– In his annual speech, Vladimir Putin repeated the main supports of his regime, that the West started this war, that Russia was only defending itself. Is there any chance that this person will realize what he has created?
– Did anyone expect Putin to show that he realized something! From the very beginning of the war, everything he does is with a clear mind, deliberate and with precise goals – except that he didn’t get it right. Now, if he does not hold on to such supports, he may lose everything. Putin has no other choice – he was hoping for a blitzkrieg, and it didn’t work out. Now, in the most pessimistic case, Crimea should at least protect and protect the seat of the presidential throne. He should be looking for a way to screw up the West and Ukraine and keep bombarding props for those who still believe in him. And there are such.
Accents
If Russia’s blitzkrieg had happened, Europe’s reaction would have been different
Serious politicians realized long ago that the war was for the future of Europe
The problem of the Bulgarians is that we cannot choose the right people
– Mr. Peykov, andthere is a clear evolution in Western politicians in one year. The observer Andriy Piontkovsky recalled how in the first days of the war, Macron talked about the need to save Putin’s face, and now he is talking about the complete defeat of Russia. Did the leaders in the EU realize that this war is about the future of Europe?
– All serious politicians realized it a long time ago. But there are still those with commitments. It’s not just about influence here – it’s about a lot of money too. Until recently, Russian oil and gas flowed through Europe’s circulatory system. Things have changed now, but the bonds are still there. There was also another side of things – the so-called “real politician”. On the one hand, there is justice and the ideal scenario, but on the other hand, there is what is realistically achievable. If the blitzkrieg scenario had come to pass, Europe’s reaction would have been different. In the beginning, the Great Powers were making a pass until they see if Ukraine will show its teeth, if it will show any resistance, or if it will surrender and squat. Unfortunately, realpolitik is this – as Hitler once took over the Sudetenland in no time, and then Poland. There could have been a similar scenario here, but Ukraine, thank God, showed a face that makes it one of the key European countries and is already perceived differently by the rest of the world.
– Even US reports said that Kiev would hold off aggression for 96 hours at most. Where did this will to live in Ukraine come from?
– The Ukrainians amazed us! And the hype surrounding the great Russian power was exaggerated. It turned out to be a decaying country all these years. It was created by many ideologies and little work. Russia is the only country in Europe that does not produce its own insulin, for example! They make some, but they only inject it into unassuming old grannies because it’s dangerous. This is a country that does not microchip and does not have any high technology. We see ourselves as almost the most backward European country, and our pharmaceutical industry and other industries are light years ahead of Russian technology. With them, everything is bought from abroad – this is a country that rests only on natural resources and does not develop technically and economically. For many years they lived under the delusion that they were advanced, and it turned out that they were behind in technology. Now they started buying “Shahedis” from the Iranians and what not. They steal laundromats to take their microchips to power their missiles. Because everything comes from Taiwan. Until now, they were buying Taiwanese microprocessors and just repainting them, pretending they were theirs. On the one hand, the Ukrainians surprised us with their heroism, and on the other hand, Russia showed that there is no real cover behind this puffing and beating of its chest.
– How can the war end?
– I think that Russia will surprise us again, as it did 100 years ago during the October Revolution. There were hardly ten people in all of Petersburg, the day before, who knew what was going to happen. There, things always happen suddenly, unexpectedly, and the course – both of national and, in a certain sense, of world history – changes. And this – some momentary breaths in the change of wind direction. Will it be something that will happen with Putin, or will it be some internal infighting – I don’t know what and how, but my intuition shows that it will be something sudden and unexpected. And not as we all think – then negotiations, then offensive… We will wake up in the morning and hear news that changes everything and puts it in a completely different light. And the war will stop, and Russia will break up into small local spheres of influence. I don’t know what will happen. I am neither a good nor a bad prophet, but perhaps it is better, on the one hand, for this empire to break up and disintegrate into nation-states. And it is a nuclear power – it is one thing to negotiate with someone like Putin, and another – with 10-12 similar local rulers – some drunk with vodka, some crazy! And to each have 50 nuclear warheads. As a global threat, this is contextually very complex and difficult to play. After all, these are processes that are bigger than any of us and they are natural and inevitable.
– Some media already call you “the publisher philanthropist” and this happened in just a year. Is it a surprise to you?
– A philanthropist is something else – this is a person who spends his own money. I dedicate time and energy, collect from other people. There is a difference. I hadn’t been in the office until yesterday and hadn’t been to my office for maybe a week or two. When I come to the printing house, I have a lot of other work to do, separately we collected donations, I went around looking from baby purees and sleeping bags to tents. In reality, my time was devoted to finding quality goods according to the requirements of the Turkish embassy or the things that are wanted in Syria. They mainly want food and clothes there. In reality, my time since February 6 so far has been spent in this dynamic. I’ve only had a little time today to get back to my usual book plots, but tomorrow I’m off on some aid-related adventures again. I collected about a million and 300 thousand in the last ten days. I have spent 805 thousand of them. I currently have roughly another 500k to use as well. Today I saw some interesting mobile toilets that are produced by a Bulgarian company. I’ll go check them out tomorrow. I have to pay the transport separately. And separately, the foundation that I registered just came out, because as a private person it is becoming more and more difficult to operate with such large sums.
