When fate strikes - Moments that change everything
I do it every day, in the morning
and sometimes in the evening.
So I can concentrate… and focus.
I learned this at drama school.
You get
into a flow.
If you’re in the flow state,
if you have a direction,
then everything
is fine.
Back when I was at the film
and acting school in Sofia,
I acted in a movie
for the first time.
It was a Hollywood production
with Jean Claude Van Damme,
Dolph Lundgren
and other stars.
These days I am not known
as an actor, but as a mayor.
The youngest
mayor in Bulgaria.
It’s certainly not what I
had in mind for my life.
I know Dolna Malina from my childhood,
we often spent our vacations here.
My father was born here,
so was my grandfather.
Elections should be
held much more often.
Someone else was mayor here
for four years and nothing happened.
The people were forgotten. A road was
quickly paved just before the election,
but we are actually
being robbed.
Ah… I’d better stop, that’s
too much information.
Maybe they’ll vote for me again. Then
I’ll rebuild what no longer exists.
Infrastructure,
culture and hope.
Politics is confusing.
What is democracy?
Ultimately, it’s the people with money
that determine the lives of others.
That’s how many people
think here in Bulgaria.
We have a problem
with our river.
Twice a year it turns gray and
the entire ecosystem dies out.
It changes color in
a matter of seconds.
The frogs disappear, the ducks,
geese, fish, even the algae.
A year ago, some
residents complained.
Someone even wrote something
about it in the local newspaper.
He got a call from the
administration of the entire district.
He was told he didn’t know who
he was dealing with. Very dubious…
The problem is that the state and
the entire system is set up like that
– corruption
and nepotism.
That’s why so many
young people are leaving.
They are fleeing from
this injustice in Bulgaria.
People have the feeling that
everything is dying out here
and that there
is no hope.
The house I live in belonged
to my great-grandparents,
and even the
generations before them.
When I came to live in Dolna
Malina, I was fed up with big cities.
The noise and all that. I
wanted to get away from it all.
I was on the theater stage in
China, New York and London.
In between, I wanted
to relax and recharge.
I’m the exception
in my family.
My father likes to say
I’m a “circus person”.
If you don’t go into business and
earn good money, you can forget it.
Whereas my mother
has always supported me.
So it’s thanks to her that
I’ve continued in this direction
– acting and film.
Back then, a friend kept
asking me the same question:
Wouldn’t you like to be mayor of
Dolna Malina? I thought he was joking.
He said, “Next year there are elections
and you’re a good fit for this village.
You can achieve
something.”
He asked me over and over
again. And then I stood for election.
It was a game for both
sides, like playing on the stage,
but in real life – and
suddenly it became reality.
Surprisingly,
people chose me.
Here in this room, they
put me on their shoulders.
Then they sat me down at a table. There
was music and everyone danced around me.
I sat there and
stared at the wall.
I thought damn, what have
you done with your life now?
Of course I regretted it.
Just take a look out there.
There are lots of people living
here. What do I do with them all now?
What does a mayor actually
do? I had absolutely no idea!
Of course that
scared me,
people had expectations of me
and I had no idea where to start.
At first I
played the role.
It was like the
circus for me
and then after three months
I wanted to quit and leave.
But the residents
wouldn’t let me.
People came to me every
day to change my mind.
They said that they had put their trust
in me and that they would help me.
They told me about
a Bulgarian proverb.
It says that once you’ve started
dancing, you have to finish.
Once you’ve started, it’s a commitment,
whether you like it or not. So I stayed.
Before Yonko came to the village it
was desolate, silent… How can I put it?
Yonko brings people here from outside
that we can sing and dance with.
And when he dances himself,
everyone dances with him.
Life was suddenly
beautiful, and fun.
I felt a little nostalgic. Many of my
generation fled to Western Europe.
And so I began to share
experiences with those who stayed.
To help them, and together we changed
something. Created a new reality.
There are people who say
this is what fate has decreed.
But we alone are our destinies. Because
we make the decisions for ourselves.
When I stood for election as
mayor, my father said to me:
“This is the smartest
decision you have ever made,
the most sensible
thing you’ve ever done.”
