New Beginnings: From Behind the Iron Curtain to America

By Antonina Duridanova

Burning with desire to share the value of freedom, Antonina takes you from her plight in communist Bulgaria to the free shores of America. Following unfortunate events of life in a totalitarian regime in Bulgaria, Antonina bids goodbye to her homeland and flees to the Western world. She provides true experiences and observations of what life is in a communist society-her family's lands and cattle being confiscated by the agricultural labor cooperatives; the censorship of the press and any literal, artistic, and scientific works from the West; religion being prohibited; and any deviation from the norm leading to detention in a labor camp. Her last crossing of the Bulgarian-Yugoslavian border almost costs Antonina her life and makes up her mind to never go back. She describes her life as an immigrant at the refugee camp in Traiskirchen, Austria, while waiting for an American visa.

Antonina is ecstatic when the plane cruises over the Statue of Liberty and lands in the most amazing city in the world-New York. She describes how she could taste, smell, feel, and touch freedom as she gets off the plane, ready to embark on new adventures. Antonina gets educated and becomes a good specialist in taxation, working for the United States Treasury Department. Ultimately, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she is invited to go back to Bulgaria and fix a broken tax system as a representative of the United States government. Her work in the newly democratic society of Bulgaria paved the way for the country to become a member of NATO, escaping Soviet influence, and later being accepted in the family of the European Union.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649521101

Book preview

Early Childhood in Bulgaria behind the Iron Curtain

We all remember the carefree, happy days as children, and I am not an exception. My memories go back to the times when I was about four, but the big games in the neighborhood were a few years later, maybe when I was six or seven. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and growing in the city center, I had friends with whom I played narodna topka (dodgeball in English), explored secret tunnels of basements in the apartment complexes, and jumped over fences. Every day after breakfast, I’d look out the kitchen window at Gavril Genev Street, and if there were a couple of kids with a ball in the street, I would fly out of the apartment building to join in the games. There could be ten to fifteen kids in the neighborhood playing dodgeball, and that could entertain us for the entire day.

Some days we were more adventurous and explored the basements. I distinctly remember a basement at an apartment building to the side of ours which had tunnels leading to other basements. We all crawled fearlessly to find the end of the tunnels, which I am still sure that most adults, including my family, were not aware of existing. Perhaps these tunnels were dug out during the war, but as children, this was not something to preoccupy us. We were all seeking adventures after reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn stories. We climbed over fences, getting into yards of different apartment buildings, where we searched for unusual things. There was nothing special about them; they just had different shapes or landscape. Some had flowers, which I adored, and bushes. Others, just dirt, but they all had benches and a stand on which people hung their carpets and pound on them with a special stick to clean them (there were no vacuum cleaners in those days). I would come back home with bloody knees, and Grandma would silently wash the wounds with iodine. I never cried or complained about getting hurt and never interrupted my playing because of blood dripping down my legs and elbows.

My family consisted of my grandma (the most important person in my life because she took care of me for as long as I can remember), my grandfather, my mother, my father, and my aunt on my mother’s side. We all lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor at the corners of Gavril Genov and Asparuh Streets. My father kept an office at a different location on Rakovski Street, not far, maybe half an hour’s walk away. Since he worked late into the night, there was also a bedroom set in his room. I did not see much of him as Mom used to take lunches to his study every day. He would come to the apartment with us for holidays and sometimes on weekends. Occasionally, Mom would take me to him, and I admired the tons of books neatly arranged up the walls and in stacks on the floor—it looked like a mini library. Dad’s desk was a table with a typewriter and papers all around it. He would stand up and pat me on the head as we entered the room. Then Mom and Dad would whisper to each other. I remember asking them once why they were speaking in such low voices to which Dad responded, The walls sometimes have ears, Nina. We don’t want the neighbors to hear. All this made no sense to me, but I didn’t question anything more. In my teens, I learned that people were spied upon, and the wrong word could get you in trouble, so even at home, people kept their voices down. When I saw Dad at home or when Mom took me over to him, I always tried not to do anything to upset him. My father was soft-spoken, never raised his voice, but he had a stern look and rarely laughed. I was not afraid of him as he never scolded me, but I did not want to do something where he could show me another side of his character. I was around five when I found out that he taught at the university and was an important scholar.

