Yoghurt
"In an attempt to prevent speculation over food prices in Bulgaria, Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov suggested that his ministry show the `real' prices of commodities on a weekly basis."

Let me show our friend Dimitrov a few REAL prices: on the Bulgarian website of Billa (http://www.billa.bg), a major food retailer, 400ml of yoghurt was offered at the amazingly low price of 56 stotinki (normal 62 stotinki). This works out to 1.40 leva a litre. At the same time, on the Dutch website of Albert Heijn (www.albert.nl), one of the Netherlands' more expensive grocers, one litre of yoghurt (without discount) is offered at 0.61 euro (1.19 leva).

Although I am not an economist, nor a housewife, I can use a calculator and I can show Mr Dimitrov that in my country of birth, where the minimum wage is now  1317 euro a month, opposed to the Bulgarian 100 euro, a litre of fermented milk is 21 stotinki cheaper.

I checked a variety of products, from cheese to detergents. Some were cheaper, some the same and sometimes even up to 50 per cent more expensive in Holland. However, with low-end salaries as much as 13-20 times higher there, it is a miracle that the average Bulgarian can survive here.

The story that this has to do with the entry into the European Union is total nonsense and it has definitely not improved the quality of any of the products, since most of them are made today by the same companies as they were 10 years ago.

I noticed that the generally ignorant Bulgarian media happily sings along from the inflation hymnal, assuring the public that paying more is a good thing since it means that you are getting a better product.

Heroin
Not a day goes by without some announcement from the border police that they have busted another foreign car with another 30 or so kilo of heroin, hashish, cocaine or another illegal substance. Although I believe that the war against drugs is much more important then the American-led war against Islam, I do believe that these wonderful statements of the always-vigilant Ministry of Interior need some examination.

Why is it that we almost never hear about drugs being found in Bulgarian cars? Could it be that the main reason for this oddity is the fact that it is much more fun for the boys at the border to search foreign cars, especially when the driver is a Turk with a Dutch, German and other Western European passport?

I have crossed different Bulgarian borders in cars with BG licence plates and I have never once been asked to open my boot, while they made what seemed like every other Turkish driver do. The last time I sat in a four km traffic jam at a border, I saw cars with local licence plates that passed totally unhindered, not even showing documents, and drivers of black 4x4s, Mafia Edition, that hardly even touched their brakes.

I am sure that if all cars crossing Bulgaria's borders were treated with the same respect and in a professional way, even more contraband, from a larger variety of nationalities (including Bulgarian), would be busted.

Hippies
Last night I saw an item in the Bulgarian news about a group of hippies camped out at the seashore near Tsarevo within the National Park of Strandja.

The hippies were not only polluting the area with garbage; using the sea for a toilet, washing and laundry; getting drunk and using drugs, but most importantly, they were scaring the migrating birds with their loud music. Now I don't know much about birds, but I always understood that they love garbage and have no sense of smell…

Since drugs are a major issue in this land of wine and rakiya, I suggest to tell the border boys in MalkoTurnovo about the drugs and get it over with!

Koos Jan Schouten (1954) was born in Amsterdam, has lived in Bulgaria since 1998, owns www.webfactory.bg and has been married since 2002 to his lovely Lilly.