THE NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSEMBLY TAKES DECISIONS
(About Bulgarian Barbarity at Lowest Level) — Part One
Jotata – Atatoj, 2022
Abstract: Here are described some petty quarrels about trifles in a little neighbourhood (an entrance of big apartment building) in Bulgaria, i.e. about collecting of common money from everybody, which are indicative about both, our democratic poverty, and our barbarity. The point is that such is the behaviour of common people, not of highly placed political figures, so that our poor democratic achievements are results not only of objective circumstances but also, and predominantly, of our inborn barbarity in a country of unbelievers! The material is in form of really written letters to the neighbours, which all have remained without proper actions on the part of the masses. However, because it turned out at the end that the piece came to be pretty big (about 30 pages), I have decided to split it in two parts; yet it is interesting and funny enough, I vouch for this.
[ Idea for illustration: Ah, this is a task that I don't like much but try to do in case of necessity some time (after my demise, probably). So usually I require putting of a picture (square and probably 450 x 450 pixels) under the title and the author, and in this case on it has to be shown the following: in the left part of it are depicted 3 snakes (let them be cobras) staying on their tails with stuck out forked tongues, under which, in an oval and with arrows pointing to them, is written "barbarous neighbours", and in the right part stays humbly one chicken or duckling (pictured for more fun with spectacles), with partially plucked feathers lying around it, and below it similarly, in an oval and with pointing arrow, is written "democratic pauper"! I think that this is eloquent enough that it goes about bad neighbourhood and poor innocent victims of our democracy. ]
CONTENTS
In the first part:
-1. Preliminary remarks
0. Picturing of the situation
1. First letter
2. Second letter
3. Third letter
4. Fourth letter
5. Fifth letter
6. Sixth letter
+1. Intermediate conclusion
In the second part:
-2. Short second introduction
7. Seventh letter
8. Eighth letter
9. Ninth letter
10. Tenth letter
11. Eleventh letter
12. Twelfth letter
+2. Closing remarks
-1. Preliminary remarks
It is right in the beginning to say something about this, why I have begun to write this spitting at our country material, though the simplest answer would have been: well, because they deserve this! So that let me remind to my readers that still less than 10 years ago I had no idea that I will turn to be some new Jotata (this is a known name of Bulgarian literary personage), and one my main and additional 1-2 less important pseudonyms sufficed me enough, where my main anti-democratic line of creativity was pretty good expressed also there, and in the poetical aspect I have succeeded to fabricate already more than 20 thousand lines. [And allow me to squeeze here a remark about my usage of Latin chars for writing, usually in single quotes, of foreign words from nearly every language, and this in the way how they are read, which is reduced chiefly to using "y" for the sound like in your "girl", which is read as 'gyhl', and also "j" is like in German, like Johannes or also in "may"='maj'. What means then that my name is not 'dzhotata' but 'jotata'.] So that I had expected nothing of the kind, but there appeared the incident with our NSSI (this is Bulgarian National Social Security Institute — look at my "Open Letter to Bulgarian Public"), where high state authorities faked to be, according with our apt expression, slapped on the head with a wet rag (and this has knocked all the brains out of them), only not to answer directly my questions, because this direct answer would have put them in a bad light. Well, I personally continue to think that so, how it has happened, they were exposed in even worse light.
So also here. I have written from time to time by a letter to my neighbours in the entrance, not at all very often, not more frequently than once a year, and nobody paid any attention to me, but my conscience was clear (that I have done what I can in order to turn their attention at the fact, that they just show themselves in a bad light). But well, when there became clear that by us nothing will change by itself, even after turning attention at the faults and ridiculing (and also a bunch of nationwide protests in the recent years have proven, that not only I am from those, who do not like this wildness called democracy), then I have begun to do the only possible thing, to enlarge the auditory of my readers! And then the idea about one material exposing the barbarity at the lowest level began to look to me quite appropriate. Said — done, and I have begun to collect my letters, which I have sent to my neighbours, chiefly of feminine gender. And they have become quite many, and I still waited that something will change, but, darn it (if you will forgive me my colloquial expression), nothing changed and everything went according to our Bulgarian phrase "You speak to it, but it chews and chews!" (meaning a ruminant, say, a cow). How in that NSSI, or in the Parliament, or in whatever party (because I have sent copies from this Letter to several leading political parties), so also here, the bad manners or stupidity remain stupidity, but the word barbarity is more qualified, so that I will stick to it.
And what I understand under barbarity? Well, I have explained this at several places, and it is reduced chiefly (but with other conclusions) to the common understanding of all nations in the world, to godlessness, to the absence of shame before God, to the attitude towards our neighbours as to, if not enemies, then at least indifferent to us home animals (in accordance with the saying that "on another person's back even a hundred of sticks are not enough"), while, look, if it goes about something foreign, then we will like it (in the most cases). This can be common human trait, but the different religions (and as if all of them) fight somehow with this, force the masses to unite exactly with their neighbour, because he is like you and when you unite then everyone becomes stronger. This is very like communist propaganda, but it is such because the communism is similar to the religions. (And for this reason the communists denied the religions, because they have tried to substitute them, to introduce morality, for the reason that without such thing a state can't be ruled, and because of this after 1990 this social order has begun to be called totalitarian, because on the West the moral was thrown out of government sometime after the French Revolution; this is so, but allow me to remind you, by the way, that the throwing the morality out of civil government does not mean denying of the Churches from the society, only that by us, because of our godlessness, the rejection of communism meant also the rejection of all morality — something what in English is called loss of values.)
So that this is barbarity, not to consider your neighbour even for a … plum, like we often say (we have such expression because the plum is the most common fruit). And as far as this looks pretty strange for my readers from abroad (because in my country I simply can not publish myself, by us is necessary to pay for everything, but in some other countries is possible to speak free what you want to say), so because of this let me list a few reasons why the situation in our country, and in this case in the entrance of my housing cooperative, is becoming more complicated and looks like in some soap opera. Only that I will not order them by their importance, because this requires deeper thinking (and I am already above 70), I will simply record them. So for one thing this is so because I am living in Sofia, and this is our capital, as you know, and when so then it is full with — ha-ha, yet it is so — country inhabitants (the exact Balkan word is 'pejsani', which is peasant in English, paysan in French, and paesano in Italian)! Allow me not to go into details here, but this is commonly accepted fact for the whole world, because the elite as if needs a big number of service personnel, but above all because these villagers are trying to get into the capital, with the hope to grasp some fat morsels around the big shots. And in our entrance as if the only intellectuals were my father and myself, all the left are from the surrounding villages and ordinary workers.
Then, and related with the previous, is this, that when there are some groups from opposite strata of the population, people (or animals, if you like) with very different characteristics, then they, naturally, will not like much one another, but more hate those, who are inferior in the given respect, than vice versa, that those who are better should not like those who are worse! I have read this nowhere, have come alone to this conclusion, but it must be known phenomenon for the psychiatrists, I can only motivate it. So, for one thing, the better ones were sometime worse and this is a known situation for them (nobody was born educated), and for another thing, they are more forgiving to the bad ones (because they have gone through this stage), while the worse ones are aware of this and they just get angry (or are jealous of the others), that, you see, the others can (become better) but they can't (or be it that they won't, it is up to the same). You take for example: nicer and uglier, more intelligent and sillier, stronger and weaker, wealthier and poorer, younger and older, and other similar examples, and you will see that it is so (and, e.g., the older ones more do not understand or honour the younger, than on the contrary, because they know that the nice thing is the youth, but they are not more such).