My aunt was my hero as she inspired me to love reading. She was a beautiful woman with long dark hair; piercing, beautiful eyes; and a body of a model. As a child, I slept with her in her king-size bed, and she read to me every night from the book of Andersen’s fairy tales. I thought how wonderful it would be to be able to read by myself these miraculous stories. My father did not want me to read before I started school (in Bulgaria, that is at the age of seven). Later, I found out that when he was little, his father made him and his siblings read and study way before starting school until my great grandmother visited and, looking at the sad faces of the kids, said, What is this punishment? Kids have to enjoy their childhood and play. All the kids darted out before my grandfather changed his mind.

My father did not want me to read before school because his thinking was that I would have a long life of reading and that I should play and enjoy my childhood. There is plenty of time for Nina to read and study, he would say. But my curiosity and thirst for reading was already awakened. My aunt worked, so as soon as she got home and on weekends, I would run to her and follow her around. She took me visiting, and I loved going by her friends who always were happy to see me and treat me with sweets. Ah yes, sweets were something that we could not have outside the house, as every time we walked by a pastry shop, my mom would say, No money, Nina. Soon I caught on that I could not have sweets, and instead of asking, I would say, No money. Grandma was a great cook, but she did not believe in baking desserts every day; that was reserved for holidays, Christmas, Easter, and name days. She made the best pumpkin strudel, banitsa (cheese strudel), kozunak (sweet bread with raisins), and kurabiiki (Bulgarian cookies).

Mom was a high school teacher and sometimes took me to the school where her students would gather around me, telling me how pretty and cute I was. Mom was also beautiful, but her look was soft and kind, and her smile was like a sunshine, which used to brighten my day. I could tell that her students liked her a lot by the way they looked at her and talked to her with admiration. Spending time with Mom at the school where she taught was very special for me. I felt proud watching how students and colleagues were looking up to her. There was a funny happening that I still remember. Mom had to attend an important meeting and could not take me with her, so she asked a couple of the female students to watch me. The girls took me to their house and left me in the backyard, which was fenced, thinking that nothing would happen. I was lonely and started to look for things to do. There were small trees, so I tried climbing them. Not always successful, I would fall and try again. When Mom returned and the girls showed up, I was all dirty, with bloody knees and scraped elbows. "We are so sorry, drugarko" (in Communist times, everybody was addressed as friends/comrades, the Mrs. and Ms. did not exist). Mom examined me, and after determining that I was not hurt seriously, she told the girls it was all right and that I was okay. She never left me alone with anyone after that incident.

Mom also discovered a trait in my personality that everybody at home considered when disciplining me. I remember one day running and jumping in puddles after the rain and Mom becoming very upset seeing mud all over me. She ran after me. I got scared and tried to get away, but all of a sudden, everything turned black in front of my eyes. Ever since this incident, the adults at home knew that scolding and being talked to loudly would make me sick, and I was never again disciplined. Mom was in charge of my health and schooling; she watched over me to ensure that I had a happy, carefree life. When I was sick, she took me to doctors and took care of me until I got better.

It was mom who was in charge of my education. When I was six, my father told her that the future was in learning English, so she enrolled me in an English preschool class at Alliance (the name of the educational facility on Slaveykov Square). The teacher was an elderly lady with gray hair tucked in the back, but she was very energetic and lively. She spoke only in English with the idea that we could learn the language as we did our native tongue. This approach worked. She used pictures and objects for reinforcement, and it wasn’t long before I started to say whole sentences in English. I remember even learning the days of the week and the months in English before in Bulgarian. Our teacher talked to us about what life was like in England for children our age. All this was fascinating, as I would picture this far land with beautiful cities and nature, with children running in the parks and the meadows speaking English and playing games similar to ours. A music teacher came every day with an accordion. I loved learning all the English children’s songs. I still remember them: My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean, Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do, and many more.

