Balkanalysis.com

By Professor Kristen Ghodsee*

Editor’s note: In this new article, Balkanalysis.com contributor Dr. Kristen Ghodsee explores the intricacies of Bulgaria’s current debate on head scarves in schools.

The controversy over banning Islamic headscarves in public schools has, until now, largely focused on the situations in France and Turkey where secular governments are carefully trying to maintain a thick wall between church and state. In 2006 this controversy hit home in Bulgaria: the EU member state with the largest Muslim minority (estimated between 13-15%). Complaints regarding discrimination against Islamic religious symbols were filed with the Parliamentary Commission for Protection from Discrimination, the national body that deals with human rights violations. The Commission’s decisions in two key cases as to whether girls should be allowed to wear headscarves in schools have created a legal limbo wherein the state has abdicated its responsibility for interpreting the Bulgarian constitution. Instead, individual headmasters are now allowed to make their own policy regarding religious tolerance in public institutions.

In the first case, two high school students were forbidden to wear headscarves to the Karl Marx Professional Economics secondary school in the southern Bulgarian city of Smolyan. A heated national debate was ignited as two girls challenged a decision of their school’s headmaster. The girls claimed that their rights were violated because they wanted to obtain a secular education in economics while as devout Muslims also continue to wear Islamic headscarves in the classroom.

One of the two girls had been already wearing her headscarf to school for at least a year without incident, but when a second student decided to come to school with her hair covered, the headmaster told both girls that they could not attend classes with headscarves, because their specific headgear was not part of the school uniform.

According to the headmaster the girls knew of the mandatory uniform requirements before they applied to the school and noted that Bulgarian schools were secular, so religious symbols were thus not allowed on campus. In her view, girls that insisted on displaying religious symbols had an alternative – the government of Bulgaria accredited three Islamic secondary schools where wearing of a headscarf was encouraged and where the girls could obtain a religious education (on full scholarship) if they so chose.

The girls refused to remove their headscarves, and filed a complaint with the regional inspectorate of the Ministry of Education, which in turn upheld the headmaster’s decision, reiterating that Bulgarian education was secular and the girls should not be allowed to attend classes unless they conformed to the school’s uniform policy.

A local Islamic non-governmental organization, the Union for Islamic Development and Culture, took up the case and filed a complaint on behalf of the girls with the Parliamentary Commission for Protection from Discrimination. Since the Commission was headed by a Muslim-Bulgarian of ethnic Turkish heritage, the girls (who were Slavic Muslims, or Pomaks) and the NGO were quite confident that they would win their case. However, the political leadership of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (an ethnic Turkish political party represented in the government at the time) did not support the Islamic NGO, and the Commission found against the girls and fined all parties involved. Both the school and the regional inspectorate were fined for allowing the girls to wear their headscarves to school during the period when the case was being adjudicated, and the Islamic NGO was fined for “inciting discrimination” by bringing the case forward to begin with.

In its written decision issued in July 2006, the Commission stated that Islamic headscarves were religious symbols and that Bulgarian schools were secular, noting that the “ … complainant had gone beyond the limits of tolerance, requesting a solution that would actually result in unequal treatment and direct discrimination of all other students, irrespective of their religion.”

It also cited a key paragraph from a resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which advises states “… to protect women against violations of their rights in the name of religion and to promote and fully implement gender equality. States must not accept any religious or cultural relativism of women’s human rights… They must fight against religiously motivated stereotypes of female and male roles from an early age, including in schools.”

The complaint ignited a national controversy, and the media in Bulgaria sensationalized the headscarf case. To some, the case was evidence that radical Islamic sects were infiltrating the country and trying to destabilize the precarious postsocialist ethnic peace that characterized Christian-Muslim relations in the country despite its proximity to Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

A key point in this line of reasoning was that the members of the Union for Islamic Development and Culture, the NGO that filed the complaint on behalf of the two girls, had been educated in Jordan and had links Islamic charities in Saudi Arabia.  It was argued that they were attempting to introduce a “foreign” type of Islam that was not traditional to the country.

