A conversation about bureaucracy, envy and the lost spiritual compass of the Bulgarian… Kostadin Gramatikov in front of

The FAKTI editorial office was contacted a long time ago by Kostadin Gramatikov, who was an emigrant in the USA for nearly 30 years. At that time, he wrote us a letter in which he told us in detail about the hardships he went through to return to Bulgaria with his second wife, who is Chinese. Passports, visas, money, unwinding. But… All of that is in the past. After many hardships, Mr. Gramatikov returned to Bulgaria to confront his native bureaucracy “head-on”. And now we are talking to him about the disease of ostentation and envy, about the crisis of Bulgarian spirituality, about the differences between a working system and a culture of meaning that has been abandoned. And so. After years of a good life in California, a Bulgarian returns home — and confronts the absurd, but also himself. This text is not just an analysis of a social disease, but a confession that touches on the question of meaning, of life without depth and of the role of religion in a world where “everything works, but the soul is naked“. A scientist tells how he drowned in the swamp of his native reality – and how California taught him to push buttons, but did not tell him what to do with death.

- Mr. Gramitikov, you returned to Bulgaria from California. You live in Varna. You had ideas, goals, an ambition to pass on knowledge, experience, skills. But how did your native Bulgaria receive you…How do you live today?
- The Bulgarian is the heir to a great tradition. He comes from a family that has carried a royal self-consciousness for millennia – not so much in the external sense of power, as in the internal sense of purpose. The Bulgarian does not simply accept the world - he wants to surpass it, to "transcend" it. But he often does it according to his own rules - beyond any measure of God. In such a world, you do not need to pay taxes to "surpass reality". It is enough to hide what you have and show yourself as you want to be seen. In a society made up of descendants of former rulers - accustomed to ruling, not serving - envy flourishes.

Bulgarian society is sick with envy.

And not only that - in our country, a person is not free to simply be himself, without being subjected to suspicion or competition in ostentation.

- Why do you think so? Can you give an example?
- Of course. I spent years near La Jolla, California - an area populated by millionaires, whom we in Bulgaria read about in Raymond Chandler novels. Every day I passed by the world-famous Salk Institute for biomedical research. My fellow scientists there - luminaries in their field - drove old cars. Dr. Tony Hunter, a leading name in cell cycle research, a member of the boards of successful biotech companies, drove an old Volkswagen Beetle that was on the verge of falling apart.

- Isn't it a matter of personal taste what you will drive and how you want to show off?
- In California, it is completely natural for a person not to flaunt his wealth. On the contrary - there is a value in being discreet, free, doing what you want with your money, but without feeling the need to impress anyone.

- And here…
- In Bulgaria it is often the opposite. The Bulgarian strives to demonstrate not only what he has, but also what he does not have. This is not just vanity - it is a disease of identity. Our people come from a tradition in which royalty was a spiritual state - the realization that we are God's children, as Prince Boris believed after the Baptism. Today this royalty has been replaced by a sham striving for supremacy, ostentation and social effect.

- What has happened to Bulgarian spirituality and greatness, in your opinion?
- That inner feeling of nobility that was once woven into the Christian soul of the Bulgarian has been lost today. Without a spiritual framework, it has turned into pure envy and a blind desire to be envied by others. We are not talking about rivalry in the noble sense - we are talking about a competition based on superficial indicators. A competition to see who has a better status, a bigger home, a more “influential“ title. The academic and cultural spheres are also not spared - so-called “key performance indicators“ reign there, completely inappropriately borrowed from the corporate world.

- What is happening in the soul of a Bulgarian today?
- True competition is beautiful because it comes from within. It does not consist in overtaking someone, but in expressing yourself - to be who you are, on your track, with meaning for you. However, the Bulgarian is often not satisfied with this.

He wants to be seen as being first. He doesn't care if he is, but if he seems like it.

This creates a peculiar culture of appearance, where everything is judged by the facade. It is very easy to impress a Bulgarian - just show him strength, brilliance, confidence. Depth does not interest him, because if you are not visible - you do not exist.

- Can Bulgarians today appreciate inner virtues?
- Very little. The reason is not in some moral deficit, but in the fact that the spiritual culture we once had has been secularized. Only the outer coverings remain. The living breath of the Spirit of God, which inspired our civilization after Baptism, has disappeared. Spiritual greatness was once achieved through service, through being “last in order to become first“. Today, only the desire to appear first remains. True depth has been replaced by imitation spirituality.

To be continued...