Then just before Christmas, I got sick with scarlet fever. I was only six, and I was terrified as they took me alone in an ambulance. Once in the hospital, they scrubbed me with disinfectants. A nurse with a mask on her face told me to follow her and took me to a room where there was another little girl, very pale, lying in bed and a woman with a small child lying in a bed next to hers. This was the first time I was away from my family, and I wasn’t feeling well. The nurse pointed me to a bed. I walked slowly and sat on it, feeling very sad and scared. Tears started to roll down my face when the nurse said, Go to the window. You can see your mom and grandma from there. Terrified, I walked with shaky knees to the window, looking down in the street below. Seeing my mom and grandma made me sadder, and I started to cry louder. Nina, you need to be strong, child! my mom was shouting out over my crying. We will be here all the time waiting for you to get better. But you have to do your part. You need to eat all your food, take the medicine they give you, listen, and do everything you are asked to do. I calmed down, wiped my tears, and told them that it would be as Mom said because I missed them and wanted to go back home badly. I don’t remember how long I was in the hospital, but I ate all my food and that of the child who didn’t want hers. The first thing I did every morning was to run to the window. Mom and Grandma were there, and I was comforted just to see them, telling them that I was eating well and listening to the nurse. I still remember the day they dismissed me from the hospital. It felt like a big holiday.

It was also Christmastime, and as soon as Mom opened the door of the apartment, I ran in and saw a small wardrobe made of wood under the Christmas tree. My eyes lit up. There were no presents under the tree for any of the prior holidays that I remembered, and I was beaming with happiness. It’s from your class, Mom said. The kids exchanged presents, and this is what you got from one of your classmates. Christmas was not an official holiday in Bulgaria at those times. Later, I found out that it was forbidden to celebrate Christmas in public, but Christian families like ours prepared special meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, saying prayers at home. New Year’s was the big holiday when everybody dressed up and celebrated openly with family and friends. My grandmother kept the tradition, and for Christmas Eve, she prepared the Bulgarian vegetarian dishes typical for this holiday—stuffed cabbage and vine leaves, bean soup, red peppers stuffed with beans, the famous round bread called pogacha with fortune writings drawn by each one of us, and banitsa (strudel) with pumpkin and cheese. There were twelve vegetarian servings, and everything was prepared by Grandma. Easter was another holiday we were forbidden to celebrate, but Grandma gathered the family each year for a big feast, the best part being the colored eggs, which, as a custom, my cousins and I, each with an egg in hand, knocked with the pointed ends to see which one could remain unbroken. And the kozunak (sweet bread), which she prepared for hours was the best bread anyone could taste.

Mom also snuck me with her into the church St. Petka by the St. Nedelya Square. Praying and going to church was not only forbidden but could have bad consequences, from losing a job to problems with the police, which I learned about when I was older. Nobody was guarding the entrances of the churches, but people knew from meetings at work or school that religion was not allowed to be practiced and that it was not recommended to be seen entering a church. St. Petka was a small building, where Mom used to take me and teach me how to light candles and pray. I was fascinated by the icons with paintings of saints and religious scenes. Mom lit candles for the living and the dead, kissed the icons of St. Mary and Jesus, and prayed. I followed her and did the same. Sometimes she talked to a priest, and he would say a prayer mentioning our names. There were other bold people entering churches, but nobody was looking at other people’s faces, and there were no services. Then I had my best friend, my cousin Krum, who lived close by and with whom I met regularly in a neighboring small park on Patriarch Eftimi Boulevard. There was a church in the middle of the park, and we often snuck in there out of curiosity. I remember that the church was full of people at times when the priest was giving communion. That was intriguing for us children, so we would line up to get bread. I remember the priest asking us, Are you baptized? to which we nodded yes. Back home, Mom told me that I was baptized, so I knew it was true. But I got in trouble when I wanted to go with my cousin behind the altar. That’s only for boys. You can’t go in! the priest yelled out, which I thought was very unjust.