– Did the Bulgarian people surprise you in the last year?
– You surprised me! It is different from the cliché that is circulated in the media and that we were forced to get used to – that the Bulgarian is cynical, that he does not empathize, that he does not trust the institutions, that he professes the idea that a bowed sword does not cut it, that you are press the rags. My personal experience refuted this – first with those 270 thousand BGN that I collected in 8 months for tourniquets and bandages, in 2 months – a million and 300 thousand for generators and then, as a crown of everything – in a week and a half another million and 300 thousand. These are more than 10 thousand people who trust me personally and send me money to Turkey. There are also people who stop me on the street, hug me, give me money in my hand, don’t say my name and say: “Write Gosho!”. And they leave.
It is a boundless trust that is super binding, which shows that ultimately, there is a tail – that people do not trust institutions. This is because the institutions are cheating them, the state has been cheating the people for too long. They pay taxes and give up some of their rights so that the state can provide them with other rights. It’s just that the state takes this money and it’s falling asleep before your eyes. I’m trying to show the opposite – to collect a million that can be invested as if it were a million and a half or two. With care, with discounts and attention. By buying a quality product, with feedback, with a report. And people gained confidence in me. There is proof that there is one human capital, there is one energy, and I played the role of the little stick that blew up all that collected energy. But that energy was there. I’ve been in the right place – it’s not something special about me. We thought people were selfish and unsympathetic, but it turned out to be a glass ceiling that was very easily broken.
After the pandemic came the war, and in such moments the best and the worst appear in people. No shades! People are either those who give their all, or those who say: give it now – I will buy a generator for 100 quintas, and I will sell it for 2000 and make the big quintas! There are quite a few such people and we had to be very careful about all kinds of mentees from different offers. They are trying to push us generators with aluminum, not copper coils! They painted them like copper and after a little work they self-ignite because aluminum has a different electrical conductivity. We had to look at thousands of things. There were also people who falsified inquiries, and those who we were warned about who allegedly write that they need something, and then do not give it to the relevant cultural organization, but sell it. In times of war, there are such people – they hit the bull’s-eye and know that in a short time they can suddenly rise.
– Will our children be proud of what we did this year?
– They will hardly be proud of what we have done as a country. I hope they are proud of what we have shown, which is different and which happened as tiny private initiatives. It reminds me of a book by Malcolm Gladwell about the small things that lead to big changes. His theory is that there are such tiny buttons that, if pressed, change everything – the situation, the planet, create social or real epidemics. He gives the example of the New York subway in the 1980s, which was a very dangerous place. And the new head of the transport commission, instead of attacking criminals, rapists and robbers, presses two other buttons. Solves the graffiti problem that was everywhere, then tackles the freebies. This is the “broken windows” theory – if a house has broken windows, everyone thinks it’s run down – they break in and steal it. It is enough to patch up the window for everyone to think that there is an owner. And he does just that, and by solving them in a few months, literally in a few years, he turns the subway into one of the nicest and safest places in New York and all of America. In a way, these things that happened imperceptibly, I hope will be for other people inspiration and direction.
Perhaps the biggest sin of GERB was that after so many years of real foreign rule, then 20-30 years of transition, when at one point things settled down, they ruled the country for 12 years with the feeling that the ceiling was too low, and people shout to each other: first it was communism, then we supposedly changed things, but they still don’t change. What happens – that’s all we can do. They left that feeling because of the way they work. They work in a sloppy way, surround themselves with people who are mediocre but faithful. The important thing is that they are correct, not qualitative – the Russian-Soviet system. They instilled in Bulgarians a lasting feeling of inferiority.
With us, thanks to this extreme situation, things happened that show that this is not true, that the problem is not in Bulgarian! The problem is that what we have as individuals and people, we cannot bring it to the level of the country. We cannot choose the right people – those who, instead of draining the public resource, will multiply it. As it happened in these tiny mini-projects that I do, or Lazar Radkov, or Nikola. There are those illustrated that can happen at the micro level. Once they’re there, it’s a question of whether they happen on a macro level – on a city or country level. And these islands at some point connect into some mainland.
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Manol Peykov is a publisher, translator and politician. He translates poetry and prose, winner of the “Plovdiv” Award for literary translation, the special award of the Union of Translators in Bulgaria (2015) and the national award “Hristo G. Danov” (2016). In the 2021 elections, he was elected as an MP from the parliamentary group of “Democratic Bulgaria”.
