". For the first time, he appeared openly in front of a large audience and hysterically threatened that "this is the last time we will be civilized and peaceful here in front". The phantom sham ended in March 2025, when, after the recount of votes in 17% of the polling stations, the Constitutional Court established that the MRF-New Beginning had the most written votes (this does not include the controlled vote, which cannot be counted).
Under heavy guard like an underground boss
After the major protests in Sofia and many other cities in the country in late November and early December 2025, Delyan Peevski gathered mayors and regional coordinators on December 5 at the capital's "Astoria" hotel to organize a counter-protest. He was captured on video leaving the hotel as he was quickly loaded into a heavy limousine by tense heavy security - as if he were the prime minister of a risky country or an underground boss. The expected counter-protest has not been called in the capital, so as not to seem pathetic in scale and with people brought into line against the backdrop of the authentic anti-government protest with tens of thousands of participants. It is scheduled for December 9 in over 20 small towns and several regional towns, among which there is certainly not a single one from the top six in terms of population.
Like Zhivkov at the head of the diplomatic corps in Kardzhali
On December 8, Delyan Peevski solemnly goes to Kardzhali together with his parliamentary group, like Todor Zhivkov at the head of the diplomatic corps on a visit to a regional town. According to BNT news, Peevski is "accompanied by reinforced security", access to citizens in the immediate vicinity of his route is limited. Websites list 9 cars moving in parallel, security guards from the NSO, SOBT and police officers around the leader. Then, indoors among about 20 party activists, the leader was filmed on a video broadcast on the media, with messages about how the state should not be broken, because "it is one, all settlements are one whole and Bulgaria is one state, a state of all Bulgarian citizens who are equal before this state". He now calls them equal, not the same as days before, and postulates that the state is not in the triangle of power, but "power is in the entire state, the power is given to us by the people".
"No to hate"-2
The counter-protests of the DPS-New Beginning are under the slogan "No to hate". Under the same slogan on November 16, 2013, the BSP and the MRF convened a rally on Orlov Most in Sofia, after the appointment of Delyan Peevski as chairman of the National Agency for National Security on June 14 triggered a wave of protests that lasted more than a year. During this time, Generation Z grew up, which now fills the squares and takes over from its parents - Generation Y, who protested in #ДАНСwithme 12 years ago.
Gaba double of the protest
The role of the counter-protest is to weaken the legitimacy of the protest, while at the same time legitimizing itself as its sponge counterpart through the pluralism of points of view in the media. They show protest, they also show counter-protest – so everything is normal, like a derby between football teams. And it doesn't matter that one is big, the other is small, that one is free, the other is under construction, that one is in the capital and big cities, the other is only in the countryside and smaller towns, where many people are literally dependent on their imposed political representatives. The implication in the nationwide media picture is that these are two equal, equally legitimate forms of civic and political participation.
At one time, the Crimean Tatars must have wondered under which regime it was better – under Ottoman dependence or in Tsarist Russia. The Bulgarian Turks must also wonder which dependence is better – with Dogan or with Peevski. But all Bulgarian citizens face a danger due to the schizophrenic existence simultaneously in reality and in its sham. Namely: to become powerless subjects who do not like their country, nor its European Western choice even, and thus to leave it for a long time in the hands of those from whom they cannot free themselves for decades. Until it finally turns into a poisonous mushroom.