Many were suspicious of the idea that it was mandatory for Muslim women and girls to cover their heads since the vast majority of Bulgarian Muslims were ethnically Turkish, and very few Turkish women (particularly girls of school age) were expected to wear a headscarf.  Indeed, the Chief Mufti’s office in Sofia (theoretically the governing body of the Bulgarian Muslim minority), had also refused to support the complaint of the Smolyan NGO and actively discouraged further complaints, fearing that they would result in increased discrimination against Bulgaria’s Muslim minorities.

After the first headscarf case in 2006, there was a suggestion by the Ministry of Education that the Bulgarian parliament should pass a law along the lines of the French legislation prohibiting the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols in schools, but nothing happened. Then the Ministry of Education issued a verbal order banning headscarves and threatening fines to all headmasters that allowed girls wearing Islamic headscarves to attend classes.

The second major complaint to be filed with the Parliamentary Commission for Protection from Discrimination on February 23^rd, 2007 came from three tenth-graders from the village of Gyovren attending the Professional Еlectro-technology Secondary School in Devin, a city just east of Smolyan. Тhe three girls had just recently began wearing their headscarves, and were keen to continue their secular education while remaining modest and covered.

What seems to have happened in the Devin case is that the headmaster called the girls into his office and warned them that there was a verbal order from the Ministry of Education that they were not allowed to wear headscarves in school. Although he did not make them take their headscarves off, he did warn that in the event of an official written order, they would have to comply and remove their head coverings or they would not be allowed to attend the school. The girls continued to attend school wearing their headscarves, and did not miss any classes or exams after this meeting with the headmaster, but they filed a discrimination complaint against him preemptively, assuming that the relevant authorities would eventually issue the written order.

During the hearings for the case, the regional inspectorate of the Ministry of Education stated that the girls should not be allowed to wear religious symbols to secular schools and that the Devin headmaster had failed in implementing this rule. Because of this, the Commission would not take the complaint into consideration, finding that there was no discrimination since the girls were still attending school in their headscarves at the time of the meeting.

According to the Commission the key issue hinged on the fact that the Devin secondary school did not have a uniform requirement. Because it did not have a uniform requirement, the Devin school was apparently not under the obligation to implement the verbal order of the regional inspectorate of the Ministry of Education about the prohibition of headscarves in public schools. According to the Commission, the right to education and religious freedom had not been violated.

In the Devin case the Commission for Protection from Discrimination would not recognize the prohibition of headscarves based on the precedent set by their own decision regarding the 2006 Smolyan school case. The lack of clarity on the issue created a situation in which there were different policies at different schools and no clear guidelines for students as to whether or not they could wear headscarves to class.

Thus, in schools with uniform requirements, the school headmasters had a duty to uphold the ban on religious symbols, but if the school had no uniform requirement, then the students were free to wear what they liked. Yet at the same time the decision as to whether a school has a mandatory uniform requirement is decided exclusively by the headmaster. This means that any individual headmaster could institute a mandatory uniform policy at his/her school specifically with the purpose of prohibiting girls from wearing headscarves.

The number of girls wearing an Islamic headscarf to school began to increase after 2006, particularly after these cases garnered such national attention. In the Smolyan school case, the two girls were almost instantaneous celebrities, being interviewed by the national newspapers as well as on the radio and on television. Both girls were quite articulate and framed the headscarf issue as one of personal choice and religious freedom; both claimed that they were doing something which hurt no one and which reflected their inner commitment to Islam.

This and other demonstrations have had a lasting effect in the Smolyan region, and it is likely that many young Muslim women are beginning to wear the headscarf as much as a political symbol or fashion statement as a religious one. As a consequence, some local authorities may have realized that prohibiting headscarves might actually be giving girls more incentive to wear them, and so have been hesitant to take a stand against them.

In a more recent development, the regional mufti of Smolyan announced in June 2010 that Muslim women in Smolyan should be allowed to take their new passport pictures with their headscarves on. The mufti claimed that he had received numerous calls from local Muslim women asking if it was prohibited for them to be uncovered in their identity documents. This once again instigated a public debate about whether the Bulgarian Muslims were asking to be placed “above the law,” since European Union standards require that all Bulgarian passports be issued with photos containing certain biometric data.

Once again, fault lines appeared between the Pomaks and Turkish Muslim minorities in Bulgaria. Within days of the Smolyan mufti’s announcement, an MP for the Movement for Rights and Freedom and the regional Mufti of Kardzhali (a region of Bulgaria with a large Turkish minority) announced that they did not support the statement of the Smolyan mufti.

