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When Viktor first arrived at Durmstrang (after a lot of preparation and administrative hassle), he didn’t speak a word of German. Back in those days, they taught Russian and French in schools. But he quickly learned that the word for the number one is pronounced eins as opposed to einz , which is what his Bulgarian peers would say, rather mockingly, while counting to three in German due to their limited knowledge of the language, whenever the topic of Viktor’s relocation to Germany was brought up.
Another thing he quickly learned was that the Germans had a lot of types of wurst: bratwurst, bregenwurst, knackwurst, bockwurst, leberwurst, teewurst, weisswurst… They just had a lot of wurst. He had thought that his Slavic predisposition for meat eating would mean that he’d have no problem eating any wursts they threw at him, but he still longed for the kebapcheta [1] they sold at the selski sabori[2] while the wine was flowing and the retro chalga[3] was blasting from the age old speakers. (He couldn’t deny that they tasted better, sweeter, when political parties hosted such sabori and exchanged kebapcheta for votes before an election.)
The music everyone played at Durmstrang was unfamiliar to him, with the exception of ABBA, even though he knew only Money Money Money and Mamma Mia , and not in their entirety. Sometimes they’d play Tokio Hotel. Krum thought they looked like genders[4] . Though the parties at Durmstrang weren’t fulfilling, he could always blast Andrea[5] in his dorm room at two in the morning, when everyone was trying to sleep, in order to feel close to the motherland. It wasn’t his fault that the Westerners started their parties at 11pm and finished them at 1am. He wasn’t used to this. Back in Bulgaria, 11pm was the time when Viktor and his averi[6] stopped by the nearest döner place for a snack before they went on to Club Pasha, home of the most prominent Bulgarian rappers, where pre-drinking lasted from midnight to two in the morning, and the party—from two to six in the morning.
Viktor was a tough batka[7] who only listened to the best artists like Dim4ou, 100 Kila (100 Kilos or 220.462lbs for the Americans), and Pavell & Venci Venc'. He had a giant tattoo of Levski, the Bulgarian Apostle of Freedom, and Botev, a Bulgarian national hero, on each of his shoulder blades. Between them stood proudly the Monument of Shipka, and behind them all, as if soaring, was the Bulgarian flag. Beneath it all was a slogan: ‘Свобода или смърт’[8] . The tattoo was poorly done because Viktor had spent most of his money on getting the Bulgarian flag colored[9]. He pioneered the idea for large, and extremely shit-looking, patriotic tattoos for the batkas to come.
His room at Durmstrang was adorned with a few of those posters (that were also calendars) of naked women that his dad had hanging on the walls of their garage back in Bulgaria. Nobody really knew where dads even got those posters from, but every dad had one among the posters of Levski or CSKA[10], depending on which team they stanned.
Krum was the toughest of them all. Everybody knew it. And he had a duty to spread the glory of his motherland abroad that he took very seriously, which is why whenever someone was boasting about their country’s greatest achievements, Krum would proudly announce: “We were on THREE seas!”
He was saying this to everyone, all the time. You couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t much he could boast about when it came to national pride. Bulgaria had been stripped of her glory on that fateful day in the year 1396 when the Second Bulgarian Empire fell under Ottoman Rule. Her people’s spirit would slowly start to diminish for the centuries to come, the only sign of it being the failed revolutions here and there, but for the common folk life would include fraternizing and exchanging cooking recipes with their Turkish neighbors for the next five hundred years.
The Ottoman rule had left nothing in the Bulgarians’ hearts, and even less in heritage, so there was nothing else for Krum to hit his chest like an ape about except for the year Simeon I expanded Bulgaria to its greatest extent.
This nationalistic pride led him to taking offense at every Westerner’s ignorance. He was sick of being asked whether he speaks Russian. He was more sick of being mistaken for one, and of being told that “oh, Bulgarian is like the little brother of Russian, right?”
“Russian? RUSSIAN?” exclaimed Krum. “Do you know who wrote the Cyrillic? Cyril and Methodius and his brother!!!”
