The begining (Ro+En)

Cateodata, te simti atras de niste locuri pe care nu le-ai vazut niciodata, despre care stii foarte putine, dar care te cheama spre ele cu un magnetism aproape magic. Pentru mine, Bulgaria a reprezentat un astfel de loc.

E bine de stiut din capul locului ca majoritatea celor ce vor fi povestite aici au o doza mare de obiectivism, dar exista si o latura subiectiva destul de puternica. Pe scurt, povestea sta cam asa:

Eu provin dintr-o familie de bulgari. Cele mai vechi informatii despre familia mea vin de undeva de pe la mijlocul secolului al XVIII-lea, cand familia se numea Gancev si locuia intr-un satuc langa Targoviste (cel bulgaresc, nu cel romanesc), pe nume Tvarditsa. Intrucat erau neam de razvratiti, conducatorii fanarioti si turci din acele vremuri le-au spus "Kara" ("= cel negru", "cel rau"), particula care s-a pastrat lipita de numele de familie pana la mine, ultima din neamul lor.

Ponegriti, "vanati", inaintasii mei s-au retras din Tvarditsa catre Tighina, in sudul Basarabiei, unde au prins si au luptat in toate razboaiele pana in anul 1956, cand s-au stabilit undeva langa Craiova. Aici au venit strabunicii mei impreuna cu un nepot (tata) si doar 4 din cei 7 copii. Ceilalti trei au murit intre timp, luptand pe front sau asasinati politic.

Bunica mea, unul dintre cei patru copii care au scapat, a pastrat corespondenta cu rudele din Bulgaria, insa de la moartea ei limba bulgara s-a stins la noi in casa si, dupa cateva luni, si cea rusa, odata cu moartea tatalui meu. (La venirea in Romania, in 1956, tata a invatat romaneste dupa niste carti de povesti bilingve). Si iata-ma pe mine, ultimul Caragancev, cautand in sacul cu amintiri incrustate genetic in sangele care imi curge prin vine...

Sometimes, you feel attracted to some places you never saw, or you know very little about, but they call your name and request your presence there with an almost magical magnetism. For me, Bulgaria has been one such place.

It's good to know from the begining that most of the stories you will read here have a large dose of objectivism, but there is also a subjective side quite strong. In short, the story is like this:

I come from a Bulgarian family. The oldest information about my family it's dated somewhere in the middle of the XVIIIth century, when the family called Gancev lived in a village near Targovishte (the Bulgarian Targovishte, not the Romanian one), named Tvarditsa. Because the people were rebels, the fanariot and turkish leaders from those times ridiculed them by calling them "Kara" Gancev ("the black one", or "the bad one"). This particle "Kara" has been preserved attached to the family name until today. I carry and treasure this name, also being the last of their offspring.

Slandered, "hunted down", my forefathers had retreated from Tvarditsa to Tighina, in the south of Bessarabia. There they caught and fought all the wars until 1956, when their succesors established somewhere near Craiova. There came my grand-grandparents, Ilie and Sofia, along with a nephew (my father) and only four of the seven children they had. The other three died in the meantime fighting on the battlefield or killed due to political reasons/orders.

My grandma, one of the four children who got out of that chaos, maintained correspondence with our relatives in Bulgaria, but from the moment she died the Bulgarian language was extinguished in our house. After a few months, the Russian language extinguished too, with the death of my father. (When my daddy had arrived in Romania, in 1956, he learned Romanian using some bilingual story-books). And here I am, the last of the Caragancev seeds, searching feverishly for the other "myself" in the sack of memories, genetically embeded in the blood that flows through my veins ...