You know, my Bulgarian friends insist I can never truly understand
Bulgarians until I finish one of two more steps:
1. I have to like eating tarator
2. I have to like 'football'--soccer--in the form of the
team "Levski"
Tarator is a horrific dish of yougurt, walnuts, dill, and iron
filings. Okay, there are no iron filings. Still, it's a gross, hate-
filled dish. If I ever enjoy it, it will be because I have had a
psychotic episode due to massive head or groin trauma.
The second, soccer, is much more tolerable. The old stadium with the
crumbling infrastructure got a new facelift, so it looks much better
from the outside.
(As an aside, Bulgaria is woefully low on money, so they do the best
they can with the funds they have to fix this stadium. Yet...there
are several large companies here: MacDonalds, ING, Citibank, Pepsi,
Coca-Cola, FOX...if I were a government official, I would certainly
offer, say, Coca-Cola the right to advertise and sell in the
stadium...and Coca-Cola would use it's considerable skills to make a
glorious coliseum that could probably withstand a seige by shock
troops to quell the inevitable soccer riot).
Well, soccer days are huge events, with people marching up the
streets, drunk already (they don't sell booze inside the stadium, so
the industrious Bulgarians simply relocated the 'getting plowed'
festivities to other locales in the Centrum) and howling support for
their team. "Samo Leviski! [Only Levski!]. Levski!"
Levski is the most popular team here, and since I'm in a foreign
country, and these are soccer fans, it is my favorite team as well,
if I am ever questioned.
So I went to the reopening of this stadium, with a friend, Sufo, who
is also a big Levski fan, but really means it. The interior of the
stadium was once quite pretty, I'm guessing, but it simply in need
of maintenance. The grass field...
Sufo: "That's the 'pitch.'"
Me: "Where? Who's pitching? They're all just stretching. This game
sucks."
Sufo: "No, the grass is the 'pitch.'"
Me: "Well, that's ridiculous."
Sufo: "Levski is in blue. Their enemy is in white."
Me: "Their enemy??"
...the pitch (ahem) is beautiful, though. Obviously, they spent the
money they had there.
Now I'm not going to bore you on the details of the game itself,
aside that it was very exciting, and ended eventually. One thing
stood out, though. One part of the crowd was cut off from the rest
of the fans, with large, heavy fences on every side, including the
front. Bulgarian police stood with large rifles in front of that
area. Inside this caged area, it was mayhem. There looked to be
dancing, fighting, vomiting, cheering...
Me: "What the hell is that?"
Sufo: "Those are the crazy people."
Suddenly, I large firework is ignited from that area, streaking from
the stands like a bullet onto the pitch. Pitch workers hustle to put
out the flaming debris.
Me: "Too much tarator."
Sufo: "...?"
Me: "Never mind. What did they do to be put in there?"
Suddenly, in the caged area, I see the 'enemy' flag being set
alight. In response, one of the police levels their rifle.
BOOM!
Yellow smoke pours into the area, encompassing three quarters of it.
The smoke drifts towards us.
Me: "Sufo, there's yellow gas coming. Sufo."
Sufo: "Pay attention."
Me: "To, what? The game? There's like mustard gas drifting closer."
The crowd was much quieter in the caged area. Probably busy dying.
The smell hits me. Sulfer, rotten eggs. It was faint now. Not so
bad.
Me: "Sufo, they just gassed the fans!"
Sufo laughs, shrugs.
Sufo: "They have to. They're crazy."
At one point, there was an altercation on the field, and the referee
pulled out a red card. That settled the issue, apparently. I gotta
get me one of those for work.
The 'crazy' fans were gassed once more, near the end, when they
began pounding their fists on the cage. Strange at that, since there
was no goal scored at the time, nobody diving to the ground and
writhing. One guy just kicked the ball back to his goalie. This
really set them off, or maybe I missed somthing offensive.
Levski lost, in a shootout, choking the last couple of kicks at the
goalie. The crowd got really, really quiet, so Sufo and I left
quickly.
All in all, though, a happenin' time. I'll have to go again, with a
gas mask, fireproof blanket, mortar and shells...