At last the cameramen had their pictures, and the journalists had their ending—Europe’s final tormented bears were off to a life of freedom.
“They’re going to their life of freedom in cages,” someone remarked, but this subtle piece of spite didn’t spoil the atmosphere of triumph and success.
7.
However, the Stanev family did have another go at spoiling the atmosphere. Little Veselina, now aged sixteen, remembers the way her father shouted at Dr. Khalil. When the disoriented bears—disoriented because they didn’t know the doctor would be taking them off to the land of a bear’s dreams, with pine trees, pool, and freedom—started roaring and trying to get out of the cages, Veselin Stanev shouted, “So who’s the one tormenting animals here? Tell me that!”
And then he added: “At our house, they were never in a cage. None of them. Not for a single minute. They lived with us and ate the same things we did.”
“But you used to beat them,” blurted one of the journalists.
“I sometimes give the kiddies a smack too. Maybe you’re going to take my kids away as well!” raged Veselin. “I tell you, with hand on heart, they were no worse off than we were.”
Later on the journalists made use of the Gypsy’s remark purely as a bit of a joke—he tormented the animals, and now he’s making a racket. The tendency among the journalists was to present the bears’ new life purely in colorful, or even slightly fantastical, tones and the old one as a stream of endless torment. “Captives finally at liberty” and “The end of suffering for the Bulgarian bears,” wrote the local papers the day after.
Though on hearing that the bears ate the same things as the Stanev family Dr. Khalil could only scowl. His people were happy to explain to those who were interested that it’s a very bad thing for bears to have eaten the same things as their owners. A bear’s diet should be varied, because by nature they are virtually omnivorous: they eat fruits and vegetables and nuts, but not—as the Stanev family do—bread, potatoes with lard, potato chips, and candy. So the people from Four Paws could only weep at the stupidity of the people who call themselves bear keepers.
The doors of the ambulance specially adapted to transport bears closed. The driver started up the engine and switched on the air-conditioning—set at the ideal temperature for bears—and also a special, slightly dimmed light that, according to animal psychologists, calms them down.
The money for the ambulance was donated by charitable Westerners who cared about the welfare of the Bulgarian bears.
Just an eight-hour journey toward the Rila Mountains, and then the bears’ dream, of which they weren’t yet aware, would come true.
8.
To reach the Dancing Bears Park in Belitsa, you drive along a beautiful road that winds through a mountain gorge; but thanks to time and water flowing down from the mountains almost all the asphalt has been worn away.
Although Misho, Svetla, and Mima coped reasonably well with the long journey from Getsovo, the last seven miles probably made them feel nauseous. Now and then the van would have jumped on the potholes, and the driver would have cursed the local authorities under his breath for failing, for years on end, to reach an agreement with the regional authorities to have the road repaired.
First, like all newly arriving bears, they were seen by a vet, who performed some essential tests on them under anesthetic: blood, blood pressure, state of dentition, eyes, state of reproductive organs.
They all had problems with their skin and teeth. “One, because living with their owners they ate a lot of candy,” says Dimitar Ivanov, who runs the park at Belitsa, by way of explanation. “Two, because the Gypsies have often knocked out their teeth when they were little, to be sure the bear would never bite them. They weren’t bothered about the fact that the bear wouldn’t be able to chew its food properly and would fall sick as a result. All our bears have problems with their teeth. A dentist regularly comes here from Germany to treat them.”
Misho’s test results were the worst. “We were expecting this,” says Ivanov. “He had almost no fur, and if a bear’s fur falls out, it means he has serious health problems. Apart from that, he had high blood pressure and a serious eye infection. We brought in an ophthalmologist from Sofia to save his eyes. It was a success. Now Misho can see normally.
“Another thing we have to deal with is their addiction to candy. And alcohol. Did you know that the Gypsies used to get them drunk on purpose, because then they knew they wouldn’t rebel? They did it for hundreds of years. Anyone who’s dependent on alcohol hasn’t the strength to rebel.
“We had to work on the bears that had been drinking on a daily basis for the past twenty years. If we’d cut off their alcohol from one day to the next, they’d have died. It had to be done gradually. Today, I’m proud to say, all our bears are teetotal.”
9.
After coming round from the anesthetic, the bears spent the first few days in a small cave, dug out specially for them by the park’s employees. According to Dimitar Ivanov: “They had to get used to new smells, a new place, and new food. We gave them a few days for that before we let them loose.”
Before they got their freedom.
For a bear, freedom is such a shock that you can’t just let it out of a cage and into the woods. You have to give it a few days to adapt.
Freedom means new challenges.
New sounds.
New smells.
New food.
For them, freedom is one big adventure.
“When we finally let them out into the forest, they never knew what to do, and at first they’d be just about reeling with freedom,” adds one of the park employees. “I don’t blame them. If someone’s only been out on a chain for the past twenty years, that’s a normal reaction.”
III. Negotiations
1.
