From Ivan@mindspring.com Wed May 8 14:11:01 EDT 1996 Article: 32157 of soc.culture.bulgaria Path: news.cs.columbia.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!gatech!news.mindspring.com!usenet From: Crazy Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria Subject: Escape Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 20:52:55 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 366 Message-ID: <31901A97.2CDE@mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ivan.mindspring.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win16; I) Status: RO Part I ESCAPE "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." From the Declaration of Independence When communism ruled, people suffered. When people suffered, they wanted out. And getting out of Bulgaria wasn’t easy in those times. Few were the ways - some were better than others. Getting caught wasn’t an option. Getting shot was infinitely better. There are all kinds of death. The quick, sudden death by a guard’s bullet was much better than the slow, agonizing disintegration in a society that suffocated you with the stench of lies, propaganda and physical and mental violence. Life could be found only on the outside and once you got there, bought a bottle of Johnny Walkers and salted peanuts with your hard-earned, green American dollars, sat in front of the Japanese 20” TV and caught the Great American Hero thoughtfully pronouncing: “Go West, young man!”, you knew exactly what that meant. None of the TV or movie stuff seemed like a dream to you. All of that was real. The only dream you had left, the only bad dream sucking your strenght out, the only nightmares digging a hole in your heart every single night were those that you left behind. And waking every morning was a cause for celebration. For every night you’re running away from the monsters and every morning you made it back to life. .............................................................. One way out was to get married to a foreigner. Some of the Black Sea resorts were frequented by foreigners, mainly Scandinavians. Typically, a Swedish/Norway woman would fall in love with a Bulgarian stud and tie the knot. It happens so that Scandinavians are cold-blooded, slow-moving and lacking excitement in general. Bulgarians and Greeks appear to them exotic, mysterious, full of vigor... hot stuff, in other words. There were some very good matches and tents on many a campgrounds were ripped apart in moments of passion, under the full misterious moon of that pretty, misterious country. The problem was, Bulgarian communist authorities weren’t very keen on the idea of letting young, capable men out of the country. So the marriage itself, even when both sides were ready for it, was rather problematic. Sometimes permission was right out refused. Permission to marry? - would ask the gentle foreign reader and gap in disbelief. But of course, my friends! Permission was needed for everything. If you as much as fart without permission, you’d have been declared an “enemy of the people” and dealt appropriately. If the love-birds were lucky, had the right connections and had the money to bribe the proper officials, they were granted the permission and marry. That, of course, was great, but it didn’t mean whole lot. The right to immigrate was not automatic. It was only a possibility. You had to have another permission to immigrate. It usually took 6 months to up to 3 years. As before, if all the connections were in place, the bribes passed out appropriately and you weren’t “somebody”, they might’ve let you go to Sweden and unite with your beloved. It didn’t happened very often. Two or three such cases a year would be a reasonable number. A second way to get married abroad was if you actually lived abroad or traveled frequently enough to have the opportunity to meet someone. Living abroad or traveling frequently was a privilege that very few Bulgarians enjoyed - party members and very well known artists. Very well known artists were also forced to be good communists or otherwise they weren’t very well known. There were always an exception, but ...exception didn’t do whole lot of traveling either. High ranking party members were very well brainwashed, so the chance for them to “fool around” was minimal. In any case, single, eligible for marriage people were almost never let out of the country. Also, enjoying the freedom to live and travel in the West, and all the perks that go with it, most would feel happy enough. Why escape to the West when you were already in it? Even if marriage occurred, on that rare occasion, the couple usually was forced to live in Bulgaria. A number of people, such as trade agents, ambassadors, United Nations representative, some journalists, some artists and others made their home west, for a relatively prolonged periods. Once in a while, someone would decide that enough is enough and formally apply for a refugee status in that western country. Again, family problems had to be dealt with. Again, those living in the west were mostly well indoctrinated party officials without much drive to seek a political refuge. But it did happen on occasion. You never heard of party officials since that was kept a secret and few people knew for example who was the Bulgarian ambassador in Belgium. So if that ambassador sought a political refugee in Belgium, nobody knew about it, but his boss and few others intimately involved. It was never made a public knowledge. The case with artists and people of culture was a bit different. Since they were widely known to begin with (Bulgaria is only 9 million, the population is very well informed of things cultural and everybody who’s somebody in the arts and culture circles is well known), their absence was noticed right away. Christo was one of those examples. In 1957 he was in Chekoslovakia, somehow made it to France and never returned. He wasn’t famous then however, nobody knew about him, so it wasn’t a big deal. When Milcho Leviev ( a well known jazz-musician) didn’t return, it was a fairly