Ever since I was little, I tried to do the right things, but my judgment was not always good. I remember an incident when I must have been not older than four. It was a bright, sunny summer day. The backyard of the apartment complex in Sofia was small, surrounded by two tall brick walls with fading gray paint. Children were playing in the yard, inventing games and digging the dirt with spoons (sandboxes, play shovels, and buckets were not known to us kids then). I have recollections of that day being hot, knowing that my cheeks were bursting red from the heat, with messy long hair and a ribbon on the side, a red summer dress with white dots, and sandals, digging in the dirt and trying to build maybe a tunnel. All of a sudden, my aunt showed up at the window on the second floor of our apartment and yelled out in a very stern voice, Nina, lunchtime, if you don’t come home to eat, don’t come at all! I was not hungry and wanted to play more. I thought for a minute about my options and decided to keep playing. Since I took this decision and knew that I couldn’t go home, I quickly figured out that after I was done, I would go to my cousin Krum’s apartment.

After a while, the other children started to leave, and I headed out walking down the streets in the busiest and most commercial part of town. I was not scared, and none of the adults stopped me. They were too tall for me to see their faces anyway. I hurried crossing a big street with trams, cars, and occasionally, carts of gypsies. Now gypsies I stayed away from as my grandmother told me scary stories of gypsies stealing children and hiding them in their big sacks. I reached my cousin’s apartment building, walked up to the fourth floor, and knocked as loud as I could. Aunt Seka, Krum’s mother, opened the door and looked for my grandmother, but then she realized that I was alone. She pulled me inside the apartment and ran to the phone, which she frantically dialed. I knew something went wrong for Aunt Seka to be so upset. My grandmother answered, and Seka yelled, Gina, your naughty granddaughter is here all by herself! Come and get her. In my mind, I did nothing wrong as I had done exactly what my aunt said, but now I knew that I did something wrong.

I hid under a bed where I stayed until my grandmother arrived, all puffy and breathless. I heard my grandmother’s voice, Where is she? And my heart sank. Grandma peeked under the bed, but I would not budge.

Grandma, please promise not to be mad, and I’ll come out. Grandma has never hit me before, but I just could not stand to see her upset. She promised not to say a word, and all ended well with us walking in silence back home. This is my first memory as a child that taught me a lesson to be careful of choices that people offered to me.

Another special person from that early age was my grandfather. Grandfather was a very soft-spoken, quiet, and sweet old man. He was tall and skinny and always looked at me with gentle and loving eyes. My favorite time was to sit by him and watch him draw horses in a drawing book with black hardcover dedicated for this purpose. This book was safely guarded as grandfather took it out only when he was drawing for me another of those beautiful animals with free manes, galloping or standing still, becoming alive in front of my eyes. Grandma and Grandpa did not talk much; they lived silently. Grandma went about her daily work of bringing coal from the basement for the stove, cooking, cleaning, and washing while Grandpa sat quietly. Sometimes he would go out, and Grandma would send me to tell him to come home as soon as he appeared across the street from our apartment. Then one day, Grandpa stopped getting out of bed. The doctor came and saw him once a day, and everybody kept silent. I wanted to have fun again with Grandpa, so one day, I dragged the big drawing book to his bed and plopped myself next to him. I was happy and started to bounce around him at which time my mother ran into the room and told me to get out immediately. Grandpa smiled and said, Leave her. I am okay. And the day ended with another horse added to my collection of Grandpa’s drawings.

Then Grandpa was gone. They said that he died and that he was taken to the graveyard. Mother took me to the church where he was lying in a wooden box called a casket. Grandma was by him; her face was stern and pale. She seemed tense, bent over Grandpa, dressing him in a shirt that mother just brought. All the family was present—my uncles, their wives, my aunt, my mother, and my father. I knew something bad happened as Grandpa was sleeping in a strange bed with everybody sad and crying. Then two men came and loaded the casket on a cart pulled by horses. Everybody followed on foot to a place with a hole on the ground. Mother screamed out in pain and pulled me aside as the men lowered the casket in the ground. I did not know why these people would put Grandpa on the ground and pour dirt over the wooden box. It seemed so cruel as I was gazing at the men throwing shovels of dirt in the hole, and all relatives were weeping and sad. This was the last time I saw Grandpa, and the image of his funeral stayed with me forever. Nobody at that time spoke to me about life and death and funeral processions, so I had to figure it on my own.