Vasil is a touch over forty, with black hair falling onto his face and the charm of a small-town boy who has learned how to talk to people from the big cities. He works at the Dancing Bears Park in Belitsa. He was born here, he went to school here, and this is where he started his career as a DJ, which took him to music clubs in Sofia, Golden Sands, and Burgas. Here at last, some fifteen years ago, he decided to change his life and submitted his résumé to the park’s managers.
“At my job interview the man who was then director asked me, ‘Why do you want to swap working as a DJ for working with us?’ With a deadpan expression I replied that I figured the dancing bears might be in need of a DJ,” Vasil tells me. “They laughed. But when they saw that I’d graduated as a veterinarian, I got the job at once. I was pretty bored of being a DJ. I wanted to settle down.”
For six years, Vasil was responsible for taking bears away from their owners. He collected more than twenty—almost all of them, including the last ones, Misho, Svetla, and Mima. Only the first two bears were brought to Belitsa without his help.
“The most important thing about the task was always the first conversation,” he says, and looks me in the eyes, as if wanting to make sure I understand. Negotiations of this kind are evidently a delicate and complicated matter, and not everyone understands them right away. Luckily, Vasil is quick to explain what not to do: “‘Good morning. I have a cage here. I’ve come for your bear,’ as I used to say before I knew better. The man might not be at home, and if he is, he’ll defend himself. He’ll lock the gate. The Gypsy women will start to shout. Neighbors from the entire district will come running.
“In fact, the handover has to be prepared a long way in advance. It just has to look as if it happened spontaneously, for the press and the donors. We took a vehicle, we drove up, and they handed it over to us. In reality, these things take months to negotiate. You have to sit down at the table with them once, twice, a third time, to make friends and gain each other’s trust.
“Without mutual trust, none of them would hand over his bear. They’d sooner kill it. There were incid
ents of the kind. One of the Gypsies from just outside Ruse couldn’t cope with his bear, so he killed it. He could have given it to us, but he was afraid—of the local constable, of being fined, of being held in custody. They told each other rumors that we might even take their house away if they didn’t hand over the bear. It was nonsense—we never would have acted that way. But they’re primitive enough to believe that sort of story.
“So they have to get to know us and like us. And think we’re on their side.”
Vasil and I are standing on the terrace at the Dancing Bears Park. Ahead of us we can see the Pirin Mountains, with the peak of Vihren rising to over ninety-five hundred feet, and to our right are the Rila Mountains, where the famous monastery on the UNESCO World Heritage list is located.
Below us lie thirty acres that the Austrian organization Four Paws has changed into bear heaven. Here the animals taken away from Gypsies have a pool, lots of toys, and three nutritious meals a day.
The terrace itself is like a battleship, with its prow pointing into the khaki green of the forest. The greenery is crisscrossed with thin blue threads and dark brown patches.
The brown patches are the bears taken from their Gypsy owners.
The blue threads are electrified barbed wire. Freedom has its limits too.
2.
To get here from the ski resort of Bansko, you have to head in the direction of Velingrad, a town famous for its mineral waters.
You drive under a viaduct carrying a narrow-gauge rail line, which in another country might pass as a big tourist attraction but here just ferries people along a picturesque route through the mountains, between the towns of Dobrinishte and Septemvri.
Just before the viaduct you must look out for a sign showing a big brown bear and the words: “Парк за танцуващи мечки—Dancing Bears Park—10 miles.”
Next you drive under the viaduct, passing a small Orthodox church that’s locked and bolted, and then a corn field.
For the first two and a half miles you’re on a surfaced road that leads to Belitsa. Two towers dominate this little town: one’s on top of the Orthodox church, and the other’s the minaret of a small mosque located on the banks of the river Belishka. One-third of the population of Belitsa is Muslim. “Mostly the sort of Muslims who speak nothing but Bulgarian and won’t say no to a glass of rakia, but some of them are more traditional,” explains Vasil.
The landmark at the town center is the Hotel Belitsa, which has been under renovation for the past three years. “They’ll be restoring it for another five,” the locals tell me. “Why? Because it’s state owned. Nobody cares.”
But behind it, at the back of the hotel, stands a line of people who do care about getting some bread and a packet of pasta from social welfare. It’s a long line; either you have to come along much earlier or you have to wait for at least three-quarters of an hour. It’s mainly Belitsa’s Gypsies who are in the line, but there are a few Bulgarians too. I ask Vasil about it.
But he just shrugs. It’s nothing new that not everyone in Bulgaria has done well since the fall of Communism. What is there to say?
We go back to our conversation about bears.
3.
“For the first meeting, you invite the Gypsy to a restaurant,” says Vasil. “Not too expensive, or it’ll have too strong an effect on his imagination and he’ll push the sum you’re offering to the limits, but also not too cheap, or he’ll be offended. There’s no denying that they’re very sensitive about their honor. You mustn’t wound it in any way, or they’ll deliberately act out of spite—you’ll offer a good price for the bear, five thousand leva, for instance, and he’ll say he wants a million. Once he digs in his heels you won’t make any progress for a year. You’ll need a major campaign to persuade the local community leaders, the Gypsy elders, and their relatives to support you; otherwise you’ll never make a deal with the offended Gypsy.