Although they admitted that women should be allowed to wear headscarves for religious reasons, these reasons should not take precedence over all other considerations. “The headscarf in Islam is not a fashion. It is Allah’s command. But there is the Constitution of Bulgaria, which is in the EU, and all Bulgarian citizens should comply with it. So Muslim women who cover yourselves, please be kind and do not put yourself above the law,” the Mufti of Kardzhali said in a public statement.

In the end, the women agreed to have their pictures taken in accordance with the biometric requirements of the EU- especially after it became apparent that they would not be able to travel within the European Union if they had passport photos with their headscarves on.

Although there has not yet been any national legislation regarding the headscarf in Bulgaria, either in schools or with regard to identity documents, the issue remains a divisive one, not only between Bulgarian Christians and Muslims, but also between Bulgaria’s “traditional” Muslim communities and a newly emerging cohort of “orthodox” Muslims.

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*Kristen Ghodsee is the John S. Osterweis Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Bowdoin College in Maine, and has been conducting ethnographic research on Bulgaria for the last fourteen years. She is the author of two books on post-socialist Bulgaria; The Red Riviera (Duke University Press 2005), and Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria (Princeton University Press 2009), which won the 2010 Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) Heldt Prize for best book in the field of Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian women’s studies.

Professor Ghodsee’s forthcoming book, Lost in Transition: Ethnographies of Everyday Life After Communism, will be published by Duke University Press in fall 2011).

By Nuray Ekici*

Historically, Turks have not only been engaged in inter-religious conflicts, but also in intra-religious ones. In these conflicts, whether latent or not, stereotypes have played an important role; they have fueled the conflicts, and at the same time been sustained by them. Thus stereotypes have served to draw bold demarcation lines and sharp boundaries between intra-religious groups. The case of Bulgarian Alevis and Sunnis is not an exception to this rule.

The Need to Have “Enemies and Allies”, or just an (Internal) “Other”

In shaping collective identities, “others” play a vital role. “Me” and “us” has substance or significance, so long as “he/she” and “they” exist as a negative reference group: as Huntington puts it “we know who we are only when we know who we are not, and often when we know whom we are against.” That is to say, we are “what the “other” is not.”

When it comes to Bulgaria’s Sunni Muslim community, the “main other” (by definition inferior and in some cases even subhuman), is the Alevis. In the larger national context, Sunni religious identity itself has been formed primary against that of the Christian Bulgarians. But Alevis, more commonly known as Kizilbashes, are also crucial in their identity construction as being the main “internal others.” Indeed, they usually are not perceived as true Muslims by their Sunni peers; for the Sunnis, they are “semi-Muslims” or “Muslim-like people.” Thus they are not even always considered “internal” specifically. In some cases they are even considered inferior to Bulgarians in religious terms.

The Alevis in Bulgaria: A “Minority within a Minority”

Bulgaria’s Muslim community is mainly concentrated in Southeast and Northeast Bulgaria, and is almost totally composed of ethnic Turks. This community numbers approximately 967,000. The vast majority of these are Sunnis; the Alevis of Bulgaria, as a religious group, number around 53,000 people; in a way, therefore, they are a “minority within a minority.”

The presence of the Kizilbashes in Bulgarian public life is barely noticeable, not only due to their small population, but also due to the prevailing social biases, stereotypes and prejudices against them. Historically, they have had to hide their identity in order to survive under harsh political conditions. Today, though such a threat to the very existence of the Alevi community does not exist, most of them still prefer to hide their identity mainly due to the prevailing stereotypes within the dominant group.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are the most important mental constructs in drawing, shaping and maintaining group boundaries. They are easily “created,” and if necessary “invented,” and then internalized in religious identity through a process of “otherization.” They usually consist of highly sacral values and attitudes on the one hand, and behaviors usually considered as taboo on the other.

This is not a coincidence. In fact, this is the best possible way to draw and sharpen bold demarcation line between the groups. Presenting the unthinkable as undisputable truth will certainly irritate Sunni group members directly from the outset of the socialization process, and turn the Alevis into a kind of semi-human group.

