Maxim Behar for the program "Small Stories" on BNT 1 TV

Host: Hello, "Small Stories" is starting. The show that looks at life through your personal stories. Sometimes our destiny seems absolutely predetermined, sometimes a chance encounter, a person, or a place can completely change it. A place you weren't born in, but you feel with your whole being that you belong in. Today, as we go through the stories of people who moved their home to another country, for one reason or another, we will rely on the commentary of two people who turn out to be descendants of immigrants. Angela Rodel is the Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission for Bulgaria, a singer, actress, translator from Bulgarian to English, and comes from Wisconsin, where her ancestors, who are of German descent, settled. The ancestors of the journalist, diplomat and PR expert Maxim Behar came all the way from Spain and ended up here in 1492. Welcome! Maxim Behar's surname comes from the town of Behar, which is somewhere near Salamanca, right?

Maxim: You mentioned 1492, that's right, when the Spanish Catholic Inquisition ordered all Jews out of the country within a month. Just imagine, that's 531 years ago. So, they left Spain then, who knows when and what brought them to then Ottoman Empire. But the lore says that all these people who left, who were expelled by the Spanish Inquisition from Spain, they usually took the names of the towns they came from so that they could identify with where they came from. However, see, in 2023, 531 years later, no one can say they are a foreigner anywhere because we all speak the same language, and it is called “Broken English”. We are all communicating on social media around the clock, we feel comfortable talking to someone in distant Canada, or Australia, or Africa, or Asia, or anywhere on social media, be it through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on. So, in a sense, aside from cultural and local national particularities, we're all citizens of the world in some way.

Host: How would you comment on these people who are quite different, some come from Asia, from England, the same continent, but quite different manners.

Maxim: What we see here are not small stories at all, they are big stories. And these are big, modern stories, because all these people are proving that there are no borders in the world right now, and even though we have a war in Ukraine, we are in a post-pandemic, we have a financial, economic, and all kinds of crisis, the world is messed up, we have a total change of values. However, everyone wants to live where they feel pleased, and where they are comfortable. And whether they have a British passport, or an American passport, or a French passport, if they live in Bulgaria and find here firstly love, many people are here for this reason, and secondly find their perfect environment and peace, or even if it is not peace, but a place where they can realize themselves with a lot of ambition and with a lot of hard work, this is their place, this is their country. And putting aside all the troubles that have been piling up in the last 3-4 years tying the whole world together, this is the good news, that there is social media. I call this a revolution in communications, which is bringing the world together, making it smaller, and making people, many people, millions, maybe tens of millions, feel comfortable in all sorts of different places. You know I have been working for a wonderful country called Seychelles for more than 20 years now. When I go to Seychelles it makes no difference whether I am in Sofia, downtown or downtown Victoria. I was away for a month recently in the west coast of the United States, I felt at home everywhere. And that's what social media gives us, modern communications, and the better education we all have. Going back to Bulgaria, there is no country like it! A great country with very good people, of course there are all kinds of people.

Host: Yes, but with a very bad reputation. We say, our hero from the video himself said that when he mentioned to his friends that he was coming to Bulgaria, they jumped.

Maxim: The reputation is not bad. If I go to a Bulgarian village and say I'm going to England, everybody will say, "Aw, what are you going to do in England, they speak English, you won't understand them." The problem is really the positioning of Bulgaria. But think about it, compare it with Vienna, for example. A hundred years ago Vienna was at a much higher level than Bulgaria. The difference is that Bulgaria is much closer to Vienna now in mentality, in traditions, in habits, in work capacity, ideas, and everything else. Bulgaria is full of young, intelligent, very well educated, ambitious and very successful people. And this is something that unfortunately for the last 20 or so years no government has done anything about, and this is basically a government job too, not just a private project. But these people we have seen (from the video), they are the best ambassadors for Bulgaria, they are better than any ambassador.

Host: Celine and Mace leave the flat Dutch fields dotted with tulips to sink into the soft curves of the Rhodopes. Let's see their story.

Maxim: These people are a sight to see because they live in one of the most beautiful places in the world - Momchilovtsi. It's a beautiful place, I go there from time to time, and I always feel like an alien, congratulations for their choice, of course. But in a way they are very good ambassadors of what Bulgaria is, because they go back to the Netherlands, they go to other places, they tell stories, the lady wants to be a tour guide. But don't forget that there are two million Bulgarians in the world who, in my opinion, are the best ambassadors of our country. Every good and not so good thing they can do. But our compatriots, whether they are waiters, whether they are taxi drivers, whether they are managers who work in “City” in London or in Seattle at Microsoft, are in fact the real, natural ambassadors of Bulgaria, and the way they present themselves, that is how our country will be remembered.

