Comment by sdizdar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sdizdar | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not sure if you know, but Bulgaria is in Balkans. And sane people are thrown in the loony bin (or just killed) if they talk too much.

Bulgaria is considered the most corrupt country in the 27-member European Union. For example, just recently, Asen Drumev, former head of the State Agricultural Fund, was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzling $34 million worth of EU assistance (and as far I know he was just a sacrifice lamb). And crime journalist Bobbie Tsankov was killed "execution syle" last June.

Of course, Bulgaria pledged to work harder at "combating high-level corruption and organised crime" in response to renewed criticism from the European Commission (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/01d19cdc-942a-11df-a3fe-00144feab4...).

I'm bulgarian, living in US since 1999. I've been couple of times back, trying to keep on the news... and the recent scandal involving our premier just saddens me.

The transition from "kind-of communist/socialist (actually totalitarian)" regime to full blown democracy, reminds me a bit of situation where you would put electrical engineer with no software practice to be software engineer.

In results, we have a buggy country, with lots of hacks, "fixes", and it leaks everywhere, but you can't debug it well.

Real example - the money for Sofia -> Burgas freeway (~400km long) disappeared, only 1/3 (1/4?) got finished.... Not the only case where money had went south in my dear old country.

So I'm here, waiting for Bulgaria 2.0 to happen, and would go back once the people are ready for change.

"I'm not sure if you know, but Bulgaria is in Balkans". Mexico is in North America. What is your point?

BTW, Mr. Bobbie Tsankov was a convicted conman that loved to brag about how well connected he is with the underground and this is a fact. He just happend to have a radio talk (not news) show. Saying that he was a "crime journalist" is like saying that Lucky Luciano was running a security company.

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