Mum söndü (Candle Blown Out): “Sanctity of Family vs. Incest”

The most widely known stereotype about the Alevis can be summarized by the term “mum söndü.” This term implies a myth of communal sexual intercourse and incest during the Alevi religious ritual called Cem. Contrary to what is practiced in ‘Orthodox’ Islam, men and women usually jointly participate in the Alevi religious rituals, a practice unacceptable for Sunni Muslims. So, this stereotype is constructed first by tacitly referencing the sanctity of the family and the inherent holiness of the mother, and second, by tacitly linking a practice considered unthinkable and unacceptable to a taboo, incestuous relationship. Such a “created combination” certainly puts Alevis into the non-human category and right from the beginning of the socialization process “alerts” Sunni children to stay away from “deviants.”

“Quran vs. Bathroom”

The second myth about Alevis in Bulgaria, which is somewhat less known, is again related to the most sacral values of Islam and family life. It is believed that “infidel” Alevis force their (Sunni) wives/brides to tear a page from the holy Quran and throw it in the toilet. This “infidel” stereotype also places in bold the demarcation line between the two groups once and forever.

Today, these “created” or if you like, “invented” stereotypes about the Alevis in Bulgarian Sunnite society boldly mark the borders between these two groups; they keep alive the image of the “pervert,” the “infidel,” the not quite sufficient “Muslim-like” persona of the Alevi, and even the “semi-human” Alevi. This serves to make group borders sharper, to keep the unwanted “other” at a distance, to reduce the possibility of any mixing up or inter-group marriage, and in general to reinforce existing group cohesion and religious differences. So a vicious cycle, one which continues to poison the inter-group relations in Bulgaria, is created.

However, parallel to the opening of Alevi religious practices to public, particularly to the mass media, nowadays inter-group contacts are increasingly facilitating recognition of Alevi religious identity and mutual understanding. This, in turn, helps in the deconstruction process of the historical mental constructs and barriers. All in all, breaking the vicious cycle in inter-group relations will not be easy and definitely will take time, perhaps even generations.

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*Nuray Ekici is an independent researcher and scholar, currently working on psycho-political approaches to ethnic studies and conflict management in the Balkans.

He has authored several texts on the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and the ethnic Turkish political party there (the Movement for Rights and Freedom). The present article is a synopsis of a longer one presented at a conference entitled “The Turks and Islam,” held at Indiana University in Bloomington, on September 11, 2010.

By Christian Filipov in Sofia

The future of Bulgaria’s capital markets is not a clear-cut case: its fate is linked to that of the global markets, the strength of the indigenous Bulgarian entrepreneurial spirit and – though this may come as a surprise to some – the immediate actions of the Bulgarian government.

Here emerge two outstanding issues: one, whether the government will lend a helping hand to the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) by deciding to privatize state-owned companies via stock offerings on the exchange; and two, whether the government will sell its quite substantial shareholding in the BSE to a reputable foreign exchange operator.

Rumor Has It…

At the moment, several rumors are going around in Sofia. One has it that a group of shady Russian businessmen is planning a hostile takeover of the BSE, with the help of treacherous insiders. No, scratch that- the hostile takeover guys are actually Turkish, and they are in cahoots with shady local businessmen and corrupt politicians.

Yet the notion of a hostile takeover of the BSE is ridiculous – an acquisition transaction in excess of 5% for the stock of the BSE would be invalid without the prior approval of the Commission for Financial Supervision. Ah, yes: here is the part where the corrupt politicians come into the game.

Another rumor, one that is gently forcing a smug smile onto the faces of Gordon Gekko’s fans in the country, is that the Deutsche Börse would be willing to take on the government’s share in the BSE. This, of course, is a reason to hear the repeated popping of champagne corks at gatherings of the private shareholders in the BSE and those of business analysts, investors, industrialists, employers, bankers, brokers and managers.

These market enthusiasts are convinced that if a reputable foreign stock market operator replaces the government at the BSE, trading volumes will double (at least!), while the BSE will become a much more attractive avenue for raising capital, and the listing of large infrastructure companies will be encouraged. To sum up: the euphoria of privatizing the government’s share of the BSE to a benevolent investor will levitate Bulgarian stock prices, if not into the stratosphere, at least to much higher levels than they have ever been.

A Government Buy-in?