Then it comes this consideration that everyone judges by himself, and who is bad and unmoral, he supposes the same also about his neighbour, and here everybody looks only how to outwit his neighbour, to cheat him (especially after the coming of our democracy and on the background of absence of religiosity in our minds, as I have pointed this out), so that everywhere, and above all on the lowest level, reigns widespread deception! Add to this also the fact that when one deceives his neighbour he feels proud of himself, naturally, that he has proved to be more cunning. And the intellectuals earlier were more moral, not so much because they have studied Marxism-Leninism but because they were from a more privileged stratum, and this obliges (and also in those times there were not miserable intellectuals, they have received decent salaries). So, but especially when someone uses something more than the others (say, a lift), he thinks that also the others, who do not use this thing, must pay also like him, and the fact that they do not use the given thing is not important — let them use it, think they! Id est, they simply find some excuse for their low morality, think that it is only right that the others pay as much as they alone, though this is not just! Where I think that it is right if the common expenses are divided according to the people, and it is just (or fair) if this corresponds to the consumption, do you see how simple everything is? Yet it is impossible to explain these things to people with low morality, they want to cheat you, not to secure themselves a place in the Paradise, when they will go to the other world.
Then it comes this that … well, some people just have not enough brains and they are not able correctly to compare, can't make compromises and exceptions, they hide behind some orders in the general case and always pull the blanket to themselves, how a known Bulgarian proverb says; and this silliness or simplicity is a bad thing (and for this reason there exist priests in the religions, in order to explain the things to the people, to preach to them), because here arises positive feedback, i.e. the sillier one is, the cleverer he considers himself! Let me not go deep here either, but this is so, and for cleverest usually consider themselves the little children, or the senile old people, or also the idiots!
And by us exists also this (what most probably is in force also for other entrances), that these questions are decided by women, i.e. here it goes about Women's Assembly, and the women are known not only for their niceness (on which question I personally have special meaning, I state that the nice gender is the masculine one, yet the men have spread widely the phrase that the beautiful gender are the women, in order to please the "girls" a bit), but also for their partiality (and mark, please, that I do not say silliness but just inability to judge impartially about whatever) or increased emotionality. Yes, but in the end this partiality is equivalent to this, that they have little brains when something touches them personally, because they interfere only when something touches them alone, else they ignore it! And together with this can appear also other reasons for bad attitude of one people to some other, something personal, and the property status matters, too, because is something a trifle or not depends exactly on the personal income of the person, and is not something objective (because everything is relative).
So, and as a cap to everything comes also our silly (well, because it is not reasonable) democracy, that suggests and imposes on the people the conclusion, that they are those who know, that the more common persons they are, the better they can judge, and even those in the Parliament are taught and chosen by ordinary people, what, naturally, is putting the cart before the horse, according to the known English proverb! Because under the totalitarianism our barbarity was simply not seen, for one thing because then there were not reasons for big differences between people (there existed an equalization of the incomes), and for another thing the communists somehow have taught us, they did not allow to 'Sulju' and 'Pulju' (i.e. the most ordinary little people) to teach the party cadres, so that the ordinary people have just sat quietly and obeyed. Yes, but it is not so nowadays, today everything is on the contrary, against the common sense (which is fixed in the morality, which is preached by the religions, but this if the country is religious, and not like ours).
Well, as if this preamble has opened like a real peony, from one small bud and has invaded the main theme, but I think that this was necessary, because when I will later cite some downright stupid but persistent (we use sometimes this expression) decisions of my neighbours, some of you may begin to wonder how is this possible, did they come down from Mars? No, my neighbours are … ordinary Bulgarian barbarians, very nice people, but still barbarians! And that the barbarianism is not at all such bad thing — yet it is, still, barbarianism — let me leave to clear in the Conclusion.
And the last addition is that the letters have become too many and the volume of material has grown, so that I was forced to split it in two more or less equal in length parts, but they are thematically justified, because in the second part appears a new character, who beats all the others (in relation to the barbarity, of course), and this also takes place whole 10 years after the beginning of this saga.
0. Picturing of the situation
Well, the situation by us is such, that one can just despair, because we are, as they say, an unbridled team! We haven't had a house manager since I can remember (say, 20 years), because this takes time but is paid nothing for it, and with the coming of democracy, as you know, it must be paid for everything. We have a cashier, who collects money chiefly for the lift, and this is for this reason that some people are lazy to walk, I'll tell you, because the building has only 6 storeys, what is equal to 5 storeys in a normal old building (you know that today the storeys are simply lower), so that this is a height that any healthy person should be able to overcome, and I personally, although I have already 70 and more years [now, in the moment of writing of this material], do exactly so, I climb up on foot, and feel much better after this exercise. But well, there are ailing persons, mothers with children and prams (from time to time), so that this is a necessity, but if it will be rarely used it will less go out of order, so that I am again right about this, that it is good if one will always, when this is possible — and at least down every healthy person can do this —, eliminate it, what we would have also done, if it was paid with Stotinki-cents and a cash box, how it was in the good old days.
Yes, but that cashier (or more precisely of feminine gender), about whom I remember for a long time (after 2006, when I have remained alone and have begun to pay for everything personally), collected the money not on the basis of people, but equally from each apartment, and from there it all started. Because there is a difference — isn't it? — between 1 person and 3 persons, and more so if they are 4! And there are apartments where live even 4 persons, and these are — ah, what a coincidence! — exactly those persons, who are the initiators and supporters of collecting the money according to the apartments, with the excuse, that in this way it was easier, where otherwise the persons often changed, one month it is so and the next else, and similar phrases. And for some average establishing of the number of people within an year (say, based on the last year), and with some individual coefficients, in all appearances, is necessary to have at least one tertiary education, otherwise it is downright impossible to shove this in the heads of my she-neighbours (because those who decide these questions are up to 95 % women).
So that this old management was hiding behind some alleged (because no one can confirm this) decision from the old days, only that earlier the lift worked with Stotinki, and there were no rich people, what should have imposed the necessity for existence of poor ones, so that these are just speculations. More than this, I personally recall myself that somewhere roughly in the 1995-th I went around all the apartments with one sheet with a proposition to collect for the lift in accordance with the floor, say, by this scheme (I don't remember now exactly): from the 3-rd floor with coefficient 1, from the 4-th with such of 1.25, from the 5-th with 1.45, and from the 6-th with 1.6, what looked pretty good and justified calculated, and with what the majority of people have agreed (not for other reasons, but because by us most people live on the 3-rd and 4-th floors); yet this, naturally, did not enter in force, I wanted only to prove that if we will count according to the persons, then we must also take into account the very floors (but I lived on the 5-th floor [out of 6], so that I have not proposed something that is profitable for me and disadvantageous for the others, but what is simply justified).
