Chestita Baba Marta!

Today is a special day in Bulgaria. On March 1st Marteniza (see the picture) are given to friends and family to wish them health and happiness. The red and white colors symbolize the end of winter and the coming of spring.

These decorations are worn until you see a sign of spring, such as birds migrating or trees blooming.

Read more about it here or here.

Mr. Chirac is very unhappy about the pro-American stands of many East-European countries. Yesterday evening at the EU emergency meeting he called Bulgaria's behavior "childish":

"They missed a great opportunity to shut up," he chided the candidates, and their pro-US stance could feed public hostility to EU expansion. Their position is already very delicate, he said, and if they wanted to diminish their chances of joining the EU they could not have chosen a better way. "When you are in the family ... you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door," he said.

Well, it won't be a surprise that I agree more with Bulgaria's stand (joining the US against Iraq) than with Chirac's, who in my view has acted really quite dangerously in Nato last week. I'm sure that many West-European countries are underestimating the impact of the EU-enlargment on the common European policy, and I am not sure if it's the Bulgarian or the French position that is getting delicate... The relatively powerful postition of France and Germany will get less when 10 new countries are joining. Obviously they'll still be powerful, but many East-European countries are still very happy about American help during the transitional period after 1989.

The Economist has a nice article about it as well:

"The sight of a Russian president being embraced in Paris and Berlin has caused a few shivers in the capitals of ex-communist Europe. Indeed, it is the attitude of countries once under Russia's sway that is the biggest obstacle to the French dream of an autonomous Europe that would stare Uncle Sam insolently in the eye. Everything about their recent history tells people in these countries that the United States and NATO are still their only real guarantors of security. As an otherwise impeccably “pro-European” Czech diplomat puts it, “One thing we learned from the 1930s—no more security guarantees from France.” A truly common EU approach could only be settled by majority voting within the Union. But count the votes in the EU of 25 countries that will take shape in 2004, and the French and Germans are in a minority in their attitude to the United States. "

We have seen our fair share of 'new politicians' this year in the Netherlands.

In an article about Emile Ratelband in the Washington Post:

He calls EU expansion "crazy," saying, "we don't need these gangsters, like Bulgaria." But he thinks Turkey should be allowed into the EU.

Obviously Bulgarians were not very pleased. The spokesman of the Bulgarian government, Todorov, declined to comment. "The ministry will stick to its practice and will not comment statements of foreign politicians made during pre-election campaigns".

Interesting enough on the agenda of Lijst Ratelband it said: "TV opnames voor de Bulgaarse televisie, Bulgarian National Television voor het programma ”Every Sunday”. LIVE!".

A quick phone-call to Bulgaria showed that he was indeed live on Bulgarian TV. My first thought was that he would apologize for his remarks but...

"When I'll be in power, you [Bulgaria] will never get into the European Union. As far as I'm concerned all Bulgarians are criminals."

In a few days Tamara Burton will visit Bulgaria. She is the granddaugther of John Vincent Atanasoff, one of the most famous Bulgarians ever.

In this newspaper article (in English)
he is referred to as the person who invented the world's first electronic digital computer.

He worked an the Iowa State College, USA and designed a machine that could solve lineair equations electronically. He worked on this project with an assistant, Clifford Berry but in 1942 they were forced to abandon their project due to the war.

In 1947 a patent was requested for the ENIAC, which was called the first all-purpose digital computer ever. In 1964 this patent was granted and the owner of the patent started to sue other companies building digital computers. However, these companies convinced the judge that Atanasoff's machine was designed before the ENIAC, and had in fact influenced the ENIAC's design. The judge agreed and cancelled the patent.

At that time this judgement which implied that Atanasoff was the real inventor of the electronic digital computer, was called controversial. However in 1984 Arthur Burks, on of the early designers of the ENIAC acknowledged that Atanosoff had designed the first electronic computer.

Bulgaria is very proud of this man and in 1970 he was awarded Bulgaria's highest science award.

For me it's one of the most interesting stories in the history of computer science. Here's more on mr. Atanasoff.

A friend of Sasha told us about a cheaper way of calling Bulgaria. It's called Teledump. The rate to Bulgaria is 5 ct per minute, including tax.

Calling using KPN is at least 32 ct per minute, using 1658 it's also at least 32 ct per minute so it's a big difference.

The quality of the connection wasn't extremely well, but then again: 5 cts.... When we call my parents we pay 3,7 cts per minute.

I've just added a new link: Bulgarije.tk, a website for Bulgarians in Holland.

I think it might also be quite interesting for people who are just interested in Bulgaria. The site is in Dutch and Bulgarian.

today we went to the Bulgarian embassy; Alex voted in the Bulgarian election. Let's see what will happen: will the king win? How big would be the democrat's defeat? The first results will come in a few hours.

Also we saw Tibi & Janneke, it was very nice. Played Carcassone. The bus connection between their house and hours is really good.