border-surveillance

The chapter recounts the author's childhood summer in 1984 on Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast, a place marked by the oppressive presence of the Iron Curtain and state surveillance, where the border to Turkey represented both a physical and psychological barrier. It contrasts the innocence and longing of youth with the harsh realities of totalitarian control, state security, and the human cost of seeking freedom. Thirty years later, the author returns to the same region, now transformed by global capitalism but still haunted by the natural and historical weight of the borderlands and the mysterious Strandja forest.

The narrator encounters a well-dressed man and his Austrian wife living in a luxurious house near the border, who reveal their disillusionment with the local area, particularly due to the presence of Roma people and lingering social tensions. The man shares his past as a State Security courier during the communist era, exposing the complexities and betrayals of border life, while expressing cynicism about both the past and present. The chapter ends with a cryptic warning against probing into the past, underscoring the persistent shadows of history and mistrust in the borderlands.