Then appeared also the problem with the cleaning woman, who came 2 times in a week and washed, really, each time with water (and even with hot one, because she alternated us to take by a bucket of hot water). Then this thing ceased to exist, because we somehow have not succeeded to find a cleaning woman. Then people began to decrease, some of them died, and new ones as if appeared, only that they did not live here but merely bought an apartment as investment, like a second home. Then emerged new decision to collect money for the cleaner from each apartment, not according to the people, what was entirely unjustified, and exactly at that moment I have begun to write my nice little letters, which, as I hang them on the board at the entrance, and someone immediately takes them down the same day! And why do they do this? Ah, why we are 'Bugari' [how the Serbs say], what means that we are barbarians!
And together with this appeared one even more funny and insignificant questions, but we would not have been Bulgarians if we were not able to make from a fly a real elephant! It turns out that the lighting for the staircase and the electricity for the lift were connected to one common plug, so that it is impossible to tell exactly how much costs the one thing and how much the other one, and with this they have begun to speculate not with percents, but with times, and even with 10 and more number of times, but from this point ahead I begin to cite my letters, which are quite detailed and explain (like for people with retarded development) everything, and some things even repeat themselves, but nevertheless they are not solved in the right way (at least right, not to speak about just decision, from everybody according with his consumption). So that I go to my letters, which I cite practically word for word, with only little anonymization, where is possible that on some places will be new comments closed in square brackets. Nice laughing!
1. First letter
Open letter to those living in the complex "Complex", block 696, entrance X, dated 04.04.2011, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Questions: where to some of them may answer everybody, who feels involved in them, and some are rhetoric.
1. When we do not have officially any management, who arrogates to himself the right to forbid people the right to comment the materials, that are hanged on the board, assuming that only his opinion is important? [Because when I attach there some piece of paper with my opinion it disappears immediately.]
2. How can the lift work now already whole month without collecting for it whatever money? Does this mean that the "reserves" of old management were so big (because it spends in a month about 60 Lev together with the service charge), or later will be collected from us money for turning on of the electricity, after it will be turned off (40 Lv [this is improbably high fine, because in those years my consumption for an entire month came up to about 10 Lv, so that here you have one more proof for our barbarity, only at an intermediate level, such of some enterprises]); or then we already have fractions in the entrance and everything is done secretly [in all appearances this is rhetorical questions, because we have had fractions then, and have them today]? Generally, is it not clear, at least for a person with certain economic education [and I have a suspicion that the she-cashier seems to be working as a cashier somewhere, but I can't vouch for this], that when some cash desk (or management) passes into other hands, there must firstly be nullified all accounts, what means that the subscription service of the lift must be stopped, its meter must be turned off, and be left only the lighting on the stairs (or it also must be turned off), because it spends about 5-6 Lv /month? ( You calculate this alone: when there are present 6 light bulbs by 40 Wt are necessary 4 hours for making of 1 kWh, which in the moment is roughly about 16 St or by 4 St/h together, and with an automatic switch they will hardly be switched on for more than 1 hour in 24 hours, and multiply this by 30 days, and then divide by 35 persons, and this will give again about 4 St for a whole month for a person, but let them be 10 St /person — yet not 1 Lv or 1.30 [because then they wanted to take from me this amount]. Respectively, if you calculate it otherwise, it turns out that some persons are harmed by 1 Lev per month, and this, it seems, over the course of several years [what corresponds with the truth], what will give roughly by 10 Lv in an year, or about 50 Lv in total per person; for those who use the lift it is not so important for which article the money will be calculated, but even there exists not a little difference for apartments with only 1 person, to what we are coming now, so that the right calculations are always preferable. )
3. Does it not seem to you that that "someone", who posts the materials (that no one has right to comment, according to the point 1.), reads them, in all appearances, and in the words of our people, like "the devil reads the gospel"? Because there is written clear that expenses for consumables are divided according to the persons, and not according the apartments. ( And if now we look at those who use the lift, then there were left such persons only in 8 apartments [out of 18 in the entrance], and 2 from them (969 and 972) were simply lost as clients due to obviously unjust policy, but as if in 3 more (970, 971, and 961) live also by one person, yet I think that all together the persons are 16 (out of 12 possible apartments), so that some pay 2 times more, and for them exists difference how it is paid, by a person or by an apartment. And mostly affected are the persons from the upper floors and above the average age, i.e. in numbers 968, 970, and 971; while in the same time those from the 3-rd floor, quite definitely, can refuse it; then there are some apartments where live by 2 persons, so that to them it is just the same [how will be paid]; and then there remain only 1-2 apartments where their inhabitants "muddy the water", and this already for years [absolutely true], because, when before 5 years I have refused the lift — and since then I feel myself much better —, I have done this mainly because the question was wrongly put and contradicted to the common sense. And excuses of the kind that sometime something was accepted are entirely unsustainable, because this was in the "good old time", when the communal expenses were whole 10 times lower than nowadays, and, for example, nobody has thought to turn off his steam heating [But by us at least in 2 apartments it was stopped, and this by cutting the pipes and plugging them with a plug, because it was impossible in another way.] )
4. Does really "someone" think that will make some people pay for unused services, because they, see, were common? I personally have paid till this time something for the lift (each month by 1 Lev or together more than 50 Lv), but this was because I was brought up with communist consciousness, whatever this may mean for the people, but even I think that so much … backshish is enough, and, how our people say: who has f#cked (probably flicked, ah?), has f#cked, 'Mara'-Mary or 'Pena' or how else her name is, is not more a whore [we really have this funny proverb]. (Let us make it clear that the lift is not like the electricity, water, or steam heating which are compulsory for everybody, and if one is against then he hinders the others, no, the using of lift [in such low building] is a question of desire, luxury, if you want, how would have been to have or not a video camera at the entrance, a metal door, an intercom, or a halogen lamp with detector for turning on, and similar things.) In general, why some persons, who are leaving some post [how it has become later, because the dissatisfaction with this cashier was massive] want to be remembered exactly with something bad?
Propositions, regarding the house manager, the cleaner, the lift, and some other common topics.
1. About the manager of the house. With the coming of democracy, as you know: the cheese is with money [we have such proverb, because the cheese, and specially the white one, is our main food]! Id est, for everything must be paid something, even if not much. My proposition is about such trifling sum, about which nobody will raise a question (because so much costs one … emptying of the bladder in a public toilet on the street), or by 50 St /person in a month, what will give in the moment about 18 Lv, but with a tendency to increasing (because the Arabs and Chinese still like us, so that somebody will come to live by us); no matter that this is a small amount, but the work is also not much, and for one year this gives more or less as much, as one pays for the steam heating (about 250 Lv). If this is still not enough, then we can join us with the entrance Y, and then the money will grow twice.
2. For the cleaner /cleaning woman. Similar proposition by 50 St /person in a month, or nearly 20 Lv /mon for him (or her), where the cleaning will be nearly symbolic, but this is, still, better than nothing, i.e.: once in a week dry sweeping, and once (eventually twice) in a month washing with water. This is approximately 4 times less work than before and for more money, so that probably someone from the entrance will agree (more so, because some persons already do this partially [well, a housewife can't stand it and goes out to the landing with a broom to sweep a little, but this becomes necessary only around the lift and on the landing, not on the very staircase]).
