Tatyana

Celebrating Easter is an important part of my life. It has not always been, but since early 90s, when Christian religion, which has kept Bulgarians alive for over 1100 years, was let free to be present in our life again after the fall of the communist regime. Before that, in my early childhood it was connected with dyeing boiled eggs, egg fight and eating special braided traditional sweet bread, called Kozunak. But the beliefs and personal experience behind that tradition started revealing to me only then, maybe in 1993, when a group of classmates went to the local church on the Holy Saturday night and went back home with the lit candles in our hands.

The mystery happened and I awakened spiritually then. I am not strictly religious, but I am a believer. 😊

Every Easter I have been trying to go a bit deeper in the meaning of the customs and traditions. I started going to St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral in the centre of Sofia (and on walking distance from where I lived) on every Holy Saturday evening.  The Cathedral is most probably Sofia’s main symbol, it is the third largest Orthodox Cathedral in Southeast Europe and it can hold 5000 people inside.

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The midnight Easter Service there is a grand and a “truly traditional event”. The Holy Fire is being dispatched each Holy Saturday from Jerusalem into the Cathedral and everyone can light a candle, holding it during the service and then walking with it home. Shall I speak of the magnificent choir and the bells ringing! The tradition is after the service to walk around the church three times with the lit candle and it is believed that the number of times it goes out represents how many sins you have… That is why everyone holds a cup to protect the flame from the wind nowadays.  😊

It was one of the greatest experiences in my life I would always remember, when once all of a sudden exactly when the bells ringing began at midnight and everybody looked up, raindrops started falling on our faces, as if to wash us… – so cathartic and reviving!!!

Well, I had to try and train my patience in my wish to celebrate Easter, when life brought me in a foreign country. We went to the church at the Bulgarian embassy once on the Easter Sunday with my ex-husband and our little daughter and we visited a Russian Easter Service another time, despite the distances... But ever since I decided and could afford Bulgarian TV at home, I have been watching happily and “being” at the Cathedral again every Easter via the TV lives. It was like this again this year and moreover, we spent the Easter night together with my friends and brother on line, while watching the Service – new times! 

I have managed to go to Sofia on our Easter itself only once actually for the last 12 years. It was so difficult to comply with the school holidays, as it was on a different date from the Catholic one every year. And whenever the Catholic and the Orthodox Easter fell on the same date the next challenge was to be able to afford the double and triple expensive flight tickets – it was impossible for us in 2010. We travelled by car in 2011, but a week earlier, in order to be back on time… In 2014 I went with my daughter to spend several days with my mum (RIP!), but had to return just before Easter, because it was extremely expensive after that. But when Easter was on the same Sunday in 2017, I could not resist! It was especially important for me to convey at least a part of that believe to my daughter. And thanks God, I found comparatively cheap flights. And we went both to Sofia and to the Easter Service at St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral at midnight and spent some very special sacred moments then, shared with my friends and brother with their children. An interesting fact is that both the Orthodox and Catholic Easter will not fall on the same date again until 2034.

Maybe it is not necessary to mention that I have not been in Sofia for Christmas for all these years… But that is another story. 😊

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What keeps me alive and happy during my dynamic life so far, except my family and friends, is my love for learning and knowledge.

 

I used to be an excellent pupil at the primary school in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. When I was in my Year 5 the headteacher of the elite Russian Language Gymnasium School paid a visit and invited the best students to move there. My class tutor, who was my Russian language teacher, suggested me. When I came back home the same evening I told my parents I was moving schools. They both backed my ambition. Then the hard work began – the requirements were so high, but being a diligent student, I managed to cover them and graduated with an excellent diploma. And not only - during that time I was also a private student at the English Language Gymnasium School and devoted my spare time and holidays to studying English. 

After the graduation in 1994 I registered at the local Job Centre to find a job, while getting prepared for the university exams. I was called the same day, invited and approved as an office coordinator at the European Office of the United Schools International /USI/ – a non-government organization in Sofia and my first life coach.

But I did not abandon my dream of continuing my education at the university. The interesting fact then was that I was admitted in the best two Sofia universities at that time and had to choose between them: Sofia University or the University of National and World Economy /UNWE/. My real love was Bulgarian language and literature, but my father was an economist, an UNWE graduate and I secretly dreamt of following his steps, moreover it was very prestigious. My parents were proud of me, but advised me to take the decision myself and did not oppose at all when I started my higher education at the Sofia University as a Bulgarian Philology student. Those five years were the apogee of my learning experience and of academic life! There I learned also West European literature, Russian classic and contemporary literature, Slavic literatures, apart from the Bulgarian, and all the branches of linguistics, as well as teaching methodology for my first master’s degree.

 

Meanwhile my flexible working hours at the USI made me interact with all sorts of national and international administrative bodies and personalities and that was the reason my interest in International Relations turned to be my second speciality at the Sofia University, where I got acquainted with principles and norms of diplomacy. It was very useful to practice, but the activity of the organization slowly reduced and stopped as the Directors retired.

 

Times were difficult then, back in 1999 and almost finishing my university degree, I was pressed to start teaching English privately to a primary schoolboy. His parents were so pleased with me, that they asked me if I could start at their limited international trade company. And at that point life brought me back to my other educational dream – Economics and International Business Relations. Guess what: in the third year of my work for that company (which was so interesting!), I applied and started my second master’s degree at the university, which my father had graduated – UNWE and his speciality: International Economic Relations. It was so satisfying to reach a dream and to make it true. The next year - 2003, however, I lost my father…

Life had to keep on going and I did 100% to work, study and graduate. Learning itself maybe gave me strength those two years, although I could no more share with my father the things which he had studied... But he was so happy that I succeeded to step in his shoes.  All the knowledge in the field of international trade, which I acquired, was very well applied in my everyday trade negotiations with all over the world: the UK, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, China, Taiwan and the Balkan countries.

 

I met my ex-husband, when I was 29 and we fell in love… He had a building company, but the financial crisis in the building sector in Bulgaria, sent him working here in the UK in 2008 (having to cope with previous non-payments and a loan he had from a bank). I followed him with our daughter, who was two and a half years old. We both with him had to work very hard and despite all the difficulties, managed not only to pay back the loan, but also started businesses and he even became a gas engineer. A standard story, unless it was the unexpected outcome for me. After everything we went through and achieved in a foreign country and instead of staying stronger together, we found out that we both need to divorce.

 

Now, when I’m on my own, but with our daughter (thanks God!), learning saves me again - especially in this unprecedented time of a lockdown amidst pandemic, as I am a self-employed single parent, paying rent; living in the UK for 12 years, having never thought of going to live abroad.