big deal. When, ...what was the name of that chick, Camelia Todorova? - a well known singer didn’t return, that was also fairly bid deal. (It’s been awhile, so if I’m mixing up the names, I hope my SCB buddies will correct me). As a special case should be mentioned the fact that at one point the Bulgarian government allowed young musicians to work abroad playing in bands. It had to do something with the department of tourism (whatever the official name for it was) There were also some special cases of fairly common people working abroad. Those were laborers in Komi (Soviet Union), doctors and engineers in Libya and Syria, sailors and few others, here and there. Komi of course didn’t lead anywhere. Libya and Syria were dead-ends as well. You couldn’t get anywhere from there, even if you managed to take care of the family situations. Sailors were not allowed to put a foot on western soil and if they did, they were always in a sufficient number to prevent from anyone straying away from the flock. Few of them were cops, paid to sniff around any possible mischief and since you never knew who they were, you just wouldn’t take the chance. The penalty of trying to get out was severe - 15 to life in prison, in some instances death. Soldiers and sailors were particularly vulnerable to harsh penalties, so trying to escape while in the Navy or in the Army was pure suicide. Usually you’d have an accident with a firearm shortly afterwards. Too bad. A very powerful detriment for coming back was the threat of physical extermination. Many of the ambassadors and high ranking communist members would never even dream of not returning because of fear they will be killed. That was true for anyone who escaped, but much more so for people of high position and status. Georgi Markov was killed partly as an example and a warning to all of those who’d venture to run away. Just because you made it to the west didn’t mean you were free. The possibility of an agent being sent after you to bring you back or kill you, was very real for many of the refugees. Few people did vanish from the refugee camps in Europe, few other did have accidents happen to them and I know personally of at least one case in camp in Vienna where there was an attempt to kidnap a kid. The thinking was, once the kid was back, the parents would have to come back as well. Tactics of extortion, threats and physical manipulation (kidnapping, maiming and killing) were well known by the refugees and taken with the utmost seriousness. That is why most chose to keep a low profile even abroad. That is why, even nowadays, once in awhile you’d see a person with anonymous account criticizing in SCB the present Bulgarian regime. That is why, even nowadays, many people still refuse to criticize openly the Bulgarian communists and prefer to remain in silence. Maybe one day you’ll go climbing and you rope will mysteriously break, killing you. Maybe one day your the breaks of your car will fail for no reason and you’ll end up smashing yourself in a tree. Maybe someone will try to rob you and somehow will end up knifing you. Paranoid? Maybe. The matter of the fact is that such happenings for refugees in the camps of Europe were fairly common. One had to deal with those possibilities. Another way to split was to go abroad and not return. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t. As a rule. only communist party members were allowed to travel. Also, as a rule, only married people with children were allowed to go abroad. Needless to say, only one member of the family could go out and never with the children. That assured the return. Also, as a rule, you can’t travel to a western country. You could go to the Soviet Union, Romania, East Germany. Czechoslovakia and Poland were accessible (for the right people) but still were considered risky and it was harder to go there. Yugoslavia was semi-accessible as well. Typically, one would go to one of those countries and manage to skip across the frontier (illegally, more often than not) and make it to a refugee camp. The philosophy there was that while formally Czechoslovakia and Poland were in the Soviet block, there were more relaxed in terms of travel and if you had the sufficient connections and money (again) you’d somehow be able to make it out of there. It was thought that getting out of Poland and Czechoslovakia was easier than getting out of Bulgaria. So those two countries were used as a stepping stone, so to speak. Also, being in central Europe, they provided a direct access to the most well known refugee camps - those in Vienna, West Germany and Italy. But because of the conditions of travel to those countries, few were the people who’d sacrifice their families and children and make it that way. Yugoslavia was a special case. To travel to Yugoslavia, you needed almost the same clearances as a travel to a western country. Single, young males or females were generally not allowed. The second problem was that there was nothing to do in Yugoslavia, at least that’s what most people believed. The masses were ignorant of the fact that in Yugoslavia there was a semi-official refugee camp, covertly funded by the United Nations. So for most political refugees wannabe’s, Yugoslavia was a poor choice. But I’ll get back to that later. The situation with Greece and Turkey was similar. Travel to those two countries was possible, but once in there, no mechanism existed to make it to the west. People have tried to contact foreign embassies in both Greece and Turkey and they were turned down. The embassies couldn’t do nothing and there was no way out of there. Of course, if you had some local connections and hard currency, you might be able to fix something up. But that route was always very risky and uncertain. The local authorities, particularly the Turks, were known to return potential refugees to the Bulgarian authorities with much fanfare and the faith of those poor people were very bleak indeed. The people who made to Turkey and Greece were people who had some relatives there and they