While the rumor mills are spewing conspiracy theories and Cinderella stories alike, the government – the 600-pound gorilla that everyone is trying to ignore – owns close to half of the stock in the BSE, and is actually planning to increase its shareholding. Quite shockingly, the government is actually planning on nationalizing the stock exchange. Let us classify this as a rumor: just like the one about ‘them shady Russian/Turkish businessmen’ or that of the benevolent Deutsche Börse.

Now here is what has actually happened. The shareholders of the BSE at their meeting on September 13, 2010 decided to start offering shares of the BSE on the BSE itself. This is supposed to happen by the end of the year. The expected benefits are that the offering of BSE shares to the public will stir trading on the BSE (at least a bit); that the BSE will become a publicly-traded company (thus offering the stock exchange a greater level of protection from hostile intentions and undue influences), and that it will offer the BSE shareholders a means of increasing the return on their initial investments.

Prior to listing the BSE, however, Bulgaria’s Ministry of Finance – the principal holding the government’s 2.58 million shares in the BSE – requested that the capital of the BSE be increased by issuing an additional 715,000 shares, declaring that it would buy them at a price of 1 BGN per share, thus raising the government’s shareholding from 43.97% of the current 5.87 million shares to 50.5% of the shares.

Let’s follow the money here. The capital of the BSE is 9.59 million BGN, and the average price per share is 1.63 BGN. The BSE’s assets are 6.2 million BGN in cash reserves, 1 million BGN in deposits, 441,000 BGN in securities and 300,000 BGN in expected tax refunds. In the first two quarters of 2010, the BSE’s trading dropped by 24%, while BSE’s net profits from January through June 2010 are a meager 92,000 BGN.

Minority Shareholders- Frozen Out

So, the government’s offer to buy the new issue of shares for 1 BGN per share is quite a good deal. But here’s the rub: the transaction is envisioned to be structured in a way that the new issue will not be offered proportionately to the current shareholders: only the government can subscribe to the new shares. The minority shareholders in the stock exchange (126 corporate entities and 97 individuals) are not going to be given the opportunity to subscribe to this issue at all. Now, this has got your attention, hasn’t it?

Wondering why the government is increasing its share in the BSE brings the real concern to light: what will the government do with that 50% plus-one shareholding in the BSE?

Now let us speculate a bit. A first possibility is that the government is increasing its shareholding in the stock exchange in order to increase profits generated from the sale of its shares to a foreign stock exchange operator. A savvy but unlikely plan, from a practical standpoint, unless the government plans to take action that would make the stock of the BSE more valuable. Any smart buyer would ask “what have you done to increase stock value to justify an asking price higher that the 1 BGN per share that you paid?”

This basically reflects the views of Victor Papazov, co-founder and former Chairman of the Board of the BSE, who in a recent interview with Trud said essentially that unless the government does something to increase the value of the BSE, any foreign operator will offer less than the issue price of 1 BGN.

This line of thinking makes sense: if one plans to buy a troubled business that needs investment to turn profit, one would naturally want to buy it on the cheap. Such a line of reasoning also robs the economic sense of raising the capital of the BSE by increasing the government’s share in it, for the purpose of making a more successful sale.

Sweetening the Deal

Anyway, let us speculate on the issue of what the government could do to increase the share value of the BSE, and so sweeten the deal for the imaginary benevolent foreign stock market operator. One easy answer is that it could start privatizing state-owned companies via public offerings on the BSE, giving ”brownie points” to companies that are publicly traded on the BSE for procurement transactions associated with large infrastructure projects (highways, railways, ports, electricity generating plants). Another simple solution is that the government could offer tax breaks for private investments in mutual funds.

Nevertheless, such government actions are the wet dreams of the Bulgarian business elite: in a letter dated March 5, 2010, addressed to the prime minister and the ministers of finance and economy, the BSE, the Chamber of Commerce and several mighty associations (including those of industrial capital, the confederation of employers, the investment intermediaries and the management companies) urged the government – quite convincingly – to jump-start Bulgaria’s capital markets by selling on the BSE part of shares that the state holds in companies such as the Bulgarian Energy Holding, Bulgargaz, Bulgartransgaz, the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, the Maritsa Iztok coal-fired generation plant, the National Electricity Company and the Electricity Systems Operator.