3. About the lift. The easiest variant is to collect from every person. who uses it, by 5 Lv /mon. where probably a little will remain and will accumulate for repairs. Another variant is if there will be some coefficients for the storeys and /or its usage (this is a bit complicated, yet not impossible). Another obvious variant is with a cash box (or with some kind of card with a chip), where will be taken into account also the number of ascents or descents. (Generally speaking in most of the cases exist two extreme variants: right-wing or right, correct, i.e. according to the consumption, respectively to the contribution, and left-wing or just, justified for the weaker, i.e. from everyone, or to everyone, the same, and even from the wealthier more. The used in the entrance variant is something like ultra-right-wing, or — like also our democracy — anti-people one!)
4. For the lighting (on the staircase and in the cellar). Because this is symbolical expense, can be collected by 2 Lv from each person and used until they run out (probably till the end of the year). If it goes only about this article, and if there is no decision about the above points, then the money can be paid also me, but after the lift will be stopped, naturally.
5. About the quorum. Because it is not easy to gather us together for a common meeting, and we are also "unbridled team", I propose, if there are reasonable propositions, to hang them on the board (and they must remain there for 3 to 5 days, not less, and not a whole month), and eventually to vote them on some piece of paper.
My views on some of the raised topics.
1. About the question with the lift, then I do not think (at least for now), that whoever has misappropriated common money and has done something on the purpose, most probably here also, like nearly everywhere, people make errors because they have ... not much brains (in order to properly value their own interest), yet I do not exclude entirely patronage of their own people, and desire for quarrels (in order to have more ... actions). (I don't believe that persons doing obvious financial fraud, have pretended to be intellectuals — earlier was said Gypsies, but nowadays this is not more relevant — because of some 2-3 Lv /mon, if they have work and in their home entered in a month, say, 1000 Lv [500 Euro]. In any case it is clear that from now on all calculations must be announced on the board and checked, because — well, we all know the tale about the deceitful shepherd.) And its stopping is necessary, in order that people could practically check how much they need it, because under our democracy is more than obvious that we are forced to limit some of our wishes (when after more than 20 years we are still in crisis, i.e. we have not jumped out of it [the years are now more than 30 and we are still outsiders in the whole Europe]), and without lift, believe me people, is much more healthier; but also because there is nobody to take the cash register again, otherwise the current situation is simply an usurpation of power. However, it is not correct to raise the issue with an old date now — we must have thought in time (like, e.g., when we have chosen our King, or 'Bojko' The Bully, or the Gaiduk Sider, or the First Man, or Become Chief, and so on [well, here, obviously, I am playing with our political leaders, where, as follows: the Tsar-King, though uncrowned, we have really chosen once, then comes Boyko Borisov, who really looks like a bully, then Volen Siderov, and we have had once some gaiduk Sider, then is our Parvanov, whose name means exactly this, "the first", and at the end is Stanishev, what literally says "become boss" = 'stani+shef', and we have chosen them all with enthusiasm, probably to some extent because of their names]).
2. If the question with the house manager continues to hang unsolved, then we must resolve, inasmuch as this is possible, that with the cleaner, and probably by choosing of some "council" consisting of by one person from each floor, for example, in order that these persons were able to gather easy together and listen to one another.
3. But let us clear the point: this, that I have my views and give advices, does not mean that I personally (for I have heard similar hints) must stand up "before the muzzle of the gun" (as official, or not, manager of the house); I simply can not work with the masses (like it was said earlier), for the reason that I think that one must always behave reasonably — yet people don't want this (they want to be deluded — Mundus vult decipi!, in Latin).
Well, it is enough for the moment. Views and criticisms on this material — either in my post box, or on the board, or by the phone: 000-11-22.
Jotata Jotabashev
2. Second letter
Letter to the living in complex "Complex", bl. 696, ent. X, on Easter 2012, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Well, this time the questions, which I intend to touch, are not so important, so that if you don't want to read them you can skip them, but I want to express my opinion; only that, please, do not take off this piece of paper at least 3 days (I will take it off [because the last time it was immediately taken off, as I said]).
1. I may begin with the constatation that thanks to my constructive criticism from the last year the lift works flawlessly, and even nobody collects money, and maybe people alone carry it to whom is necessary (how it also must be). It is clear that in Bulgaria is worked in Bulgarian manner, what in this case means: through impudence to progress! Id est, if something is taken without objections then this means that one can try to get another fat morsel. Be it as it may, I will assume that the matter is settled, at least for now, although surely not in the right way, according to the persons, but in the wrong one, i.e. unjust, not tied with the consumption way according to the apartments. This question is not at all without significance, because it arises (and will do this) also in various other cases (say, for the lighting on the staircase in the moment is collecting nothing at all, at least from me nobody wants anything, but it would have been possible to collect by 1 Lv from a person in an year), where, if we take aside such "hard" cases like me with a single person in an apartment (what, naturally, could have been treated somehow, say, asking half of the fee), and if we take out literally 1-2 families with more than 3 persons, then the basic part are such where are exactly 2, eventually with one additional person who can be counted for a half one (a child, or an adult bedridden patient, or one who does not use the given thing). I want to say, that if "the water" will not be "mudded" it is possible to proceed also on the basis of apartments, but in some special cases to be able to introduce some coefficient, normally from 0.5 (or even 0.25) till 1.5 (maximum 2) and work according to the apartments, but this is not right, and in most of the regulatory documents this is taken into account; alternatively, and also the right way, is to work on the basis of persons, where again may turn to be necessary to apply some coefficient in a pair of special cases. In any case, I personally think, no matter that, thank God, I do not use any lift (what I have begun to do, first of all, due to the quarrels with the Gossiper [an invented pseudonym] earlier), could have paid for half a person, or for a 1/4 of an apartment, for example, and again not to use it, because this is absolutely harming to the health, at least for old (above, say, 50 years) persons.
2. It is interesting for me also the fact, that, since I have proposed to collect by 50 St from a person (one ... emptying of the bladder on the street) in a month, in order to sweep the stairs 1-2 times in a week and eventually to wash them once in a month, so from that time on, in a typically Bulgarian manner (in this case, silly, if you ask me) this, for one thing, is done by somebody, and for another thing, there is paid nothing to him! Well, when in the poorest state of European Union someone, who performs this unpleasant (generally) work, does not especially need some 200 Lv in an year, then this can only make me happy.
3. My proposition, in order to have a house manager, to collect again by 50 St per person per month, or probably better by 5 Lv in an year from everybody, remains in force.
4. For the symbolical consumption of electricity on the staircase and in the cellar (approximately 1 Lv per year [a thing about which I make again calculations after several letters, by the new she-manager of the house, in the second part, and they become again the same]) is good, that nobody takes anything (at least from me nobody wants money), yet let us clear the point, that this is not because those who use the lift are so good to the people from the left 1/3 of the apartments, but because they have collected from us money for roughly 20 years ahead!
5. In connection with the roof repairs earlier, frankly speaking, I don't think that something is done, and the situation by me is tragic, i.e. where it has flown, is flowing again [we have such proverb]! My opinion is such, that it flows chiefly not there, where they have changed the covering with asphalt sheets, but somewhere around the sheet metal to the gutters; more than this, there the things have worsened (because the first year after the repair it has not leaked, as far as I remember), due to this, that some people perform external repairs, and lowering the ropes with the "swings" (or boats, I can't say for sure, but where the workers sit) crumples something [around the periphery of the roof]. This is a classical case pictured by Chudomir [who is our humoristic author] — that those who clean the chimneys crumble the tiles, and those who mend the tiles push a rag down the chimney.