ended up staying there. I’ll talk about Yugoslavia at length later. A semi-legal way to split was to go to a special Macedonian - Bulgarian gathering called “sabor”. It usually happened right at the frontier of Pirin Macedonia, Bulgaria and the Macedonian side of Yugoslavia. The gatherings were designed to accommodate Macedonian relatives who wanted to see each other, eat, drink and have a good time. In order to attend one of those gatherings, you needed a permit, have proved that you have relatives, pay certain fees etc. Mostly local Macedonians attended those and there were some chances for getting out. There were soldiers present from both sides and the place was more or less surrounded, or so I hear. Having never been to one of those, I can’t say for sure how difficult it was to make it out of there. You had to bribe officials to sneak out. Or you had to recruit a Macedonian to hide you and smuggle you out. Bribing was the norm as well, but few would be willing to do it since it was risky. The locals had a relative freedom of movement and split families actually did visit each other, but even once you made it to Skopje, very few knew what to do from there. So the vast majority of them looked around, bought “western” goods and promptly returned. That was the case with Turkey and Greece as well. There were few other stoppers as well. Besides leaving your spouse and children behind, you were usually asked to deposit a large amount of money, before you given permission to travel. Not having the money to deposit disqualified you. (Exception for party members was made, of course). Upon not returning, these money were automatically appropriated by the Government. Also, each group was accompanied by cops. Typically, there were 2 to a group of 15 and 3 to a group of 20. You never knew who they were. You only knew they were there and they were watching and listening. If you came with too much luggage, you’d be suspected. If you came with too little luggage, you’d also be suspected. If you didn’t socialize too much, you’d be suspected. If you socialized too much, you’d also be suspected. It was a tricky affair. Finally, there were strict rules to move with the group at all times. At the least, you had to move in a group of four-five people, even if you were allowed time (usually shopping time) after the scheduled programme. The reasoning was, you can’t just split with four other people watching you. A final stopper was the fact that upon leaving, your family members would be severely harassed, laid off, unable to get decent jobs, sometimes even jailed. It was a most powerful way to dissuade you from doing “anything stupid”. Despite all of these difficulties, going abroad and not returning was a fairly popular method with the conservative and safety conscious in mind. Rarely you heard of someone actually making it though. Because traveling restrictions were severe (as described above) most single young males had to seek alternative means for getting out. Illegally crossing a border was the most popular method. Illegally means that you cross the border without permission, overtly. Since single, young males were the predominant potential emmigrants, you might say that the predominant method of getting out was illegally. No hard data exists however, so nobody can tell for sure (but the proper Bulgarian authorities and they certainly would not). But it was definitely the most talked about method. Trains were easy to get on, but hard to hide in. Both passenger trains and freight trains were used for the purpose. The passenger trains were hard to hide in, so at one point it became popular for people to ride ‘em on top. What you’d do is get on the train at a station and before the conductor comes around, you’d climb on top and just lay there. That would typically happen at night so at the check point nobody would see you, hopefully. Hard to say how well that worked. People got killed though falling off trains. At one point too many people started falling off trains. Rumor had it that the officials had figured out the “ride the train” game and now had rigged something that dragged you off the top automatically. Needless to say, being dragged out of a moving train against your wish meant death, in most instances. Freight trains were easier to hide in ...if you could get in. Sometimes, you’d be able to catch a freight train on a station, bypassing the watchmen, if you were quick and lucky. But most often then not, the boxcars were locked, so you’d be stuck hanging on the outside somewhere and you’d be easy to spot. That’s why those adventurous few that tried freight trains, got on them on the move. There are certain parts of the Bulgarian railways that a train can’t move faster than 10 - 15 miles an hour and often they had to stop and wait in places that weren’t stations - right in the middle of somewhere with no watchmen around. Hoping a train in those places was easy. If you’re lucky enough and did your homework right, you could actually have enough time to walk/run from boxcar to boxcar, find one that isn’t locked and hop in. If the train was slow moving for a while, you could actually just stand and look at the doors passing you by, waiting for one without a padlock. Once you got in a boxcar, you’d hope there was enough junk you could bury yourself into and “vanish”. Another route to go through was to get in an open top boxcar - typically those carried coal, and bury yourself in it. At the border, the train would have to stop and random checks would be performed by both Bulgarians and by the other side. Sometimes the checks would be extensive, other times - fairly slack. You never knew. A boxcar would get opened and someone with a flashlight would start poking around with a big, sharp iron rod. If they got you, you’d scream. Trucks and cars passing through Bulgaria were another possibility. Being hidden in a car is very tricky and risky and the chances to get caught were high. Most people just wouldn’t go for it. Trucks were somehow better. There were plenty of 18 