Host: We tried to find out what happens to Celine and Mace, because we filmed this story in 2019, if they are still living in Bulgaria. It turned out that they do live here, but they do pop over to the Netherlands from time to time. And by the time we tracked them down, we found out that an Argentinian man was already living in Momchilovtsi, and he found one of our girls, but not in the meadows of Rozhen, but at a stop in Southern California. He took her around Costa Rica and Peru, but the magic of the Rhodopes prevailed and now they both live happily in Bulgaria. We'll now go live with them. Hello, why the Rhodopes and not Andy, for example? That was the story of some young people.

Maxim: I don't know anyone who doesn't like Bulgaria. Well, love is another category, people can love more, less. But we are talking about the foreigners. Our national psychology is a bit different and probably, maybe not only in Bulgaria people are not happy, but they also find many more faults when they are locals than when they are foreigners. But I have come to know in these 30 years maybe a few thousand, maybe tens of thousands of Americans, British, investors, journalists, adventurers, people in love... they stay in Bulgaria with all the difficulties because, again, it is one of the best countries in Europe and maybe in the world to live, to do business, it just has its peculiarities that you have to get used to. Spain also has its peculiarities; Italy also has its peculiarities. Not to mention Turkey, Greece, which are even more reinforcedwith local habits, history, and culture. But in Bulgaria, I'm not talking about Momchilovtsi at all. This, Momchilovtsi, is not Bulgaria, it's just a different planet, because it's really very beautiful, it's peaceful, the people are Rhodope, it's quite different. Bulgaria is a wonderful country. There's not a person, a foreigner, that you can meet and who won’t tell you the same, wherever it is.

Host: We are joined in the studio by Biso Bisrat from Ethiopia and Dr. Mona Kaushik from India. Just like we can travel all over the world, as Maxim Behar said at the beginning of the show, that we are citizens of the world, so does the world come to us, and it turns out these people feel good here. How would you comment on these two stories that have really found their place here?

Maxim: Natural processes. They both have a connection with Bulgaria, they found their place, it makes the most sense for them to stay here. I want to add a side note just to mention the Bulgarian hospitality, which is well-known, very appreciated, very respected. However, if we want to be a very successful country, and this is a very, I will say, psychological point, even though there is also a bit of economy, one day we will become as busy as America. If we want to become a successful country, one day we will become boring and conservative like in Switzerland, as the woman from the amazing farm was saying. It is possible. In my opinion, these things are incompatible, purely from an economic point of view, because if we want a very successful country, and for Bulgaria to become nicer and nicer and more successful and for us to feel better, we will have to work harder. To work more we will have to have a much busier life. And you know, the big advantage of Bulgaria is two things. First the people, no doubt about it. The people, the people, the people. And secondly, the fact that Bulgaria, in my opinion, is the only country in the world right now where there are so many niches for doing business. In no other Eastern European, let's say comparable countries, let's say Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, is there an opportunity to do business so quickly and so successfully. If you work well, if you have good projects, if you are innovative, but the niches are there. There are niches, which many other countries don't have, and I think that's why it's an even more attractive place and that's another reason why there are more and more people in Bulgaria.

Host: Dr. Kaushik in India believes in reincarnations. Could it be that somehow the soul has been to some place many lifetimes ago and is trying to return there to finish something.

Dr. Kaushik: Maybe not the soul, but karma or...oh, it's a very deep subject. But yes, we all have some kind of debt to the world, to this material world. And that's why we always must look for the balance. That's very important.

Maxim: Just two weeks ago I came back from Behar, Spain, where I spent ten days. I met the mayor, we talked, I brought him gifts from Bulgaria, I brought him replicas of the Panagyurishte Treasure.

Host: This is the city of your ancestors?

Maxim: This is certainly the town where my ancestors left so many years ago. I haven't slept in that one week. Aside from the Spanish wine and the "jamón" and everything, it's been a tremendous excitement. And I'll be back again next year, organizing a world reunion of all Behar-s from around the world. We're scattered all over the world, there are hundreds of thousands of people, and I think that's something I can give to the place where I'm from. This is my business, public communications, to be able to bring as many people as I can from all over the world to this wonderful, unique city of Behar.

Host: Thank you so much for being with us.

You can see the whole interview here.