6. Well, and this board down in the entrance can be used sometimes, I think. Because we, I beg your pardon, proceed again in Bulgarian manner, i.e. we jump from one extremity to the other. And in this case there hang only ads from external companies.
3. Third letter
Open letter (a next one) to those living in complex "Complex", bl. 696, ent. X, to the date 01.02.2018, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Sirs, once in five (or even more) years I think that have every right to write you one long letter, because when I hang some small notes exist people ("defenders"), who think that express the opinion of contempt of the whole public towards me and remove them, and some definitive part of you continues (I don't know for which exactly year in sequence) to "muddy the water", more or less in the same manner, and about the same questions with collecting of common money, believing that obvious absurdities are justified, only for the reason that this is beneficial to them! In the same time appear new persons in the entrance (for the old ones, little by little, have set off on the way to "meet their Maker"), and I have enough brains, so that for this reason I give it to everybody who wants (only that people just do not want — and because of this we also suffer on the whole in our country, i.e. that we have liquidated our intellectuals). In other words, I am "selling indulgences" to you, so that it does not turn out that, when you go to the other world and reach the gates of Paradise, St. Peter, when he finds out where are you from, will tell you: "Ah, you are from those, who wanted to starve Jotata Jotabashev by hunger, because he has not learned to ... fly over the stairs. Well, to you our Lord has added 5 more centuries of Purgatory, so that you go first there." (Because there as if is no God, but this can truly be proved by nobody, and even if He does not exist, then there exists something called conscience, this is reflection of our deeds on the other people, remembrances about us, and so on, so that there is no necessity, because of trifles, to spoil our image, is it not so?)
Now, there are several topics, that are related, so that I am in doubt with which one to begin, but I think that it is more proper to begin with the most unpleasant one, so that later you will feel better at heart. In addition to this, because I suppose that there exist three major groups of readers, let me give you some advice in the very beginning. If you are from those, who, mildly put, do not like me (because I have studied much, of course — even I myself would not have been pleased by somebody who has ... 3 times longer than mine, figuratively speaking, so that I understand people), then you skip the entire letter and go at once to the last paragraph, where I advise you what to do with the very letter, if you so much hate me. If you are from those, who are indifferent to me, then you just take this letter as an attempt to distract you a little with some comical situations (and if together with this I "propose you some indulgence", so that your conscience was clear, then there is in this nothing to worry about, because I don't want money from you). And if you are of those (eventually, I don't believe that such persons exist, but nevertheless, for the sake of completeness let me mention them, too), who like me or who commiserate with me — well, don't, I alone do not like myself much!
So, look now, you take from me one unwritten (yet useful) rule: the things can vary up +/- 2 times, if it is more than this, then this is not good, it leads to revolutionary situations, 3 times is already much, and more than this is simply a sin! And if in one average apartment live 2.5 persons, and if they are normal persons (not like me), i.e. they go out on the average about 1.5 times daily (counting in both directions, leaving and returning — and have in mind that I do not exaggerate, the number of courses is probably greater), then this gives for 1 day 3.75 times, or in a month 112 rimes, isn't it? But I take such number, because who works he goes out at least 1 time daily, yet when he returns from work, most probably, will go out again to some place to buy something, but this may be not each day; on the other hand, who does not work, he wants not at all to sit at home, he goes out 3-4 times in a day. Yes, only I go out on the average approximately 12 times in a month, I have told this to one of those who "muddy the water", yet in order not to make inadvertently some error I have begun to count this, and it turned out that for 6 months (7 – 12) I have 67 exits, or by 11 monthly, where the maximum by me was 15 (in the summer), and the minimum was 7 (in the winter), and now for January I have again 7 times. Id est 12 is quite rightly estimated, and I suppose that even first-grader will tell you that 110-120 is exactly 10 times more than 12, so that this, entirely obvious, is a robbery in broad daylight, am I right? [Because when, after the conversation with this person, who, in fact, is not exactly a person but a woman (ha-ha, right? [for in Bulgarian I use a word meaning a human, which is masculine, so that the joke in quite natural]), I have attached to the board one torn from somewhere piece of paper, on which was written that with me is practiced exactly the above mentioned kind of robbery, then one of the "defenders" has immediately taken it away, thinking, in all probability, that in this way, when something is hidden from the sight of the others, it will disappear. Well, it did not disappear, only that this person adds sins to his account (but, on the other hand, in this way he probably has honey dripping on his heart?).]
Now, I confess that I am going through all floors, and because of this I have said that it can be taken (although this is not correct), that I use the cleaner 3 times more than this, but even this is less than 1/3 of the average, and there, where are 3 and 4 persons, the things differ quite significantly. And let us not assert, please, that from the 1-st to the 5-th floor are 4 floors, because I have begun with this, that to 2 times plus or minus is allowed, but more than this is dangerous. Because then can be stated — and this with full justification (at least at first glance) — that those on the 5-th floor must pay for the lift 2 times more per person than those on the 3-rd (and those on the 6-th even more), and pay attention, please, that I compare with something around the middle. At second glance, however (because I have thought about this question), appear another considerations, for example, that important is the beginning of the movement and the stopping, not the steady (non-accelerating) movement, how this is, say, by the takeoff and landing of an aircraft; and similar considerations can be true also for the moving on the staircase, where after one passes 2 floors he has already left the main part of the dirt from his soles. I explain this pretty detailed, yet if we accept the heuristical rule about the 2 times (maximum till 2.5) increasing, or decreasing, respectively, i.e. 0.5 person (but it can be also 0.4), then the calculations are elementary.
Yet there exists also another point of view, who how much earns, this is a humane look, but it must not be left out of sight in cases of significant (most than 3 times) differences in the incomes. Because, for example, some say that when someone, also single person, can pay on the basis of apartments, then I also must be able to do this, but then comes this consideration, that that "someone" is owner of a company, and positively earns at least 3 minimal salaries, from 500 Lv for a round amount, or about 1500 – 2000 Lv, what is at least 10 times more than my modest pension of: then 140 Lv, later 150, and now already 170, isn't it? So that you pay again attention at the terrible increase of 10 (and more) times. Because, look here, you know that for the cars are paid taxes to the state, due to the fact that they pollute the air, and so on, but the humans also pollute it, do they not? So that let us now require from everyone, who passes further (in the direction of center) than, say, Lion bridge [in Sofia], to pay by 20 St /hour, something of the kind. Such taxes were collected sometime and somewhere, but, of course, one must show some minimal understanding, isn't it so? And I am speaking about myself, but the things repeat themselves, because I suppose that many people remember that by us has lived one old grandma above me, disabled on 96 %, from whom also have wanted to pay for the lift like for a whole apartment, because to her sometimes have come people. Id est, I am inventing nothing, and nobody can be sure that something of the kind will not happen also with him (e.g., when the fascists will take the power), so that you do not forget the humanity. And I personally, at least in the last 10 years live — believe it or not — on 1.50 Lv in a day (or 40-45 Lv /mon) for eating and drinking, and do not complain about this, but about the communal expenses (and also some unscrupulous neighbours). So that — if you alone can not do this comparison then I will do it for you — the required from me 3.50 for the cleaning woman mean that I must at least 2 days, or even 3, if I will give up my night cup, in a month eat nothing at all (for the health, ah?), or that 1 (double) passing on my part through the stairs costs me 30 St or 10 times more than the average (to say nothing about some apartments where live by 4 persons, but, darn it, they have not enough money for the petrol for the car). And generally, 10 times means that, for example, the bread can become 10 times more expensive and you will keep quiet! And so on, I am sorry that am telling obvious things to you, but some persons simply love to close their eyes (like, some say. the common Germans in their time have not known that the fascists have murdered with gas the Hebrews). The only excuse for such persons, and, regretfully, from our entrance, is (in my view) that the social cares must be function of the state — yes, but not in barbarian country like ours!