“Better to start off on the right foot.
“Once you’ve gotten the Gypsy in the restaurant, you must order something to eat and plenty of rakia to wash it all down. You must ask what kind he likes, sit with him, and drink. The fact that you may not like Gypsies is irrelevant—who does like them anyway? Sorry? You do? Have you got friends among them? Well, maybe the Gypsies in Poland are different. Either way, the whole time you must never forget that you’re not here for yourself, but your goal is the bear. That’s what they taught us at the training sessions in Austria. They even wrote out a formula:
Your goal—the bear.
Your mission—to free the bear.
The bear, of the bear, for the bear, with the bear, about the bear.
“If you keep reminding yourself what you’re there for, it’s easier to cope. Bears really are wonderful animals, I have to say. They’re intelligent, noble, and regal. Nature in its most perfect form.
“So you have to get the Gypsy drunk, which is complicated by the fact that you have to drink with him. If he’s going to get drunk, so are you. It’s a problem, but for one reason you’re in the winning position. You have an imagination; you know where this situation is leading. You know what our beautiful park in Belitsa is like, and you can already imagine the poor bears at liberty. So you can keep your emotions in check. You’re not going to start drunkenly hugging the Gypsy in a sentimental way—and if you do, no more so than the situation demands. And the whole time you’ll be in control of the conversation.
“If the Gypsy wants to talk about his family, his children, the government, or the price of gas, you’ll listen politely, but after a while you’ll top up the rakia and say, ‘So, when can we come for your bear?’
“As we say in Bulgaria, drop by drop a lake is formed.
“So now and then you have to pour some more rakia. And you mustn’t forget the gifts either. Gypsies adore gifts. It doesn’t matter what it is. It can be a key ring, a T-shirt, a cap, or a lighter. Anything. It just has to be nicely wrapped—in a large bag, with a design on it, something that rustles. So you keep drinking, and at some point you say, ‘I’ve got a small keepsake for you.’ And you take it out. The bag rustles; the colors sparkle. The Gypsy’ll be happy as a clam, whatever it is. They’re incapable of judging the value of objects. If something’s shiny and it rustles, they’re happy.
“And there’s one other thing that’s crucial.
“At some point you must say something like ‘I shouldn’t really be giving you this, but . . .’
“Or ‘My boss mustn’t know about this, but . . .’
“And then you fetch something from the car or out of your jacket. Again, it could be a cap, a key ring, or a T-shirt. But from then on the Gypsy will be convinced you’re on his side. If you’ve pulled a fast one together, if you’re cheating on your own boss to give him something, it means you’re a real friend.”
4.
“I had dozens of these conversations with Gypsies. I recovered more than twenty bears, almost all the animals we have at our park. My bosses have total confidence in me. If I bargained for a bear in exchange for ten thousand leva, that was the price they had to pay. And if I agreed to a sum of twenty thousand, then obviously there was no chance of paying less.
“But one time I managed to strike a bargain at two thousand. And the guy who only took that much also delivered the bear to us himself, in his own car.
“What’s the most vital thing? The Gypsy has to trust you. He has to be convinced that his own family would do the dirty on him sooner than you would.
“I have to give myself a pat on the back, because for some reason all the Gypsies, absolutely every single one, trusted me. I’d say to them, ‘Listen, I’ve come to you as a friend. I’m going to arrange for you to have some money from Germany. I’ll get you a good sum—you might even get as much as three thousand leva. But if you and I can’t make a deal, the police will come and confiscate your bear. And you won’t get a penny.’
; “Then the Gypsy would always say, ‘What? Three thousand leva for my Misho, for my Vela, for my Isaura?’—lots of the bears were called Isaura after the slave girl in the Brazilian soap opera—‘You must be joking!’ Then he’d put on his little act and tell me how young his Misho is, what amazing tricks he can do, how smart Vela is, and how much the tourists love her, how gentle Isaura is, and she drinks beer too. And in his stupid Gypsy way he’d try to extract more money from me. He’d say three thousand leva was a joke, and he wants a million deutsche marks—that’s what the first Gypsy I talked to said.
“And then I’d have to bring him down to earth from that million and offer him ten thousand, for instance.
“Some of them would hold on to the bear to the bitter end. Contrary to logic, because the world has actually moved forward, and in the twenty-first century, when we communicate by iPhone and fly into outer space, there’s no place for dancing bears.
“But some of them had grown accustomed to this sort of work. That’s how they’d shaped their lives, so I wasn’t surprised they found it hard to change gear.
“So you say to the guy, ‘Give up your bear. Otherwise you’ll be in trouble.’
“And he says he will give it up—he seems to have been won over. But then you part ways, he has a chat with his Gypsy pals, and he changes his mind. He hides away at a cousin’s place and refuses to give you the bear.
“So you tell him, ‘Our country is in the European Union. Tourists from all over the world are protesting against people like you. You have to give up the bear.’
“So he says he will give it up. But next day he says he won’t after all, and that just to spite the EU he’s getting himself another one too.
Dancing Bears Page 4