My mother was also convinced
that I would achieve something.
Now my parents are asking me about
something else. They’re poking me.
I’d like to have a family one day…
but it’s not the right moment yet.
I was just talking to my
girlfriend about this the other day.
I asked her when the moment would come
when we would live like normal people?
And she said: What does
“normal people” actually mean?
Normal people are
even crazier than we are.
There is another
saying in Bulgaria:
“If you want to make
God laugh, make plans.”
That’s why I’m not
making any more plans.
I’m here now and if I continue on my
own path, I’ll get there eventually.
Life beats
the movies.
What seems clear today may
look completely different tomorrow.
The only thing that
counts is the here and now.
I think I was born with
music. That’s how I feel.
I started singing
before I could speak.
At least that’s what
my mother told me,
that I was lying in bed as a little
baby and was already humming music…
What I heard on TV or the radio.
That’s how I remember myself – singing.
I was born in Siberia.
More than 40 years ago.
My parents come from the Republic of
Moldova, both from North Bessarabia.
My home is
mainly in Moldova.
If we talk about this
home in the physical sense,
this is the place where I
live and where the band is,
the musicians I work
with. It’s my family in a way.
So if that’s how you
define home, then it’s here.
But home for me
is also in Romania.
I also felt at home in Ukraine because
I am of Ukrainian descent as well.
I also felt at home in
Russia when I traveled there.
Because when I was
born, it was all one country.
We all grew up with the same literature,
the same humor, the same jokes
– they circulated everywhere.
We all had the same furniture.
I mean, there were things that were
very similar in this whole region.
There came a point when I had to
choose between university and music.
My family was pressuring me to study
journalism, so I chose that path.
I started working as a journalist
in the first few years of my studies.
But after years in
journalism and politics,
I realized that they
were all just bubbles.
I met Andrei in 2010 and
we got married soon after.
And that was a phase in which
I had some stability in my life.
We loved hiking, we loved
being in the mountains, both of us.
In 2015, I was in the
mountains with Andrei.
And we were in Piatra
Craiului, in Romania,
in an area that
felt kind of strange.
We realized it
was dangerous
because I saw signs that an avalanche
had gone down in front of us.
And we decided to turn back.
We were already on the way back.
And it was a… hmm… that’s how
these things happen… I don’t know.
Andrei, …at one point he
made a tiny movement,
one wrong movement, and he
slipped. And slipped, and slipped,
all the way to the
bottom of the slope.
It was a very deep ravine
– 400 meters deep… yeah.
This was taken an hour
before the accident happened.
The night before, he
kept insisting that I sing.
He kept saying: sing,
sing! It was… I don’t know…
as if he felt something, as if it was
a last message he left me back then.
He kept saying:
please sing, please sing!
We were in a hut near Brasov
and I had a little guitar with me,
and I sang and said: But I am singing!
And he said: Well then keep singing!
I don’t know if music would
have become my profession
if Andrei
were still alive.
I think I would have
taken a different path in life.
We would have started
a family, had children.
What happened back
then left a huge mark on me
and I think part of
me died with him.
I was completely distraught for a
while and I couldn’t even sing anymore.
Whenever I sang,
I started to cry.
But I couldn’t go
back to my old life.
I understood at the time
that not a single compromise
I had made up to that
point made any sense.
And when I realized
how fleeting life is,
how a person can be gone from one
second to the next, I asked myself:
What are we
in this world for?
To make life compromises,
to buy things, what for?
After a year of
complete darkness,
I came across these guys and
we founded the band Via Dacă.
Our paths crossed just like that.
Sometimes you get the feeling
that there is a higher
power guiding our paths.
Suddenly these guys come along
and we try to make music together.
For me, music was healing. And
I know exactly what kind of music.
I was healed by a certain
type of music, a certain sound.
And now I understand that I have to
pay tribute to what music has given me.
We are bringing back folklore,
but not in its archaic form,
not in the original, but in
combination with modern music.
And, because I’ve been moving within
different styles all my life anyway,
I find that interesting, especially
as music is a universal heritage.