So, and now let me tell you what can be done. Regarding the cleaning woman I have decided that there are 3 variants: either we alone alternate to clean, sweeping only once in a week and with water once in a month, more than this is not necessary, what, if we have 36 persons in the entrance (and they are a bit more), means 1 month in 3 years. Not that I so burn with desire to sweep the stairs, but such decision will have some educative impact, especially for the children (if they litter more often). The other decision is to collect on the basis of persons, where I agree to count me for 1 person (no matter that I go out 12 times in a month, and not approximately 50 times averagely for a person). And it is possible also a compromising variant, with exceptions in some cases like me, counting me, say, for 0.7 person, or rounded to 1 Lv /mon.
Then, who has said, that it is so difficult to establish some approximate coefficients for every person for whatever, lift, cleaning woman, repairing of the intercom, at cetera, from the standpoint of the usage, but also the income? Further more, who has said that the persons must be counted as integer numbers? Fractions (at least ordinary such) exist from the times of Babylon, so that there are no problems for each apartment to take some approximate value. And also: who has said that people change all the time? Because can exist averaging, based on the previous year, and I can tell you my opinion about the 2 topmost floors: apt. 972 – 1 person (they say that they are 2, yet there lives even not 1 on the average, but well, when they have had money to buy a home and not to live in it, then let it be 1), 971 – 2 (officially there can be even 1, but this is in the summer, yet in the winter they are 4, so that 2 is quite justified), 970 – 1 (unquestionable), 969 (me) – from 0.2 (even) till 0.7 (it depends for what, for the cleaner is 0.7, for the lift is 0.2, if I will begin to use it sometime, say, after 70 or 75, because it is contraindicated for adult persons, and for something else as 0.5), 968 – 2.5 (they officially are 2, but sometimes there live up to 5 persons, so that 2.5 is right), 967 — 2.5 with tendency to increasing to 3 (but they can pretend to be counted also for 2, because sometimes they are missing for whole weeks), an so on. Also, Sirs, it is not at all necessary to do exact arithmetics with precision to Stotinki-cents each month (when the personal consumption differs so much), can be done once in an year calculations for a given article for the amount of 10 Lv expenses, and collect them each month in advance, where this will be fixed amount, what is significantly easier, and not I have invented this approach, it is used sometimes; at the same time 1 or 2 times in an year will be made equalizing calculations, again on the basis of 10 Lev. There is also possible for some common expenses to apply varying calculations, where some persons, the most concerned ones, pay 1/2 of the total amount, and the left part is paid by all (say, if are changed vertical water pipes, or a broken window, or by repairs of the roof, and so on).
And now let me move to the socialization. Here is one simple proposition: from everybody can be taken in a month amounts on one article till 1 % of his (her) income (counted on an apartment, with the dependable persons, like children etc.), and on the whole on all articles up to 3 %, where if the sum exceeds this but is in one lump (say, the roof will again begin to leak), then it can be extended till not more than an year (or 1/2 of it). Just one maximal ceiling, independently from all other calculations, this is also used variant. In order that this approach can be applied is necessary to make one list, where for each apartment will be given the number of really living there persons (possibly also with fractions), and the total amount of monthly income (calculated on the basis of last year), from here the average income per person as quotient to the MMS (minimal monthly salary, it can't be falsified), where the interesting thing is when these incomes are below 1 MMS, and for the bigger incomes it is not important how much above 3 such salaries; in this way it will be seen at once whether some amount must be lessened (1 % is easily taken). And let this list for each year, after its discussing with the persons, and even on the basis of their own data, is kept somewhere, so that there were no objections. Because the exceptional cases may account for only about 5 till 10 percents of all, yet not to take them into account is barbarity!
Apropos, in regard of the barbarity, I have not the habit to exaggerate, we expose us in a bad light before the entire world exactly with our barbarity, and because of this passes or not one generation of time (25 years) and appears some new incident with us; allow me to recall to you the last 3: the Leipzig Trial against Georgy Dimitrov, the case of a certain Antonov and the Pope himself, Bulgarian medics in Libya. In all of these cases is accepted that if we are Bulgarians, then we are giaours, savages, sodomites, and other epithets, without whatever reasons and proofs. Which we are not, like people understand this, yet, on the other hand, we are such, in our own way, because by us is possible not to have, for example: official baths at the price of 1-2 ... eggs per bathing (as it was before), public places for washing of cloths (laundromats) also with similar prices for one washing machine, public transport to Vitosha mountain [which is close at Sofia], reduced by 50 % tickets for city transport (not monthly cards) for some categories of people (for pensioners and students), paying to the medics according with personal income, similarly with the fees for studying, in children's institutions, sanatoriums, for communal expenses, and so on and so on. And the last record of Guinness, that you will meet in no other place even in the whole Solar system, is a pension of about 3 ... tram tickets per day, for all expenses! I personally have begun with a pension of 2.85 tickets per day, but now by me it is already about 3.5. And all this are merits of our own democracy, hurray gentlemen! And don't think, please, that this is not democracy, on the contrary, this is the democracy, to which I have dedicated at least the next below-given verse (in English), this is what our people can do, nobody forces us to choose our rulers, and the fact that they all turn to be only pretenders [and good for nothing, in Bulgarian the phrase is that "they are all 'maskari'"], how has said our [known writer] Aleko Konstantinov, well, that's that (we have even succeeded to shot dead one of our Presidents, like in the very America).
BULGARIA
B_ecause, you see, we are not like the other people,
U_nweller much, than under hammer and the sickle,
L_ook, some are pretty miserable, tears trickle.
G_reat never we were, yet in poorer conditions,
A_ccording to the others led life sated, decent,
R_ight now we seem to have at all confused the mission.
I_n fact, amidst such widely spread prosperity,
A_s we to live is symbol of barbarity!
[ And now, not that I want to boast, but for one to be able to write a verse in a foreign language, in addition even acrostic, with two triple rhymes, is not such an easy thing. If I have faced something like this before 30 - 40 years, I would have said to myself: "Ah, what a guy I have for my neighbour, he is probably very clever?", something of the kind, and would have given thought to what he says. But who is to begin to think from my neighbours, especially from my she-neighbours, when there happens nothing occasionally by them, yes, they are doing this on purpose, in order to deceive me how only they can, because the barbarity by them goes out through their noses? Well, during this whole material I am proving exactly this, and will do it till the very end of it, but the truth is that in this case there was no response at all, neither positive, no negative, for the reason that the persons (chiefly ladies, as I have said) have tried to cheat me, and when they have not succeeded in this, have dropped the matter, right? What is the purpose to pay attention to intelligent words? If they have been silly, then they probably would have done this, yet in this case not! In general, this is another proof of the known Latin proverb: "Don't cast pearls before swines!", what I, it turns out so, have done in whole my life. ]
So, and now let me tell you what to do with this letter, if you do not like it, because you do not like me (because I have studied much and for this reason am unemployed for now more than 25 years). Well, firstly you tear it apart with your teeth and nails, although you can use on some places also scissors, then you place it in some plate or ashtray and burn it, and after this you throw it in the toilet bowl and let the water run, so that it sweeps out the last remnants of it. This is the right way, because so it undergoes several methods of destruction, otherwise your anger will not go away. And if, for example, somebody decides to wipe his backside with it, then this not only is not soft (3-layer) toilet paper, but it will be difficult for him to tear it later with teeth and nails, am I right? Well, bye-bye then.
