Election Day, Photography, Thoughts and Hopes

This Sunday is an election day in Bulgaria. We voted for a new parliament that in terms has to elect a new government that is supposed to rule our lovely country in the next four years. So just for the sake of positivity itself, I'm going to start my post with a color image. That, however, will be the only color picture in this post, as frankly, I don't feel quite colorfully today :)

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(this photo above is actually from a wedding photo-shoot, in Bulgaria some marital ceremonies are held in folklore costumes, it became kind of a fashion trend in the last few years)

Anyway. The weather today was absolutely crappy - strong winds, rain all the day and it was freezing outside. Not a typical spring weekend day, right? But that's not what was ruining my mood. It is the fact that in the last decade or even more, there isn't a single political party I would love to vote for. It is always picking the lesser evil. I hate that. I would really love there was a party that wants to reform this country for real, a country stuck in its socialist past. Thank God we entered the European Union back in 2007, otherwise we would be in the dark ages otherwise. Still, despite of that in terms of economics, we're always the last country in EU. The average Bulgarian salary is less than the corresponding amount of some Middle-East countries that are surrounded by wars for decades. We are #111 in the Freedom of Speech rankings. Let's not continue with this list as it get only worse. What do I hope for? I realize it is all hopeless in the end. As a wise man said once "If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn’t Let Us Do It". Mark Twain, to be precise. I couldn't agree more. Still, I had to execute my civil rights, hoping for the best, of course!

Now you understand why the next B&W pictures :) All of them I took at the Open Air Ethnographic Museum «Etar» near the beautiful town of Gabrovo in the middle of Bulgaria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etar_Architectural-Ethnographic_Complex
If you find yourself in this part of Bulgaria, Etar is a must-see :)

I visited it with a bunch of photography enthusiasts from our photo club back then. It was a cloudy day so I decided to make as much long exposure as I could. All of those pictures below are such long-exposures with my tripod. It weights more than 3 kilograms, so when I carry it with me, I feel obligated to use it, LMAO!

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That thing above is called "Bara" in Bulgaria, in the past people used those with the rotating power of the river water to wash their carpets and blankets, generally all things that were too big to be manually washed. There are still few active ones throughout the country though. It's like a giant washing machine, the same idea, but the execution comes from centuries ago. Do you have those in your country?

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Typical old Bulgarian architecture. Here I messed up the camera settings as the Sun suddenly got rid of the clouds and came upon us strongly and it was overexposed but I kept it as it has a soul, that photo, right? ;)

And this one below I like a lot, with this great wood-carving artist who works there:
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Thanks for passing by, stay safe and strong!


Copyright: Damian Hadjiyvanov, Light Captured


My photo site: https://hadjiyvanov.com/


For licensing my photos, please drop me a message on Discord: lightcaptured#2698

Thank you for all the support!

Have a great photo! :P


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16 comments
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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 51 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
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(Edited)

Hmm, is it really that bad in Bulgaria?
Thought about moving there (somewhere near the Black Sea) because the electricity is pretty cheap & I could start mining again. But because of the Wuhan virus (& my own procrastination) nothing ever came of it.

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Hey, @bossel :) I really can't give any advice, it depends on what your expectations are and where you've decided to move on to :)
I used to live in the capital, Sofia, where life is quite dynamic but with the years I started to hate the noise and the bad air and the fact that your friends live nearby but have no time for the really important stuff. Now I live in a small village near a beautiful town. There are pros and cons of that, of course. I love the nature and the silence, the forest nearby, I planted several trees in the last two years :) However, power and water cuts are frequent, almost on a daily basis. The voltage here often gets above 240 V which causes a lot of troubles with most electronic devices. There are only two internet providers - one of them uses LAN cables that hang in the air and accepts only cash monthly payments. I connect over PPPoE and their equipment drops and reconnects at least ten times a day. Imagine the rejection rate of your mining packages :D
The other one uses optic cables but doesn't want to add new customers, WTF. If/when I decide to mine I'll be forced to get a 4G router, then there is the bandwidth limit.
Long story short, a thorough due diligence must be done if you have a specific place in mind ;)
Just to note I have friends who moved back from the USA to Bulgaria as they believe it's better for them here. If you have, let's say above the average EU salary, living in Bulgaria seems attractive, as the cost of living is under the average for EU. Many people who work in IT relocate here for that reason but still you have to be sure in advance all you need could be delivered to your future house. :)
I hope that helps, stay safe! If you decide to come here, drop me a message somewhere, I would love to help.