Whenever the students at Durmstrang decided to have a ‘cultural night’—a well-known Erasmus, I mean wizard, tradition, Krum was always screwed. He would never know what food to prepare for these gatherings. Banitsa[11] was the most Bulgarian thing he could make that they would like, because he somehow doubted that those prissy snowflakes would like shkembe chorba[12] . Unfortunately, he did not have the right type of cheese. To add Greek feta to a banitsa would be blasphemous. Moussaka?[13] They had pre-made moussaka in the local Wizard Kaufland, but of course it was of the Greek variety. Tarator?[14] A summer delicacy. Krum missed tarator the most. Alas, he could not make himself any because he had no access to Bulgarian yoghurt.
How was he supposed to show his wizard peers the culinary genius of his nation when he didn’t have the products to do so?
There weren’t any Bulgarian or even Slavic shops near Durmstrang, or anywhere in Germany, for that matter. Such shops were a luxury that only people who lived in London and Chicago could take advantage of. There was that Bulgarian shop in Toronto that falsely translated lyutenitsa [ 15 ] as a vegetable mix, but he couldn’t know that because he didn’t have internet access. Besides, he’s Bulgarian. It’s not like he could go anywhere without a visa. It wasn’t fair. The Greeks and the Bulgarians were made from the same dough[16], but the former’s mythology accumulated worldwide interest so they got special privileges. But I digress.
In the end, Krum decided to make rice pudding. It was the only Bulgarian food he could make with the tools at his disposal. But of course, as he was cooking it, one of the Turkish wizards likened it to sütlaç. He had never looked so done in his life.
His thoughts trailed off to his beloved tarator. Maybe next time he goes back to Bulgaria, he should bring back a few cups of Bulgarian yoghurt so he can make some.
Before he could take time off to go home, however, he had to go through the Quidditch game at Hogwarts. There he met Hermione, who he called Harmanli [17] because he didn’t hear her name right the first time and then never bothered to ask her to teach him how to say it. He didn’t want to. Her mispronounced name was to him a reminder of his homeland, the fire he used to warm his heart in the cold and humid English nights. Nevermind that he had never been to Harmanli.
They hit it off quickly. He asked her to the Yule ball and before he knew it, he was driving her around his home country in his father’s green Lada[18] that they waited seven years to buy[19]. On Saturday, he took her to the bitak[20] to buy her a bootleg Adidas[21] tracksuit. That same night he took her on a romantic date in Planeta Payner Club (which is now closed, I think, R.I.P. I hope at least Secrets is still thriving) where they were throwing napkins[22] all night long. He had promised to take her up to the Alyosha monument to watch the sunrise, but by the time the hour rolled by, he was too drunk and only managed to reach Aladdin Foods. So they ate döner kebabs at four in the morning after a night of wild partying, as is the tradition. He took her to Plovdiv’s own Central Perk for lunch and told her that the American sitcom Friends was filmed there. She seemed incredulous.
Krum tried to immerse Harmanli into the Bulgarian culture and lifestyle: from the brutalistic Soviet residential buildings to the famous salad and rakija combo in the evenings and Milko Kalaidjiev[23], but for Harmanli nothing compared to beans on toast, chip buttys and popeyes biscuits without milk. Krum sometimes wondered why people in England ate like the Germans were still flying overhead, but he made no effort to verbalize his thoughts.
“Why are they in CAGES? WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Harmanli bellowed once Krum showed her the music video (his wizard abilities allowed him to do that before YouTube existed) for Milko Kalaidjiev’s most famous song Kade si, Batko [24].
He didn’t know how to respond, nor how to explain the importance of this string of melodies and lyrics. For him, the song was a national treasure. He had been brought up with it (and with Dragostea Din Tei , or as it’s largely known in the West: the Numa Numa song); it constituted a part of his identity. It was ‘94 and the concepts of political correctness and feminism were foreign to the People’s Republic of Bulgaria.
They didn’t last because Harmanli was a strong, independent woman and Krum was a traditional macho man. And also a himbo.