But my best memories as a child were discovering the countryside at my grandmother’s village, where two of her brothers still lived, and my cousin Krum with his mother, Aunt Seka, would also join us in the summer months. We would take a bus and stop by a dirt road leading to the houses tucked in the hills. This place was called Rakelovci and was close to the village of Kovachevci. Grandma took me there in the most beautiful season of the year, when the meadows were green and wildflowers were spreading aroma of perfume in the air. Butterflies of all colors were flying from flower to flower, and we children would try to catch them. Birds were singing, making us all happy, as we were running up and down the hills. There were three houses in the yard—an old clay house with a hearth in the kitchen where I stayed with my grandma and two other houses belonging to my grandma’s brothers. There was a well in front of the old house where we got water for cooking and drinking. The barn was next to the old house.

Our days were filled with games and chores we did on the farm. Almost every day, we took the cows out to pasture; other days, we would run in the fields and by the river, chasing butterflies, rolling down the stacks of hay, eating freshly baked bread and homemade cheese. In the evenings, we would return to the old house cheerfully laughing. We used to jump on top of the barn walls then run in the front yard and the orchard in the back, where we climbed trees to get janki fruit. My knees were always scraped, but I never stopped playing for a minute, not wanting to miss any of this good time. Here I learned that I should not disturb the bees in the beehives, as one day, after deciding to visit them, they buzzed all around me and got into my hair. I ran to Grandma, this time crying. Grandma did not say a word but started to get them out of my hair one by one. I still don’t know how she was not hurt and how I survived. I had no clue that this was a deadly situation with my grandma remaining calm and getting all the bees out of my hair. I also discovered that I was afraid of snakes, as one day, bringing the herd home, my cousins yelled, Watch out! There is a snake at the curve, probably a boa. That was all I remembered as I passed out. When I came to myself, my cousins were looking at me saying that the snake was gone and it was all right, that we could go home.

It was at the farm where I discovered that the horse is your best friend. There was an old horse in the barn that Krum and I decided to ride and explore the area. We could see at the distance houses scattered on the hills, which were difficult to get to on foot. We would hop on the horse’s back without a saddle and ride off to visit neighbors. People were happy to see us and cooked us meals, sometimes with chicken from their chicken coop. It turned out that all families all over the hills and ravines were related, if not by blood, by marriage.

Then one day, as we were taking the cows to the pasture, a group of men came over, rounded them up, and took them away. I started to run fast up and down a steep path, falling several times, and finally arrived at the house with bloody knees and tears in my eyes, crying out to my grandma and to the other adults that they took our cows. The adults became mad and cursed the men but did not go after them. Later, I learned that the cows were taken to the cooperative farm of the village as farmers were not allowed to have more than one cow per family. This made me sad because I considered the cows my pets and was very attached to them. Each one had a name, and I talked to them as my cousin and I took them out to the pastures.

As days went by, I continued to observe with great interest the life on the farm. Women were making butter and cheese from the milk, and I joined in helping. Especially interesting was watching my grandma weave carpets (chergi) from the wool of the sheep. I was fascinated by the whole process of cutting the sheep’s wool, placing it on a spindle, dying it, and finally making the carpets with a weaving loom, which my grandma had in the back of the house in an open field. I was sad every summer coming back to the city as I missed playing in the fields, rolling down hay stacks, and chasing butterflies and the freedom to roam the hills and the ravines all day long. I fell in love with life on the farm, and every summer, I was eager to return there. The country life enchanted me from an early age with its picturesque sights of hills and ravines, the beautiful colors and smells of the meadows and flowers, the sounds of animals and birds, the freshness of the air, and the simplicity and closeness between people. I liked the city life too because of the plays and operas and art exhibits that Mom took me to, but I could trade it in a heartbeat for the beauty and tranquility of the country.