Dark Visions

Since we are still speculating, let us move on to option number two- and the one more likely to convince those enamored of conspiracy theories. This option reaches deep into the bowels of post-communist cynicism: Boyko Borissov’s government plans to transform the stock exchange from a beacon of free capitalism into a tool of state control and planning.

Why? Well, under such a scenario, the government will be lending its sizable muscle to a market player of its choice who, aided by interference or non-action by the government, eliminates any competition and instills an everlasting monopoly on Bulgaria’s capital markets.

Such a thought would be strange only to someone who lacks familiarity with the post-communist transition process. In the transition environment – Bulgaria not being the exception, but rather the rule here – the state has been very reluctant to give away economic power gathered by fighting tooth-and-nail under communism, regardless of which political party rules the country, despite the stated ideological aspirations of that party or whatever economic doctrine the party claims to worship in the media.

Doing Business, Party-style

The public simply believes that political parties are in a symbiotic relationship with their economic supporters and business affiliates. In such a relationship the party feeds upon the fruits of the labors of its supporters and affiliated business enterprises. In return, the political party, by pressing the appropriate government levers at the proper moments, promotes the economic interests of their supporters and affiliated businesses.

Depending on the relative strength of the political party in question, actions associated with “promoting business interests” succeed, partially or completely, in eliminating the competitors of the party’s supporters in the particular economic sector. This practice is so prevalent in Bulgaria that it is well known which particular business sector has been carved out for the supporters of which particular political party.

The notion that political parties’ sole purpose is to promote the business interests of their supporter base is so widely accepted that no one questions it. This is a fine example of the bastardization of democracy and capitalism that people in transition countries are living through. It is almost iconically defined in the infamous words of wealthy businessman Ahmed Dogan, founder of the ethnically Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) party: “every political party has its own ring of corporations… I have more power than any banker.”

In his painful directness, Dogan is not only referring to his own party. He is pointing his finger at all political parties in Bulgaria, to convey a simple message: this is the way things are done- get over it.

Although one need not agree with this statement, it is quite obvious that any arguments aimed at contradicting it become painfully useless. This is true to such an extent that a statement made by Volen Siderov (the fearless leader of the nationalist-populist party Ataka), to the effect that the NDSV (the political party of the former king Simeon II), is the “king’s brokerage firm in the Parliament” was not met with public outrage, but merely with knowing smiles. The case in point is how people take Siderov’s words- that is, that he is a populist and wouldn’t dare tell people anything other than what they are already thinking.

In light of this, speculations that the Borissov government is prepping the BSE for a takeover by its supporters and affiliated business doesn’t sound out of line with the prevalent cynical state of mind. There are enough arguments that we could fish out to support such a conspiracy theory.

Connections and Conjectures

Let us indulge then in feeding the rumor mills. For example, did you know that increasing the government’s BSE share was opposed by almost all private shareholders, save for BulBank, which is headed by Levon Hampartzomian- a banker famous for being on excellent terms with any government?

The thin air of the conspiracy theory thickens when we add the fact that Lubomir Boyadjiev, Executive Director of BenchMark Group was appointed to the board of directors of the BSE: he is a classmate of Simeon Diankov, Borissov’s Minister of Finance. Another person rumored to be close to Dyankov is the new Chairman of the Board of the BSE – Asen Yagodin, Executive Director of Post Bank.

There are, however, some who believe that neither Borissov nor his political party actually have a base of economic supporters and affiliated business that they are obliged to serve. In other words, there are people in Bulgaria who honestly believe that compared to other parties, Borissov’s party, GERB, comes with no strings attached.

This may be a ridiculous notion to some, but no such thing can be said about any of the other political parties: there is an entrenched belief among Bulgarians that political parties exist solely for the purpose of serving the economic interests of their supporters and affiliated business. Many believe that Borissov is doing the same, yet many also believe in giving him the benefit of the doubt. This, in the crass Bulgarian political landscape, marks a step up.

Let us now put the rumors to the side and speculate a bit. One likely scenario is that the government will increase the value of the BSE stock by privatizing large companies via offerings on the stock exchange, then sell its shares to that (supposed) benevolent foreign stock market operator in shining armor; in this way, it would be paving the way for the ascent of Bulgaria’s capital markets, whilst also making a sweet profit for the state coffers from the sale of the government’s shares in the BSE.

