On the Cards, Part 2

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Going there is usually a KATastrophe. Yes, I am talking about KAT, that most loathed and detested of all Bulgarian institutions, that bastion of bureaucratic bungling boredom and pointless paperwork. The really bad news for any expat in Bulgaria is that, sooner or later, you are going to find yourself in that dreadful place in Geo Milev. The Microwave Woman was actually quite polite and helpful, but we still had to go back again and again, first to the notarius and then to KAT itself. Our BG residency cards were about to expire, we are off to Greece next week and BREXIT is looming ever closer, so we simply had to get our new ten-year BG cards.

It's not as bad as it's cracked up to be.

Why is KAT so horrible? It is in an awkward place, well away from the centre of the city and all of the MTR stations. The actual building is a dumpy, dull, crumbling concrete construction, with a dark stairwell. The cracks and fissures in the walls seem to suggest that KAT is the epicenter of an earthquake zone.

The Door Wherein I Went

In order to speak to someone who works there, you have to knock on one of those little white doors that you find on microwave ovens. Then, if she is not having lunch, the Microwave Woman will slide the door open and talk to you, in Bulgarian. Yes, even though this is the office for foreigners wanting residency in Bulgarian, none of the officials seem to speak any English (the Microwave Woman certainly doesn’t) and all of the notices stuck on the dingy walls are in – yes, you guessed it – Bulgarian.

Lots of boring notices for foreigners (all in Bulgarian, of course!)

Irena’s Bulgarian is not too bad (a lot better than mine), but we were actually helped by an Iranian girl, a refugee, whose written Bulgarian was pretty good. Well, it was good enough to help us fill out a “declaration” to say that we had been living in Bulgaria.

It's summer and that means tarator, the world's best COLD soup

Then, finally, after so many delays and form-filling, we got our new ten-year Bulgarian residency cards. And during one of our many visits, the Microwave Woman was having one of her rather long lunchbreaks and so we went off to have lunch as well. 

19 leva (that is about 8 euros or maybe six pounds) for the two of us, with a bottle of Gambrinus each and the best tarator I have had for a long time. The barbecued meat and the chips-with-cheese were pretty good too. So maybe even Bulgarian bureaucracy has its advantages.