School Years in Bulgaria—Elementary and Middle School

Turning seven was a big event in my life as I was going to start school and learn how to read the books from the children’s library. September 15 is the first day of school in Bulgaria. On that date in 1957, Grandma made sure I was pretty, with a blue ribbon on my shoulder-length hair and dressed in a nice dark-blue pleated skirt and white embroidered blouse, which she sewed herself. I remember walking proudly down Asparuh Street with a schoolbag in my hand to the elementary school, Denkoglu, a couple of streets away located on Parchevich Street. There was a gathering in the schoolyard where I easily found my class. I wasn’t at all anxious or nervous; I was happy to be at school, feeling like a bird finally flying on its own for the first time.

The kid across from our apartment was also starting school, and we happened to be in the same class. My teacher was a slim, short younger woman with round face. She seemed nice as she called our names and assigned us seats. Each desk had two seats with a compartment under to place our schoolbags. Following the instructions on how to behave in the classroom, we all settled down. I listened carefully to what we were going to study and what were the requirements for each of the classes. The next few weeks, I could not contain my happiness, running home every day and shouting from a distance at my grandma and mother, I did all the work without any mistakes! I have all 6, which is an A! I learned how to write cursive and enjoyed it as it looked like a drawing, which I liked a lot.

A couple of months later, my grades went down to 5s, which is B, without any corrections on my papers. It was difficult for me at this early age to understand what was going on. I remember one evening overhearing my mom talking to my grandma and aunt, This teacher is taking bribes. The kid’s father across the street is a pilot and has been giving her presents. I learned that from a friend who teaches the higher classes at the school. I will transfer Nina to the school on Rakovski and Patriarch Eftimi Streets.

This is so ridiculous, a teacher taking it out on kids who do not provide favors for her, my aunt responded.

My enthusiasm for school vanished, although I was still eager to learn new things, both in Bulgarian language and in math. Shortly thereafter, Mom took me to the new school, where I was treated honestly. I was content, but the spark of love for school was gone. I also continued to study English with the same group of kids and learned how to read and write. I was very happy to see that our music lessons continued. I used to come home humming the new songs I learned, which my grandma liked a lot. She loved seeing me laughing and singing and especially telling stories of how my day went at both schools.

Then when I was in second grade, I got sick with a flu, which led to bronchitis and pneumonia. I was sick from October to May, attending school for a few days at the time. There were days when I had a hard time even walking; the fever made me so weak. Mom was by my bed all the time; she tucked me in at night and was the first face I saw waking up. There was a doctor on the fourth floor who gave me penicillin shots every day. Grandma fed me Bulgarian yogurt and oatmeal and cooked dishes with sauerkraut in the winter. After the complications from the flu, I got sick with mumps and had a very bad sinus infection with unbearable headaches. I pulled through, and sometime in May, I felt strong enough to go out for a walk to the neighborhood park. But I couldn’t see well. Everything was foggy; there were floaters in front of my eyes. Mom, I can’t see! I cried out to which Mom took me home quietly and made an appointment with an eye doctor.

Nina’s vision deteriorated because of the continuous fever and penicillin treatment was the doctor’s verdict. She is not going blind. She needs glasses. I recommend taking her in the mountains or the village to relax her eyes.

Mom was teaching me at home and taking my homework to the teacher, so I passed second grade with excellent grades. On May 24, the Bulgarian schools celebrated the holiday of Cyril and Methodius, the brothers who invented the Cyrillic alphabet, and I was already well enough to be in the parade with my classmates. There was a year-end ceremony where each A student was recognized with a ribbon placed across the front of their shirt or blouse. I was startled to hear my name and turned to my mother who was smiling then slowly made it to the front of the class. You did great, Nina. Even being sick, your work was excellent. Congratulations. I know my eyes were sparkling as the teacher handed me the ribbon. It was at this ceremony that we were all sworn in as pioneers. I don’t remember any words said, but we all were given red scarves, which we were told to wear from now on every day in school.