Or, the somewhat more gloomy scenario number two: that is, that the government does nothing, and by its inaction deepens the public mistrust in domestic capital markets, so turning the BSE into a tool of state control for the benefit of a monopolist of its choice.

These are only speculations as to what the government will do. Let us wait and see what it does. After all, as the Good Book says, “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16).

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The first New Year’s gift of 2009 to the citizens of many Balkan countries has come in the form of the season’s first significant snowfall, blanketing large areas in Macedonia, northern Greece, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria and Albania.

In the Macedonian capital of Skopje, some 16cm of snow has accumulated in the past three days- posing a challenge for motorists as city officials, caught dozing by the holidays and an insufficiency of snowplows, have been unable to clear major central streets. In Sofia, Bulgaria, similar conditions have been encountered, but authorities have a more formidable fleet of snowplows (137, to be exact) at their disposal.

Despite a handful of minor accidents, however, Macedonian citizens have generally been enjoying this unusual chance to sled in the center and to see the giant faux Christmas tree in the square, distastefully topped by a giant pink T (a gesture to likely sponsor T-Mobile), adorned by actual snow. Forecasts call for snow to continue falling until Tuesday, and resume later in the week.

Snowfall has been enabled by freezing temperatures across the region. So far, the standard has been set in ever-chilly Erzurum, Turkey. This eastern Anatolian town recently recorded temperatures of minus 36 Celsius.

Snow has also made things interesting in northern Greece, where officials have called on drivers to use chains amidst freezing temperatures as low as minus 13 Celsius and snowfall of up to 25cm across Epiros and the province of Macedonia.

Aerial footage from northern Albania shown earlier this week showed the mountainous region completely snowed under. Already hard enough to navigate in the best of times, this sparsely populated area has become inaccessible in large parts due to snowfall of up to half a meter.

Nevertheless, the sudden snowfall has also meant relief for some ski areas that had until now been hit hard by the lack of snowfall. In Serbia, the snowfall has been a boon for ski areas such as Mt Kopaonik, currently full of skiers and with 45cm of snow coverage.

Macedonia’s main ski area, Mavrovo in the west, was bare until a few days ago, causing concern among company officials. One official stated last week that since snow-making equipment was too expensive, they have been left at the mercy of the elements- which had been proving uncooperative, until this week. Now, however, the center reports over 40cm of snow coverage, many visitors, and predicts that the snow will remain for the duration of the season.

Macedonia’s other major ski center, Ski Centar Kozuf on the Greek border, did not open earlier due to cold temperatures, a company representative stated on December 30, adding that the resort would be opening soon. This new operation claims to have the most modern equipment in the Balkans, including artificial snowmaking guns and a state-of-the-art, six-person German-made lift.

Still a work in progress, the resort which opened just last year has yet to finish paving the 30km-long access road from Gevgelija, let alone to finish construct all of the facilities (though all of the allocated space for ski lodges has long since sold out). Here, the goal is to make an environmentally- and aesthetically-friendly resort; for example, while there will be a movie theater, it will be built underground.

The previous lack of snow, coupled with the general global economic downturn, have meant ski resorts in the region have been late to open or are seeing lessened demand. In Bulgaria’s leading resort area of Bansko, for example, there were still plenty of reservations available during the usually packed holiday period. The reduced number of skiers thus far has also meant declining profits for travel agencies booking tours and local hoteliers. Other, smaller Bulgarian resorts include Chepelare in the Rodopi Mountains (set to open on Jan. 7), are less hectic and cheaper as well- good for bargain-seekers.

Indeed, with no end in sight to the economic recession, regional ski centers can only adjust prices and hope that the skies at least will cooperate for the remainder of the winter season. However, the strange weather patterns of the past few years, perhaps caused by global warming, mean that nothing can be taken for granted and skiers should enjoy the conditions while they have them.

Top Balkan Ski Resorts

Want to make use of the good weather? The following Balkan ski resorts can be found online here.

Bulgaria

(See here)

Bosnia

Bjelasnica

Serbia

Kopaonik

Macedonia

Mavrovo

Ski Centar Kozuf

Greece

(See here)