Transactions in Veliko Tarnovo

If time is a foreign currency we spent a lot of it in Veliko Tarnovo in central Bulgaria. 

Between 2006 and 2012 we lived in a village nearby so were frequently in Veliko Tarnovo (VT) for all kinds of reasons. We were renovating and furnishing an old farmhouse so bought everything from cement to windows to fridges to cutlery here. At that time, small independent shops supplied all these items but now huge out-of-town shopping sheds with names like Technopolis and Praktiker have taken over, offering cheap credit and multiple rows of shiny stuff.

We're back here briefly to sell some land. We've been dealing online with a VT estate agent who found a buyer so we're here for a couple of days to sign papers and complete the transaction.

The estate agent is called Plamen and we meet him in his swanky offices on our first morning in town. We’re a bit knackered, having arrived late the previous night and the temperature is already 35 degrees. Plamen reminds me of Roy Orbison but without the quiff and dark glasses. He speaks English with confident efficiency and takes us through what he calls the ‘states of play’. At one point I make reference to ‘belt and braces’, an idiom he hasn’t previously encountered but evidently enjoys. I imagine him using it at home that evening. Fortunately Eil is listening more closely to his financial and legal explanations and hasn't drifted into a world of idiomatic clothing accessories. 

From what I can gather, it’s all fairly straightforward. We go to the notary for the legal bit followed by the bank for the money bit. 

Plamen, it turns out, is too golam (big) a sirene (cheese) to accompany us to the notary and bank. Instead we’ve been allocated to Nikolay, an amiable cove who, with his clipped moustache and military bearing, resembles Terry Thomas minus the lubricious leer.

At the notary's office we meet the buyer Stefan, who's a young lad from Gorna Oryahovitsa currently working as a lorry driver in Germany. He’s hoping to return to Bulgaria one day and build his own family home, hence his purchase of our land.

In the pantheon of Bulgarian law, notaries are only minor gods, not quite as important as solicitors, but they still possess their own distinctive brand of arrogant omnipotence. This one arrives fashionably late even though we're waiting sheepishly in the lobby of his own office. It goes without saying that we know (and he knows) he could easily delay matters by finding intractable problems in the paperwork so we are all accordingly submissive. 

He has the lithe energy of a frustrated PE teacher and, without acknowledging anyone, summons us into his office where some spatial weirdness happens so the desk is suddenly larger than the room. The notary positions himself behind said desk in front of a venerable computer, keyboard and monitor combo. The rest of us crouch around him on tiny chairs. We are nothing more than extras in a movie called Notaries Know Best. 

He starts keyboarding with Liberace-style flourishes, pausing occasionally to lecture us on some abstruse point of law. This is mostly in Bulgarian but he sometimes breaks into broken English to ensure we also receive the benefit. His English pronunciation is not great and he's inclined to swallow his vowels so we hear of bnks, lgl mttrs and mny. Luckily there are no issues or we'd be drowned in a wave of sibilance.

His dress code is smart casual: buttoned up polo shirt and pressed slacks. I'm just casual in a garish Hawaiian beach shirt (£3.99 from Oxfam) and bottle-green cargo shorts that have never seen an iron. Eil is fragrant in a summer dress but looking dangerously cheesed off by all his mansplaining. 

After about an hour of his star performance, various documents are printed off for us to sign. The notary notices my middle name is Donald, which reminds him of Dnld Sthrlnd and he asks if I've heard of him. I resist the urge to say of course I've bleeding heard of him and I know how to pronounce his name! Instead I smile compliantly and keep signing.

Then it’s down the road to the bank so the money can be transferred. By now the temperature has reached 38 degrees and the sparkling white exterior of the bank looks like a melting baroque palace. Even in such straitened times for Bulgaria the banks are still making a fortune. 

The wonderfully air conditioned interior seems to have been modelled on a Busby Berkeley set (Gold Diggers of 2024?). The staircases, offices and meeting rooms hang kaleidoscopically from a glass and chrome structure that defies gravity while oozing power and money.

At any moment our bank clerk could break into song. He has the look of an old fashioned crooner about him. The security guards could form a barbershop quartet and the choruses of young women behind glass partitions might soon launch into a synchronised tap dancing routine. Disappointingly, none of this happens. We simply hang around cooling down until somehow money is mysteriously, electronically and invisibly transferred from Stefan's account to ours. We might have hoped for a closing flourish or fanfare but there's nothing and we're soon outside in the intense heat shaking hands and wishing one another well.

If time is indeed a foreign currency we're running out of it so are unlikely to see VT again, which is a shame because it's an attractive city that was the medieval capital and has played a central role in Bulgarian history. Built on the banks of the River Yantra, its cobbled lanes and revivalist architecture are worth exploring if you're ever in the vicinity.

The acre of land we’ve sold was our final piece of personal history in Bulgaria and the period here changed our lives forever. Now there's just time for a farewell shopska salad in the appropriately named Pizza Tempo before we catch the next bus to Sofia.