After school dismissal, we spent a couple of weeks in the mountain, followed by a trip to the sea. My doctor recommended that after a long year of sickness, I spend some time at the seaside, so my aunt, who was a controller for the railways, booked tickets for the two of us for the sleeping car of a train to Varna. This is when I fell in love with the sea, amazed at the immense blue water disappearing in the horizon to reach the sky, the magic waves approaching the beach in a roar to disperse in silky drops resembling white lace. My aunt had me on a strict regime. We were at the beach by 7:00 a.m., and I sunbathed on each side for half an hour before we went in the water. But I didn’t mind so long as I was there breathing in the fresh sea air and feeling the warmth of the sun.

I finished elementary school with recognition for excellence and was wondering where my middle school would be. At that time, Mom was teaching at a middle school at the outskirts of Sofia, a neighborhood at the foot of Vitosha Mountain. Her certification was for a high school teacher, but there were no openings when she returned to work after the divorce with my father. It was shortly after completing elementary school when I overheard Mom talking to Grandma, I will enroll Nina in my school. I need to keep an eye on her considering our life lately. Mom and Dad’s separation was painful as Mom was in court every day fighting eviction orders initiated by my father. I wanted to be with her and went along to her meetings with judges, watching her cry, which made me sad and cry in turn. Mom’s decision to have me at the same school with her made me happy. I wanted to be close to her, and I already knew the school and some of the students. As a class teacher, she had to visit her students’ homes and make sure they had good conditions to study. Mom took me along on her weekend visitations to her students’ houses, so I met all of them and even became friends with a couple of girls. I also knew the school, a newer building with three floors, with a well-maintained schoolyard for fall and spring PE activities and an orchard in the front with a beautiful view of the mountain.

The transition from elementary to middle school was not difficult for me as I already knew from Mom that I was going to have a different teacher for each subject and that the teachers would come to our classroom rather than the students going to their classrooms, as in the States. From fifth to seventh grade, I had Bulgarian, math, Russian, history, geography, botany, zoology, anatomy, music, art, and PE. Those school years for me were unforgettable as they were filled with games, house parties, and hiking up on Vitosha Mountain with my classmates. They were mostly from blue-collar worker families with simple hearts and lives, taught to be nice to one another and respectful among themselves and with adults. There were meadows outside the schoolyard where we ran and played whenever the weather was nice. I excelled in all subjects; learning for me was easy and enjoyable as I was proud to recite to everybody at home what I learned. Everything fascinated me—the history of Bulgaria and the world; the location of countries, continents, rivers, mountains, oceans, seas; the study of flowers and plants, of animals, of the human body. I would look at the globe and compare countries and places with pictures, trying to visualize what life was there. My desire was to go to the equator one day and see what it was like on it. I wasn’t particularly fond of going to places up north as I did not like cold weather. I also enjoyed sports, especially basketball. I still remember my PE teacher telling my mother, Nina scored eight baskets today. She is unbelievable in this game. I probably took the frustrations from home to the basketball court and running in track. One thing I didn’t like was dissecting a frog in a zoology class. I remember getting sick to my stomach and ready to pass out. I knew from that experience that I wasn’t meant to be a doctor.

My last year in middle school came fast. One event though stood out. It was a day when the teachers lined us all up from each class and led us to the gym. It wasn’t a voluntary participation, and nobody dared or thought of objecting to it or questioning it. There was a solemn ceremony where we were all admitted to the Youth Komsomol Organization, leading to becoming a member of the Communist Party after graduating from college. We accepted this as a normal event since we already knew that belonging to Komsomol was the only way we could attend the better high schools, have a job we liked, or simply live in Bulgaria without hassle. The ceremony was during the day, and there were no families present. Somehow, nobody, including my family, felt that they need to attend or feel bad about missing the event, and likewise, we kids did not expect family or relatives to be with us.

Life seemed to be regulated, and participation in activities was without questions asked. At this age, I did not dwell on the happenings in society, and I did what was expected of me. I loved studying and knowing all material inside and out in every subject. It made