wheelers passing through Bulgaria - most of them from Turkey. Bribing a driver to hide you inside was the standard way to do it. A lot of those trucks didn’t get checked on the border since there were too many of them and if traffic was heavy, they were just waived off. The paperwork was being taken care of, few questions asked and if the driver looked cool and nothing was suspicious, he’d be let go without a check. Other times though, that truck would be open and checked. If you were in it, your driver would be in a heap of trouble (they usually lied that you got in there without them knowing about it - on an occasion this was possible too). That’s why unless the bribe was substantial, they wouldn’t go for it. And even with a bribe, unless they knew you personally from before, they’d stay away from such an arrangement. You might be one of the cops, for all they knew. Ships, boats and barges were another remote option. Smuggling yourself in a ship on a Black Sea port wasn’t that big of a deal. The big deal was that you’d be discovered fairly quickly. Since the ship is considered sovereign territory, they’d just lock you up in a cell and bring you right back. Most ships at the Black Sea were Bulgarian and Russian anyhow. Once in a while, there might be a foreign ship docking, but getting on it was a bit harder and getting out of it was even harder. Basically, you couldn’t get off it at just any port since you didn’t have the proper paperwork. Nobody would let you. More often than not, they’d just put you in another ship bound to Bulgaria and just return you. The problem really spanned all modes of getting out. It was as much of an administrative problem to fix you up with the proper papers as it was a logistical one to simply get out. Getting out guaranteed you nothing concrete. It all depended on where you ended up afterwards. Boats were an option on the Black Sea where you could bribe a local fisherman to get you into Turkish waters and drop you there. There was also the option of stealing a boat and making it yourself. But the fisherman was much better since he knew the local area, knew how the border patrol boats operated and knew exactly when and where to move you. Barges on the Danube river were something to be considered since most of them got you to Vienna and that’s exactly where you wanted to be. How easy was to get on one and even more importantly how easy was to hide there, I do not know. Swimming was an answer for few. The Romanian border with Yugoslavia was lightly guarded (much lighter than the Bulgarian - Yugoslavian border) so few tricky souls would swim across the Danube to Romania, then hike (or hop a train) all the way to Yugoslavia and cross back into Yugoslavia. Most got caught because they were too lazy to hike, so they decided to swim close to the Yugoslavian border. Well, the closer you got, the more the guards were and the chances to get caught swimming were high. Swimming in the Black Sea to Turkey (that is, get close to the border, go in the water, swim in, then turn 90 degrees, swim parallel to the shoreline and once you made it into Turkish waters, swim back to the shore) was pretty much suicidal. You either had to be a very, very good swimmer, either had to have some SCUBA equipment, which wasn’t available in the Bulgarian market at those times. Fins and snorkels were available though. I don’t know what electronics they had on the Bulgarian - Turkish border for scanning the waters. I doubt it they had anything good enough to pick a swimmer, but one never knows. The chances to get caught swimming were remote, as far as I was concerned, but the chances to drawn were great. I’ve never heard of anyone actually swimming to Turkey. I do know though that many Albanians did drawn, trying to swim to Yugoslavia. When you’re desperate, you do what you have to. Making it through the air was a rather interesting option, but I don’t know that it was explored much. I knew of a guy who tried to make it through the Turkish border using a balloon. It was a home-made balloon and I have no idea what kind of a gas he used to get this thing up and where he got it from. Probably he stole the gas. The balloon canopy was put together by him, at home. He got spotted and shot down. Smuggling yourself into an airplane, with the luggage, was something I’ve never really taught about until much later. I didn’t know anybody who worked at the airport, knew nothing about the setup and therefore never bothered with that option. What I did know was that if I went with that option, I had to get to the International area of the airport and that was one area infested by cops - plain clothes as well as uniforms. The whole process looked rather risky. One would have to show up at the airport (looking the part of someone who is actually going someplace), then manage to bypass security, get into the luggage area, hide in there someplace and when opportunity presents itself, jump in luggage compartment of a plane bound west. Tough. Then there was the question if that luggage area was pressurized. I just didn’t know those things. And believe me, staying at 30000 ft for few hours, without oxygen is detrimental to your health. Furthermore, at 30 000 ft is cold as hell. We’re talking about minus 60, minus 70 degrees F, if not worse, even in the summer. For a few hours you might freeze to death. Now, that I know more about planes, I can say that it is doable (and it has been done a number of times - not exactly from Bulgaria though), but then I didn’t know anything about the subject and there was no way to find out about it. Having said all that, air was just too exotic and dangerous for me, as well as for most others who entertained ideas of an escape. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [to be continued] In the next part I shall describe in great detail what was involved in crossing the Yugoslavian border illegaly, by foot, and everything one needed to know and do in order to make it alive. That part shall be named THE BORDER. -= Ivan =- Ivan Vasilev --- BBB