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(Edited)

Thanks very much for the elaborate response. Didn't know at all about the internet situation.
But I learned my lesson from moving to Greece & you are right: due dilligence is absolutely necessary.
I was attracted by the cheap rent here & then shocked by the high prices of almost everything else, particularly electricity. So, when I move somewhere else, I'll do so either because I found a proper teaching job there or only after having researched properly. At the moment, corona is in the way, anyway.

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Oh, don't get me wrong, this is just my internet situation at the moment. When I was living in the capital, the internet there was much better and actually cheaper too. I think we are one of the countries in EU with the best internet or probably the cheapest.
In terms of the electricity prices for household consumers, I think the price at the moment is something like EUR 0.12 / kWh and I think the most expensive is in Germany, about triple this value. As an absolute value it looks ok but if you compare it to our average income, then it is more expensive than in Germany, as our average income is far less than 3 times that of Germany. So it's all about the perspective :)

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Well, if I move to Bulgaria it would probably be a village near a bigger town. Had eg. seen an advert for a nice cheap little house near Burgas recently. & if I would actually buy a house, I would probably install solar panels for at least 5kW as well. All dependent on me getting the finances together, of course.
Moving to Bulgaria would also mean that all my income would depend on cryptocurrencies, so could be rather low at times.
But all this is moot, anyway, as long as the virus makes its rounds. When I can travel again, I will check out the situation in Bulgaria, Monte Negro, Albania &/or perhaps Croatia, to see which offers the best opportunity for me.

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House by the sea sounds amazing and I really wish you fulfil that dream ;)
I've been planning solar panels as well as there will be a major change in the local legislation as in the moment there is a lot of bureaucracy and it usually takes few months to set everything right if you want to follow the letter of the law. This change is expected this year, I hope the election results don't affect and delay it. Also if you depend entirely on crypto to live, you'll have to have one of those crypto wallet cards as it seems here the banks block all outcoming SEPA transfers to all known exchanges. Only few weeks ago I've been almost called a terrorist for trying to send 50 EUR to Binance and Kraken when I called the bank for an explanation why the transfers are on hold for more than a week. With few friends we tried three different banks, it's all the same everywhere. It seems they have their "secret supper" as there isn't any official statement but the fact is a fact :))) Who knows what would happen if you start getting bigger deposits in your bank accounts...
I've been to all those countries you've mentioned few times, from your list above but considering Albania and Montenegro aren't EU members yet, probably the safest and easiest to accommodate to would be Croatia, moreover the climate by the Adriatic Sea is great :) From another point of view, I think Albania develops very fast, people there work really hard to make everything better. No idea what their attitude towards crypto is though :)

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Actually, even here in Greece, I'm still using my German bank & credit card. Not much of a problem with them. & German banks seem to work fine with Bitstamp. In the beginning I used Coinbase, but when I moved to Greece, they told me they can't do KYC with documents using Greek letters. Since then I use Bitstamp, no problem there (yet; who knows the future).
Banks seem to suck everywhere, though. Some more (particularly in China), some less.

I like the seaside, so that limits my choice a bit. Albania & Montenegro are not EU members yet, but for what I know, I can buy property there & don't need a visa for up to 6 months of stay. So, I would have to travel a bit every 6 months or so, but that should be do-able. We will see...

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мдаамм... поне си помечтахме малко за промяна...
може пък да се случи някакво чудо... имаме все още някаква надежда :)

снимките са яки и показват единственото нещо, което все още "имаме" ~ българският дух..
тук до Сливен все още имаме действащи бари... нагоре по баира ;)

!BEER

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Все така си мечтаем през 4 години или по-малко и все същия ...

Барите са големи хора! :)

Може и !wine че все още е хладничко!

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хм странно, че биричката не е дошла а днес не съм пращал

благодаря, да... пак захладня :)

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