It is obvious to say that the Bulgaria to which the country’s six Libya Trial medics returned is much changed from the one they knew. It is striking, however, just how much it has changed.

On February 9 1999, 23 Bulgarian citizens were arrested in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting with HIV nearly 400 Libyan children in a Benghazi hospital.

Later, 17 of them were released, while the remaining six, Kristiana Vulcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropolou, Valya Chervenyashka and Snezhana Dimitrova, and Dr. Zdravko Georgiev remained in custody for five years. Since 2004, all but Dr Georgiev received three death sentences, until a change of circumstances finally made it possible for all of them to return to Bulgaria on July 24. The last time they saw Bulgaria was, in reality, about 10 years ago, given that before being detained they had been working in Libya for some time.

Many things were different during the year of the medics’ arrest. That year was also one crucial to Bulgaria’s European future.

Back then, Petar Stoyanov was president, Ivan Kostov was prime minister, Bogomil Bonev was interior minister until December 21, when the post was taken by Emanuil Yordanov. The foreign minister was Nadezhda Mihailova and Moravei Radev was finance minister. The mayor of Sofia was Stefan Sofianski. In 1999, the current mayor of Sofia, Boiko Borissov, was running his private security company Ipon-1 that guarded personalities like Simeon Saxe-Coburg, the former king who that year made trips to the country as part of securing property through the post-communist property restitution process.

In April 1999, then-president Stoyanov participated in a Nato meeting in Washington, where Bulgaria was offered a Nato Membership Action Plan. In December, at a summit in Helsinki of heads of government from the then 15-member EU, the European Council announced that Bulgaria would be invited to begin EU accession talks in February 2000.

Between 1987 and 1999, Bulgaria consisted of nine provinces but in 1999 the country was divided by twenty-eight, all taking their names after their respective capital cities.

Bulgaria’s GDP for 1999 grew by 4.5 per cent. It totalled 23 790 440 000 leva. This sum was made up as follows: 3 457 847 from Agriculture and Forestry, 6 123 796 from Industry, Services 11 623 628 and Gross Value Added was 21 205 271 (according to data from the National Statistical Institute).

The minimum salary was 75 leva (now 180 leva), while the average was 170 leva. Unemployment in 1999 was 17 per cent (now it is less than nine per cent).

According to rough estimates, the average price for property purchase was 350 euro a sq m (property prices then were given in US dollars), while it currently stands at more than 800 euro for Sofia and a country average of 500 euro.

From January 1 1999, the lev was tied to the euro. On July 5 1999, Bulgarian National Bank announced the re-denomination of the lev, a move planned a year earlier.  By Cabinet decision and act of Parliament, from 12am on July 5 what used to be 1000 leva turned into one lev with an exchange rate of 1.955 leva to a euro.  After the 1997 financial crisis, mortgages and credit cards, and motor vehicle purchases on monthly payments, were virtually unknown in 1999 Bulgaria. Credit growth worries were not on the agenda.

On August 11, Bulgarians also had the extremely rare opportunity to see a solar eclipse. The best view was from the north-easternmost part of Bulgaria. In November, Bill Clinton became the first serving US president to visit Bulgaria. This visit, and the second American presidential visit eight years later were among the long list of events not seen by the medics.

Bands and singers making the hits in Bulgaria in 1999 were Wikeda, Stoyan Mihalev, Doni i Momchil, BTR, D-2, Antibiotika. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, The Matrix, American Beauty, and American Pie were among the favourites at the Bulgarian box office.

In the history of Bulgarian cinema history, 1999 will be remembered mainly for two television shows – Dunav Most (Danube Bridge), and Klinika na Tretiya Etazh (A clinic on the third floor).

On the sports field, 1999 was the year where the currently extremely successful Bulgarian football player Dimitar Berbatov made his debut with Bulgaria’s national team. The sports person of the year 1999 was weightlifter Gulubin Boevski.

Technology too was in an earlier age. In 1999, internet access was through an external modem connection. People were still using walkmans and CD-players. There were no DVDs, only videos. Bulgaria had only one mobile operator, and mobile phones were the preserve of the relatively well-off. There were no shopping malls, no large cinema complexes, and no US-type cafes, meaning no Costa Coffe, no Onda. Not only did Sofia Airport have only one terminal, but its renovation had not yet started.

The greatest change that the medics have come to is an EU and Nato-member Bulgaria, the advantages and disadvantages of which they are yet to experience, just like every other Bulgarian.

photo

1999 - THE TIMES THEY WERE A’CHANGING: On November 22 1999, then US president Bill Clinton became the first serving American head of state to visit Bulgaria. VIPs on the podium with him during his speech at Alexander Nevski Square included then Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski, prime minister Ivan Kostov and president Petar Stoyanov. A few weeks later, on December 11, then foreign minister Nadezhda Mihailova and Kostov cracked open champagne to celebrate the announcement by the heads of government of the 15 EU member states that Bulgaria was being invited to begin EU accession negotiations in February 2000. By the time these events took place, Bulgaria’s nurses had been in detention in Libya for more than nine months.       Photo: ARCHIVE