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favourite restaurant

There are so many excellent places all over Bulgaria serving fresh local food and we take it too much for granted. When I’m in Sofia I enjoy going to the Ugo chain. I love their new salad with pears, avocado, caramelised walnuts and blue cheese on a bed of lettuce. It makes a change from traditional Bulgarian cuisine.

favourite bar

Mystan’s sweet shop in Sliven is truly my home from home (on the corner of the main pedestrian street Donkai Konstantin). You can get chilled local wine served with a slice of lemon, wonderful cakes, ice creams and the best caffe latte ever (buy their own brand of freshly ground coffee to take home). Everyone knows it, so just ask. It’s a meeting place for fashionable young mums, elegant pensioners and the rest of us. Also, I like Violet in Mladost at the City Point Center in Sofia. It is a new café-gallery and you can see British artist Jan Bowman’s work (www. janbow.com) on their walls. I think it’s very adventurous of the owners to buy British art.

favourite holiday area

Because I spend so much time entertaining guests in the mountains (in the Stara Planina range), I love to go to the sea and it’s not so far to drive from Kipilovo for a weekend. I enjoy all that Slunchev Bryag (Sunny Beach) has to offer: big show-off hotels, bungee jumping on the beach, clubs and shops; but we like staying in a little beach hut in Arkutino, south of Sozopol, with its near-deserted stretch of sand where you can follow unmarked walking trails over shrub-covered coastal dunes and cliff-tops towards the Ropotamo River. I also feel like I’m holiday in Sofia when I go

to work with architect Anna Nevrokopska at her studio. We like browsing in the same shops and every day we go for lunch at Ugo.

favourite place

It has to be walking in the hills and meadows around Kipilovo and watching sunsets with the sound of goat bells as they make their way home. There are no “private” signs and you feel you can roam so freely completely alone. Cycling is also liberating as you pass horses and carts and well-kept Ladas. I’d only ever lived an urban life so I’ve learned so much from being here. Everyone has a smallholding with goats or sheep, chickens, horses, mules and donkeys, cows, geese and turkeys. The countryside reminds me of the rolling hills of the Wye Valley in England, but with more freedom and the pleasure of knowing a long, snowy and cold winter will guarantee a long, hot and sunny summer. It is a disappearing life here, but I know Bulgarians love their countryside, so they will want to come here and enjoy it, too.

favourite drink

Mojito appeared to have been the “indrink” this summer because it was so easy to find on menus. You can easily grow mint or, ideally, spearmint, in the garden or in a pot.
Mojito
Rum
Club soda
Mint
Simple syrup (just heat equal parts sugar and water) Crushed ice

favourite shops

I could write a book on my favourite subject. The independent shops in Bulgaria are fascinating and you can find them everywhere. Sliven has plenty of treasures. These kinds of shops no longer really

 

exist in the UK because supermarkets and large chains dominate the high street and they can’t afford to survive. I like Kotka & Kotka in Sozopol for its eccentric, unusual hand-made crafts and paintings. Bulgarian designers such as Nia and Dorado, Dika and Etere are a real find.

pet peeve

I can’t stand the racism against gypsies (“tsigani”). They are fellow Bulgarians, so just get over it!

friday/Saturday night

Guests usually come for the weekends (I recommend thatyou stay at the www.whitehousebulgaria.com so they’re mainly spent entertaining: big dinners and

barbecues in the garden with dancing. Luckily, my husband loves cooking and we both enjoy having people here. I need to learn more about astronomy, though, as thestars are incredible here and people ask me so many questions that I can’t answer.

favourite website

I would say bulgariancountryproperty.com wouldn’t I? I’d like it to be a kind of alternative to all the usual property sites.

     favourite music

Chalga, of course! I wish I could find a good radio station that played it, but we can only receive the Bulgarian national Horizont station in Kipilovo at the moment.

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At first glance she’s an unlikely expat in Bulgaria. Krysia Rozanska radiates sophistication and – despite the fact that her father was a Polish refugee – English gentility. With her impeccable accent and curvaceous figure she comes across as someone you’d expect to see flitting between Harvey Nichols, Peter Jones or Harrods in London’s West End as she ponders the purchase of a Louis Vuitton or Gucci handbag. And it’s no surprise to learn that she was a regular flier between California and the south of France in her role as a PR manager for film companies, mingling with the stars while keeping a fastidious eye on her wardrobe. However, perhaps you wouldn’t imagine her living in a remote Bulgarian village, walking her four dogs and traipsing to her father-in-law’s cottage to get goat’s milk for her tea. But that is just what she’s doing now. Krysia has swapped her movie adventures for a new life involving buying and renovating run-down houses. Her previous career incarnation was certainly rather more glamorous. “I had my own company making documentaries and then moved onto film location work, assisting on movies such as Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. I then had a great time travelling and organising events for a government agency promoting the UK to filmmakers. I got to work in Los Angeles quite a bit, went to the Cannes Film Festival every year and even went to Bollywood.” ‘Business opportunities are widespread and if you have money to invest you’ll be able to achieve a lot more here. Investment is excellent value for foreigners.’ As so often love was the lifechanging moment. Holidaying with her brother on the Greek island of Thassos, she met a handsome Bulgarian waiter, Stefan. They married and went to live in England. While Krysia continued working in films, Stefan ran a pub. But Stefan pined for the countryside. A television programme gave him the idea of renovating old derelict houses in Kipilovo, a remote Bulgarian hamlet that had been once home to his grandfather. Krysia’s hectic schedule meant they were effectively living apart, so she eventually decided to join Stefan in Kipilovo. Initial reservations notwithstanding, she’s come to love her new home. “It’s a living village and not a museum. There’s always something happening and plenty to do. I’d never heard a nightingale before I came here or seen a woodpecker, for example. Now I take them for granted! It feels like a mountain hideaway but we can get to Sliven and Veliko Turnovo in under an hour. We’re also not far from the sea and we can drive to Greece and Turkey easily.” Krysia doesn’t regret her decision to move to Bulgaria. “Business opportunities are widespread and if you have money to invest you’ll be able to achieve a lot more here. Investment is excellent value for foreigners. But it’s essential to get a good lawyer and a translator and pay them properly. Another good thing is that living costs are very low. It’s also a stable country and infrastructure is improving all the time.” Like many others before her, she has been won over by the Bulgarian people. “Bulgarians are genuinely interested in new ideas and other countries because they’ve been so isolated in the past. And people help each other a lot. When I return to England everyone complains about trivial things and they seem spoiled. I’d like people in the UK who wax lyrical sentiments about an organic lifestyle to spend one week living with an outside loo, a wood-burning stove to heat your shower and then back-breaking work in all weathers. People here seem more enthusiastic despite their problems. But I would say it’s definitely easier if your partner is Bulgarian, so I think people are terribly adventurous if they come here alone without any knowledge of the language.” Unlike some British expats, Krysia doesn’t sound remotely jaded after several years here, although she is realistic. “Living and working in a different country is not for everyone, so don’t blame Bulgarians if things don’t work out. Use the same principles as you would elsewhere and don’t take advantage of Bulgarian hospitality.” Thankfully, Krysia’s and Stefan’s business is also taking off. “We want to encourage more people to visit the countryside and appreciate the freedom it can offer. We’ve been building up our expertise, offering advice and recklessly buying traditional old Bulgarian wood and stone houses!” It would seem that, in Krysia’s case, the lady’s not for returning!