We are aware of our roots, but we are
looking to connect with other cultures.
And that’s what I really
love about our time today,
this freedom that people didn’t
have a few generations ago.
They couldn’t travel, just change their
location, go to festivals, for example.
None of
that existed.
It’s this mixture, which
contains elements of folk music,
and especially ancient music,
that gives you this feeling,
calms your mind and tunes you
into certain healing frequencies.
It’s still very difficult, but it is
possible to make a living from music.
Compromises, that word again… I believe
that this is a constant process.
That’s what you always have
to measure yourself against.
It’s not a final decision, you’re
constantly testing your limits.
Besides, I couldn’t go back
to journalism or political work.
I don’t think I
would find my way,
and I don’t think I belong
there anymore either.
I like going to the countryside to meet
the people there, to befriend them,
to talk to them. Lilia Brechowa is the
mayor of the village of Gura Bîcului.
The village lies on the
banks of the River Nister
on the border
with Transnistria.
The last time
I visited Lilia,
we went to the bridge that
connects Moldova and Transnistria.
How long
has it been?
One and a
half years.
A year and a half,
and I still can’t believe
that this isn’t
just a nightmare,
that Odessa is 100
kilometers away, right here…
…and is still
being shot at.
…and it’s so paradoxical
that there is a war
while life goes on at the same time.
And it’s interesting how people think.
Human nature,
our ability to adapt.
How can we simply adapt to some
of these things we’ve gotten used to?
We make music. It’s also a kind
of self-discovery, what you play.
Because when you
start composing a piece,
you don’t know
where it will lead you.
You can roughly imagine
it, you can have an idea,
but the initial spark
is sometimes…
A clap, a flash of
inspiration, a ray of sunshine…
and where that leads
you, you don’t know.
It’s a journey, sometimes
with surprises along the way.
Yes, you can think about
things, have wishes and hopes.
But if you cling to them too tightly,
to your fears and bad feelings,
you are not
living your life.
That’s what I want – to
wake up and enjoy this gift.
And to enjoy and see everything that
is, and not always only what is not.
How would I
describe myself?
Modest… and with a life that
hasn’t really been a success.
I never wanted to be a
miner. I always resisted it.
But a lot of my uncles
worked in mining.
To avoid having to join the army, I
decided to work in the mine for a year.
Later, I started to enjoy
working underground
and somehow
it is still my life.
Although mining no longer exists
here, it is my life. It has died out.
But we miners live
for what used to be.
I wear this uniform as a reminder
that mining in Wałbrzych existed,
still exists and will
continue to exist.
It still exists because there is a
uniform or a memento of mining
in almost every
wardrobe in this town.
Almost half of the people
here were a miners.
I feel sad when I talk about it,
because those times are not coming back.
The brotherhood of miners
provided cohesion and solidarity.
We used to meet up and
talk about all sorts of things.
About work, about
women, about this and that.
I worked in the Wałbrzych coal
mines from the end of 1980 to 1991.
At the time of the People’s
Republic, during the communist era,
things were
going well for me.
I had money, I had a life,
I had joy, I had everything.
When the fall of communism
came, the mining industry fell apart.
They kicked us out.
They put the first thousand
people out on the street.
They threw one thousand
people out, just like that. Gone.
We received a severance
payment of three months’ salary.
The next people they let
go received two years’ salary.
My ex-wife broke down because we had
a child and money was getting tight.
We argued a lot.
She said we needed money for
this, we needed money for that.
And I got
angry too.
Sometimes there wasn’t
enough to buy bread.
I tried to earn more
somehow, but just couldn’t.
I thought that if I worked
in Western Europe,
I would somehow manage to feed
the family. But that was a mistake.
Three friends and I took an old car
and drove to Germany to work illegally.
We later worked in Switzerland,
Greece and other countries.
I earned a bit of money there. Then
I brought it home and lived a little.
Then the money
was gone again.
The divorce
came later.
Then I lost custody of my child.
There were alimony proceedings.
Since then, I’ve been trying
to make ends meet somehow.
I was able to
scratch a bit together.
It’s not much, but at least
I get four złoty for my work.
