Sofia in Pieces

In his weekly column "Max's Column" for TBmagazine, Maxim Behar talks about the difficulties and changes in the Bulgarian economy and business and the only force that counts - experience.

We all know very well that Sofia is a beautiful, calm, and rather safe city. The same party has governed it for about fifteen years, and—naturally—they were criticized from morning till night by everyone and, incidentally, with good reason. Not to mention that it’s practically an illness to allow any politician—whether a deputy, mayor, minister, or prime minister—to stay in office for more than two terms.

However, now Sofia has new governance, and even more worrisome is that those same well-argued critics continue the same utterly incomprehensible policy of doing things piecemeal. One day, they dig up a small garden, and the next thing we see, the mayor smiling on Instagram, with a spade in hand and a cheerful look. Then, they move a curb to the other side, cut some weeds, make one street pedestrian-only, and dig up the neighboring one. And we see another mayor smiling on social media. And the work goes on piecemeal! We have yet to see a clear and logical program – with dates, responsible parties, and supervisors from at least one district mayor. They are probably hiding somewhere, eating pizza, also in slices. There is no other explanation.