This is everything. Views and criticisms: in my post box, on the board at the entrance, of by phone 000-11-22, jotata@abracadabra.com, Jotata Jotabashev
4. Fourth letter
To my cell-mates from complex "Complex", bl. 696, ent. X, to the date 02.01.2019, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Sirs (not excluding also the ladies, madames, mademoiselles, old women, and young children),
Happy new year to you, although I don't like this 2019 year, because this number is simply not nice, unfinished, but with the years it is like also with the girls — some are good, but the majority are vicious —, so that let us hope that all of us will end it alive and healthy.
I want just to inform you that for the whole 2018-th I have went out (descent and climbing) exactly 108 times (1-st half-year 53, and 2-nd one 55), what gives 9 times in a month, and when I have paid by 1.50 Lv /mon (via a go-between, because the originators of the initiative for the cleaning woman are adamant in their wrong decision), then this means that one exit costs me 16 St, what after all can be endured. This now is not robbery in a broad daylight, but only democratic begging, what nowadays is met each day in our unmoral democracy. The right for me would have been by 1 Lev /mon, and the super-right only 10 Lv /year for a round account, including also all expenses. Yet this is too extreme solution, my behaviour is simply not normal, I must go out about 15 times in a month, what I wish to myself for the future, but I just have no time to go walking on the streets, as well also not enough money in order to visit more often the shops.
At the same time I think that one averagely taken person goes out 1.5 times a day (in both directions), or 45 times monthly. This means that if there live 2 persons in the apartment then they have 90 exits monthly, or by 4 St each time [providing they pay 3.5 Lv], and there where are 3 and 4 persons it will turn out even by 2 St for a time. Every one can check this with his (her) goings out, writing somewhere by a dash on returning home. Yet I am not explaining this to you in order to pretend for lessening of the payment — when my pension is increased each year by about 10 Lv per month, then I may allow myself to give to the "beggars" 10 Lv more for a whole year. And the begging is obvious not only because they pay 5-10 times less than me for one and the same service, but also because their incomes are at least 5 times more than mine (which is about 1/3 MMS, the minimal salary, and the average one is 2 and 1/3 = 7/3 MMS). Only that these people would prefer rather to shoot a bullet in their heads, than to divide the total amount even by whole numbers of persons (to say nothing about rounding with precision of 1/4, for example, where they must have counted me for 3/4 of a person), what will allow lessening of the price per person, because the practice in the entrance shows that, more or less, one person goes our (to the other world), and two come in to live here.
But such is the essence of our anti-people's democracy, where are not tickets (not monthly cards) for old people and students, isn't public transport to Vitosha mountain, there are not people's prices for social services (baths, laundromats, eateries but cheaper, at cetera), to the medics is paid not in accordance with the personal income (and this is a fee, this is not real cost of the service, so that it can be made such how we vote it to be), there is not a normal income tax (but is a maximally right-wing flat tax [it is so in Bulgaria, and in addition, if I am not wrong, this was proposed by the former communists]), and many other things, so that our barbarity is more than obvious. We are very meek people (thanks to the Turkish yoke [nearly 5 centuries], alas), and with this our barbarity we hinder only one another, yet the people in the other countries do not understand this and ascribe us God knows what sins, where before roughly one century was one Inter-allied war [of all Balkan states against one Bulgaria], because we are Bugari [how the Serbs say]. So that, if you want, you draw your conclusions, but the point is in this, that whatever our neighbourhood assembly is, such is also our National Assembly [our Parliament], only that they have there bigger prerogatives (what is not the same as ... preservatives [and have in mind also that the last word for us means condoms])! But well, let me finish here, with one old song, yet with a new text, and with excuses before the Russophobes:
[It is in Bulgarian, so that I do not intend to translate it, and it is just a couplet, and it parodies one song of Renaissance period, 1870-80 years, where it is sung that all the inhabitants of our city Klisura have become Muscovites, and those from Panagyurishte — Don Cossacks. So, and in my variant it says that all from Klisura ... use as appetizer gherkins (where we have not this word yet the Russians have it, 'ogurtsyi', and I use it on purpose), and those from Panagyurishte — Russian salads (because for us any salad with mayonnaise and chopped vegetables is called Russian one).]
5. Fifth letter
Letter to the neighbours from complex "Complex", bl. 696, ent. X, to the date 20.02.2020, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Ladies and gentlemen, full- and under- age offsprings, peaceful, but infuriated (from the democracy) little people,
I have been late this year to show myself before you, and some of you probably have begun to ask themselves: "But what has happened with this man, has he, possibly, died of hunger?". Well, in order to pacify you, nothing of the kind, because the democracy has long ago developed in me instincts of a ... homeless dog, so that however some of my she-neighbours strain themselves, it suffices for me to begin cruising more often around the garbage bins, and I will find there something edible. I am late simply because in winter I am cold, and also, after I have went to pension and can live like under the communism (i.e. miserable but satiated), I have not at all any time free (because I am belonging to the posterity). So that happy new year to you (although it has grown already a bit older), which is even very nice (as a number) and because of this I have dedicated to it the following impromptu:
[And now follow 7 lines, in which I speak roughly this: in the year twenty-twenty we will live like singing, because it is not the right time just to lie down in a coffin; the same is true also further, and only in the 27-th will come time to think about going to the other world.]
So that you don't hurry, and even if you have enough money for eating and drinking as much as you want, as well also to pay the medics for their services, then you try to eat less, to move more, and not at all to follow our media, because we are country with disappearing functions, so to say, and except to numerical melting and assimilation we have nowhere else to go. I even expect that after 4-5 years by us will appear new political party like this, for example: Agrarian-Worker Alternative for Fast Growth [what in Bulgarian is written as 'Agrarno-Rabotnicheska Alternativa za Byrzo Izrastvane'], what as initials [in Bulgarian] gives ARABI [what, naturally, means Arabs] — because this is where to we are moving, right?