Maybe not much, but four
złoty buys you a loaf of bread.
Almost every morning between 7 and 8,
I go out to collect bottles and cans.
You don’t come across many people on
the street in the morning. It’s quiet.
You get some exercise and
some oxygen into your body.
When I get home afterwards, I feel
more alive. I have a smile on my face.
When the sun is shining as beautifully
as it is now, the joy emerges.
And then sometimes you can
close your eyes and dream a little.
I like Polish music as well as
western music. But only the classics:
Deep Purple, Nazareth,
Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd.
When the borders were opened, I went to
concerts abroad with a group of friends,
to places like
Germany or Hungary.
At some point, two things
came to Poland from the West:
Firstly, the
plague of tatoos.
And secondly, drugs that
were smuggled into Poland
from the Netherlands
and other countries.
Huge quantities, which
dealers later sold locally.
They were in the schools, there
were even lollipops with drugs.
My daughter was
the ideal child at first.
She sang, rode her bike
and studied a lot for school.
I thought she was going
to become something.
I thought she was my
happiness. But I was wrong.
She chose the wrong path. She
chose the path that leads to hell.
She started smoking,
drinking and taking drugs.
My daughter took
almost every kind of drug.
I still remember
her telling me:
When you take drugs,
you’re in a wonderful world.
And later she was shaking
and had epileptic seizures.
She got schizophrenia and
now has to take medication.
I have a terrible
relationship with my daughter.
As a father, that hurts my
heart. Maybe I was a bad father.
Maybe I was too strict
with her as a father.
I fought for several years to help her.
I fought to pull her out of this swamp.
I didn’t succeed.
I sacrificed myself
to get her out of there.
I was attacked and beaten up
twice by dealers because of it.
I was in the hospital
for seven days.
Life is like a
boxing match.
If you make a mistake in
the ring, you hit the ground.
If you make a mistake
in life, you also fall down.
If you fall down
and you are clever,
then you slowly get back up again
when someone reaches out to you.
You come to
and start again.
Our father left us while we
were still at elementary school.
When I came back from
school, the apartment was empty.
We didn’t know
what was going on.
Our father had moved out
and taken everything with him.
And he only left us a
table, chairs and a bed.
And so my mother, my brother and I
had to join forces to manage somehow.
A few years later, my
brother and I visited my father.
He lived in a villa with his new wife.
He had started a glassblowing business.
He welcomed us
in, but he told us:
“You can’t spend
the night at my place.
There’s a meadow outside
where you can pitch a tent.”
Later, he also had
strawberry fields.
He had ten hectares and
people who worked for him.
But I didn’t get
anything from my father.
I don’t hold a grudge against him for
that. He obviously wanted it that way.
I do feel sad about it though. My
mother has been alone all her life.
And she’s still alone
today. It’s sad but true.
I’ve always dreamed of having a
real family. A family with warmth.
That’s what I’m
lacking, this familial love.
I would like to experience
this warmth before I die.
The best thing to do is to
close my eyes for a moment
and dream that
there’s a woman here.
We would make ourselves
a cup of tea, sit down.
She would cut off a piece
of the cake she baked earlier.
We would taste it, laugh together,
and kiss. That would be nice.
Did you have those beautiful
black lines over your eyes
when you came
out of the mine?
Sure. All the miners had
that when they came out.
I really
liked that.
We had eyes like that. And
on the bus, people would shout:
“Look, there’s
a gay one!”
But it was just coal dust that
had collected in our eyebrows.
I really liked the
miners’ eyes back then.
I also started
wearing make-up.
I had received a
package from the US
with a pair of Wrangler
jeans and a black sweater.
I wore this outfit
to school every day.
If they were to reopen
the mine this year,
would you work there
again as a miner?
Yes.
At your age… crawling through
the tunnels underground?
Yes, if they w noould still take me
with my health, I would be happy to.
It would make me happy to
be able to work there again,
no matter
how long I live.
Life is beautiful. You have
to know what to do with it.
Life means sorrow,
grief, regret, bitter tears.
Life means joy and
a smile on your face.
Life is that one moment
you wait for your whole life.
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