There are no quotation marks in his language. They abound in the language of hypocrites.
He is what most of us will never be. And don't try to get him into the anthill.
They tried to draw him with their pencils - and now they are angry that he was different. With their pencils they can expect gratitude from politicians, for example, who they are courting. From him - never.
This was commented on "Facebook" by Kevork Kevorkian.
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Decent people have been underground for years. And those of them whom we can still meet are increasingly fewer. On the other hand, the asses are getting bigger. And talking about asses is the same. Some presenters do it with enthusiasm. They even make fun of the Ascension of Christ. One of them didn't want to be a Bulgarian like Stoichkov.
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On the day when a photojournalist almost became a “star“ because he was hit by Stoichkov, something else happened. The Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy did not allow “Corriere della Sera“ to print photos of Berlusconi, and ordered them to be taken away from the newspaper's editorial office. Because they violated his personal space.
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They were dealing with Stoichkov all week. It turns out that in order to become a “star“, even for a day, Stoichkov has to beat you up. And open your mouth like a cave.
Stoichkov respects whomever he has to. And he also behaves naturally with fleas.
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The most famous paparazzi photo I've ever seen is of the Queen of England - it was on the cover of “Spy“ magazine. Elizabeth II stuck her index finger in her right nostril, and quite deeply. It's all right, though: she did it at a parade, the index finger and the nostril are hers. The paparazzi didn't stalk her in her bedroom, but stood with thousands of other people in a London square.
Where are such shocking registrations, so that you can wear paint with pleasure?
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Why does Stoichkov often say that he owes Bulgaria nothing?
It's true, though. It is also true that he does not know Bulgaria. And she does not know him.
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I am sure that most TV presenters do not perceive themselves as stars at all. They think of themselves as some special hybrid between a clerk, a club delivery man, a gigolo and a mediator - two drops of everything. That is why they easily give way to so many misunderstandings in their shows, and look at them as stars, and obediently work for them.
They do not see themselves as stars, but as clerks. That is why none of the presenters sympathize with Stoichkov. They simply do not understand him. He is a star, and they are not. He has his own territory, and they are temporary tenants in some television station. He has a fierce sense of inviolability, they are amputated from such a feeling to begin with. Today, TV mercenaries have completely capitulated, they do whatever they want with them. They only see what their employers want them to see.
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With all the conventions and difficulties, our generation had a different self-esteem. The best of us did not immediately pounce on the “wrong“ things. And the “wrong“ people were initially sympathetic to us. And which fist, after all, is wrong?
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It is talentless to trudge after someone just to take some banal photo. Maybe you expected something else, maybe you brazenly rummaged in your imagination for something else? Where is it? Where is the Queen's index finger?
Being a secret partygoer at Stoichkov's table is no great honor.
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How do you imagine someone filming in London's “San Lorenzo“?
Once we bumped into businessman Spas Rusev from “Knightsbridge“, and he said that the princess had lunch at “San Lorenzo“. Where, from whom he had found out, it was not clear, but with Spas it is always like that. He invited us to go there, I hesitated, but my daughter Margie agreed, she was small then and it was easier to get carried away. Then I went with them, because right opposite the restaurant there is a small pastry shop where they make wonderful carrot pies. We went, I got busy with my pie, and Beecham Place gradually began to fill up with people. Two traffic policemen also came. For the first and last time in London I saw cars parked on the sidewalk. They were Diana's Rovers and her security. A long time passed, the pie was over, the crowd was silently growing. And even at the Brompton they had already posted a traffic policeman, just in case. Finally the restaurant door opened, Diana said a quick goodbye to some unknown man, then she and her children jumped into the car and both cars drove off before their doors were closed. And the crowd quietly applauded for a long time afterwards. And no one took her picture that day.
But once she reached for a paparazzi with her bag. But that's not important now.
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In one match, Alex Ferguson took Eric Cantona off. The Frenchman walked towards the dressing room, but someone in the audience shouted something at him. He returned and with a magnificent kick, he smashed the head of a spectator.
A few years later, Cantona was named in a representative poll as the most important player in the history of the great “Manchester United“. For a long time I couldn't understand this. I had watched Sir Bobby Charlton play, I even liked the strange hairstyle with which he clumsily concealed his baldness - and which he forgot about on the pitch, and I thought that fate had burdened him with being everything that his comrades from the team that died in the plane crash had lost. But Cantona turned out to be the most beloved.
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Since the end of 1994, Hristo has been advertising the TV bingo on “Every Sunday” - he did it with a famous line that gained enormous popularity: “Whoever doesn't play, doesn't get laid”. And it is actually a phrase from a conversation I had with him, in the presence of his manager Mingeya, who was registered at the then club at the “Narodna armiya“ stadium.
He who doesn't play, doesn't play – Hristo is right, of course, especially if we mean the Game/Life in the most general case.
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He is also the author of another famous phrase: "Ainzu, Zvainzu - Dun!" He said it again in 1994, when our football players, by their own admission, mostly drank whiskey in the pool and somehow came fourth at the World Cup in the USA - and the phrase was heard after the victorious match with Germany.
It went straight to the Bulgarian soul: crooked, lame German, but that's how the Germans are, after all, we beat them; that's how we talk, but we win, Einzu, Zweinz - dun, dun, dun!
This "dunn" was our victorious anthem, it could also be from this word alone, whatever it means; dun - your mother, what do you think?
Sung by Stoichkov himself, this hymn sounded even sweeter to the tortured Bulgarian ear.
Stoichkov was our Savior - much desired and liked also because of his human ordinariness and unceremoniousness, aren't we all like that, damn it - dun. Then he probably said "crap", but anyway, the details were never important to us.
Thus this victorious phrase became our consolation, also our challenge: "You are great - Germany in this case, but we are crap!"
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In the archive of "Every Sunday" there are two truly brilliant drawings by Boris Dimovski. Don't be fooled - Boreto decorated Stoichkov's left leg with a laurel wreath, but he also valued him very much as a person.
There is another more important thing: Stoichkov has a medallion that has the outlines of the map of Bulgaria. He wears it.
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Kamata was quite generous towards my show, but once he really pissed off some people when he said: "Television without you is like football without me... Both our television and football are currently zero.."
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In 1996, we were with Prof. Chirkov at Simeon's in Madrid. One day we went to have lunch at a famous local restaurant and at one point my daughter decided to take a picture in front of an old oven with the chef, a very famous star in the city. She told him that we were with the Tsar, but that one - the Madrid guy! - didn't stop talking to her about Stoichkov. So much for who, how much is it worth.