So, and now let me go to my question, or at least to inform you that for the whole previous year, and this after many efforts, I have succeeded to come to 131 exits out of home, what gives exactly (without 1) 11 times in a month, so that I have come down now to 14 St for one going out (or, roughly, to 2 pieces of bread). In this nice year I intent to reach the number of 12 times per month, but more than 13 for me is excluded (unless with the use of some other measures, which I will probably tell you in the next year). Well, will somebody say, and what of it, "the dog barks but the caravan moves on" [we have such proverb], and nobody finds necessary to pay attention to this rotten intellectual and think like him. What is so, but if I will simply keep silent then the pleasure for these women is reduced to zero, is it not? And now, when I repeat them this, then as if honey will drip on their tongues (or whatever it is and wherever it is, what drips)! Because it is clear that their actions are entirely intentional and are consequence of ordinary human (i.e. female) malice — for if it was not so, then they would have long ago accepted my proposition. And my go-between, whom I pay every half-year in advance by 1.50 Lv /mon, is already tired of representing me to them. In other words, in this way, at the cost of only 50 St (the difference between 1.50 and the desired by me, and fair, 1 Lv), I manage to make happy two ladies at once! By 25 St for a lady, and this in my exactly 70 years, yet they can breathe quietly, and laugh at me (for this, that I have studied too much — because there is simply no other reason for my misery). Well, I like doing good deeds to the others (especially when I can't do bad ones, ha-ha, because for this is needed first of all money). And if somebody is dissatisfied with my tone of speaking — but I am only answering to the actions of the persons in question, they are those, who have begun it, and do not want to live with me like normal neighbours. So this is everything, await me in the next year, too. Bye-bye.
Jotata
6. Sixth letter (unsent)
To my neighbours and she-neighbours from complex "Complex", bl. 696, ent. X, dated 21.03.2021, by Jotata Jotabashev, apt. 969
Ladies, madames, mademoiselles, and sirs, my dear environmenting me people, in this year I am even later than in the previous one, but having in mind that I have ... no intention to send you this letter, then this doesn't matter! Well, there is no point in this, because the last letter, from 15 apartments was returned to me by 6 of them, properly and educatedly (i.e. this does not concern us), and out of the left ones probably also so much think in the same way, but are lazy to return it to me, and I must have dropped it only in those post boxes of the 2 ladies in question, and hang it on the board by the entrance, where somebody would have at once took it down, while in this way I have economized myself 2 Lv from copying of it. Besides, they have deceived me with 3 Lv, because from November we have had no cleaner, but I have paid in advance (yet who is guilty that I show a good will?).
So, then about my goings out of home: well, for the 20-th year they were in total 129, or again 11 times monthly, so that there is nothing new. The new thing (only that grown older with exactly one year) is that I have even ... dedicated a verse to them, and in addition an acrostic, to these ladies. Here is it:
[The vertical text is "neighbours" ['komshijki' in Bulgarian, and by us 'sh' is one letter, so that there are 8 lines], and it is rhymed as AAABBBCC, and in it is said that: when there comes the end of life's journey the person is occupied with retrograde and morbid thoughts, everybody who falls in their might; these comparison may look stereotyped, and lead us to sad thoughts, that everything is already finished, there is no more hope for profit; yet what can we do, when we all must present us before God; and in addition there is some joking with one old Bulgarian word, which sounds a bit like … ass.]
To what is added: firstly that in the word 'zanik' [the word in question, which means sunset] there is no letter 'd' [where 'zadnik' is a bottom], but because in the next rhymes it exists, then you can insert it, too; then that this sounds quite minor, in the spirit of memento mori, yet when one takes the things with humble reconciliation, he forgives the sins even of his she-neighbours, because they give me a stimulus, revitalize me, what is very important in my old years; after this that every evil — and that the women are evil for the men is obvious — can be for good [we really have the proverb that "Every evil is for good", what is in the spirit of English "Every cloud has a silver lining"], if one succeeds to use it; and at the end, that this has led me to the thought, that probably the easiest way to get rid of the stain of our barbarity is by ... changing of our name! I propose to ... 'blagari' what ['blag'] means kind, good, i.e. we are very good people, carry to the other nations in the world good things (what is true, because we better their gene, and harm only ourselves). So that I am not angry at them.
I have even begun to search for new reason for their causeless malice, and have come to the conclusion that this is so because they are ... unhappy, well, really, and when God alone has punished them with something, then why must I also interfere? (For the younger one I recall that it was really so, there has happened in her family a severe car accident, and when once I have looked more carefully at the older one, I have seen that she also has no reasons to be especially happy.) So that I forgive them, but let me mention that God's punishments are incomprehensible for us, and as far as God moves free in the time, I think that it is quite possible that He has punished them exactly because He has known that there will come some moment when they will want to starve one intellectual with hunger! Well, be it as it may, I finish here this question and move to a wider audience, to the Internet, where I expect at least 1000 times more readers, or even more, if I will translate this in English [and other languages], because the case is interesting and is described funny, so that let people laugh at us, when we are not able to overcome our barbarity, this, so to say, "childish illness". Only that the case has still remained unsolved, and will appear anew, and I will be forced to pretend to be deaf. Well, farewell, perhaps until the other world, where in all probability I will be taken as a court poet to the Virgin Mary and her retinue.
+1. Intermediate conclusion
Here I will say goodbye to you for a while, and I will only give one advice to all Bulgarians about this, how to treat each other. This interruption turned to be necessary, because while I have succeeded to find free time to write out this lettering saga at least in Bulgarian — for I was occupied with covering of sensitively more important issues (what you may see looking at the dates of my other publications) —, has appeared a new personage, one dictator of feminine gender, who has raised again the old questions, and has not only heaved them up, but also ... lowered them on our heads, at least on my own. But it is so in Bulgaria, the people are so confused and dumbfounded by the democracy, that when they are asked they usually choose most often some tyrant, so that not to be bothered at least to think, but to listen and obey (how we choose at the highest level for about 10 years one and the same general ['Bojko'-Boyko Borisov] — because he knows how to command); and this, generally, ... helps, i.e. we are moving to new ... abysses, of course, we are again trailing behind the European Union, but we are at least moving forward, do not resist (and when we at last have changed this general with more mild rulers, because of much brains, we have fallen in the next inflation of basic food products and everything else, and why? — well, because they have risen very sensitive the pensions, and my directly two times, and this was necessary to be compensated with practically the same increase of the prices!).
So, and my advice to all Bulgarians is the following: people, you regard your neighbours (especially such who are not of your wealthy status) like ... home pets (say, dogs)! Just not like parasites, of the kind of cockroaches, flies, gnats, and so on (and the new lady treats me exactly in this way, like an annoying fly, which is simply not worth paying attention to, what you will see in the next part). So that in relation with this I just can't miss to remind myself how once I have watched with such perplexity and jealousy how before the gates of a supermarket was placed one box of pate for one stray kitten (quite culturally opened and poured out in a bowl, so that the dear little animal did not accidentally cut itself on the tin), yet it paid no attention to them at all and came not to taste it, and they were worried about the issue (the security guard was talking with one lady cashier). Even if the tin was past its expiration date (but surely it was not so, and even if it was, to me whole three years of delay would not have stopped me from eating it) then this is again very demonstrative, for the reason that I would have breakfasted with it an entire week, and maybe also have dinnered, spreading about 10 pieces of bread with it. (I have even thought about going there after the closing time of the shop and grabbing the bowl, but have refused in time, because the people surely have some surveillance devices around the entrance. In the end I decided that the little kitten does not bear any guilt for the misery of Bulgarian intellectuals and for the stratification of our society and so on, and one shall not require that it will be smarter and more humane than our whole nation.)
Well, this is all gentlemen, funny, isn't it? So funny that one wants simply to weep. But us awaits a continuation.
07. 2022