Local news

There was a lull in the protests for a while and then the students jumped on the bandwagon and occupied the Sofia University. This gave new energy to the protests and in the past 10 days there were again thousands in the streets. Yesterday the situation escalated and there were blockades and marches all day. Late last night the police finally managed to disperse the crowds and put new fences (the kind used for large concerts - sturdier and practically impossible to ram with garbage containers) around the building of the Parliament.
Turned out this pic was made shortly after the arrest of a protesting high school teacher and the toilet paper and the leeks were confiscated by police as "dangerous items".
Here're some pics from last night.
 
On the other hand, the police are also humans, at least some of them:

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The story goes that the girl was upset and crying and asking the police to stop beating them and this guy told her "Hold on, everything will be all right!"
 
Yeah, I wonder how must the policemen be feeling.
In reality, some of them are probably supporting the protests and have friends and family among the crowd, and would like themselves to join, but they can't risk their career, so they are stuck with defending a-holes. Pretty bad stuff, but what can you do...
 
I talked to a policeman a few months ago, in the peak of the summer protests. They are tired and fed up with this. They don't get paid for the overtime, the leave has been revoked until further notice and they hate the jerks in Parliament as much as we do, if not more. - At least we can choose when and if to take it to the streets, while they have to be there - rain or shine, standing long hours, sometimes in full riot gear.
Since yesterday there are rumours that the Interior Ministry has again mobilised the countryside cops and sent them here, because the chances of them having to beat family and friends are much smaller.
Aaaand... There's also the illegal immigrant wave that is slowly overwhelming us - petty crimes, stabbings, skinheads and all...
IT'S JUST WONDERFUL!
 
I don't know what to say aside from "Well, shit."

Even though I haven't personally witnessed such protests in my life (though my country has had plenty), I can understand the problem to a good extent.
I hope you get through this, but in reality, long-term damage is unavoidable. I'm just afraid that you won't be able to "fix" this until blood flow through the streets in the good measure, unfortunately.
I love the fact that EU doesn't seem very concerned with one of its younger members. Or is it?
 
I love the fact that EU doesn't seem very concerned with one of its younger members. Or is it?
It's a pretty tough call these days I guess. Some private banks in the EU are too big to crash so they're busy organising those "packages" for them. I think the experts would say that it could be worse.
 
If I am not mistaken, the European Socialist Party, or whatever their name is, has quite a few seats in the European Parliament. Their head is the detested Sergei Stanishev. It is not politically correct to criticise your own leader, har-har...
Besides, I have totally lost my faith in the EU. - They are a bunch of idiotic bureaucrats who are more concerned with the amount of water in the toilet flushes, but have left us to our own devices. They don't even care that we got 10 000 illegal immigrants in two months and we're absolutely overwhelmed, but have the face to patronize us that building a fence along the border with Turkey is not right.
Perhaps civil war is indeed the only way out, but I'm afraid the idiots are more than the normal people in this country.
 
In other news: The village cops, brought to Sofia to beat the students, are staying in a four star hotel in downtown Sofia.
It is on sale by a bank for the debts of its owner, who is has a life sentence in Greece for drug trafficking.
 
Latest news on Helsingin Sanomat's website: after Sweden's leading newspaper published the recipe for the traditional Finnish "Christmas star" pastry, they were flooded with complaints from readers who interpreted it as... a swastika. I'm pretty speechless - I lived in Germany as a kid and was taught a healthy dose of anti-fascist awareness in school, but never for a moment I would have seen anything of the sort in the form of my favorite holiday pastry. Oh well, Swedes. I have a feeling that I don't wanna hear what the plum jelly in the middle reminds them of. :p

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Three hours into my first attempt to brew beer. So far, so good -- at least as far as I can tell. Will know more when the wort is cooled and it's in the fermentation container and starts fermenting. Fingers crossed.
 
The Bulgarian orthodox church (which is, BTW, currently shaken by sex scandals and alleged murder plots) demands that the statue of Baba Yaga (the evil witch in Slavic mythology - something like Louhi, I suppose) be removed from in front of a municipality building in a small town in southeastern Bulgaria, as it, according to the bearded religious fanatics, was a personification of Satan.

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The town's mayor said that the Baba Yaga statue was an incarnation of evil, which is stopped by the municipality.

Not so long ago, the priests in another town demanded the removal of a dragon sculpture on top of a public drinking fountain in Varna. The sculpture was donated by a local artist.

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Yes, we are living in the Dark Ages.
 
Haha, that Baba Yaga statue is so awesome. You should burn the witch...erm, mayor for asking for it to be removed.

The dragon statue is pretty cool too, but I myself am not a biggest fan of dragons.

Anyway, do you Bulgarians say "Baba Yaga" or "Baba Roga"? I thought it was the latter.
 
It's Баба Яга, not Baba Roga - I think we're the westernmost point where it's called like that, but I may be wrong. She lives in a cabin standing on chicken legs in the forest. There are several of those in one of the parks in Sofia - I will take photos, come spring. Maybe the most famous was this complex - it was built by Racho Angelov, a wood-carver, between the 1960's and the 1990's, but has since been destroyed. As far as I know, parts of it are in the villa of a very rich guy at the seaside.
We call the very ugly women: "Baba Yaga" ;)
I quite like the statue, especially the way it crashed in the pole.
 
It's Baba Roga in these parts. Weird. Seems this is the only place where it's called like that. We also call very ugly women "Baba Roga". Like I used to call my great-great-grandmother. Poor woman.

Anyway, that's an interesting complex. It's not really my taste, but it has some nice parts. Regardless, interesting.