Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria

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Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria

3.57 of 5 stars 3.57 · rating details · 129 ratings · 27 reviews

Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and grew up under the drab, muddy, grey mantle of one of communism s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she dec...more

Hardcover, 337 pages

Published 2008 by Portobello Books

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Street Without a Name by Kapka Kassabova

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Mar 23, 2012 Daisy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bulgaria, eastern-european-challenge-2011, east-bloc-memoir, favorites-2nd-place, new-zealand

Memoir, history book, travelogue: this book is written with clarity, honesty, sentiment (not sentimentality), and humor. It's beautifully-written. The family stories are touching. The history portions scratch the surface of huge gaps in my knowledge. And the sections devoted to Kassabova's country of Bulgaria had me googling images of almost every place she mentions. In fact it would be nice if there were a map in this book for easy reference.

Between Hotel Drustur and the Golden Dobrudzha, I hav...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Sharm Alagaratnam rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kapka Kassabova took the long way round to Edinburgh, growing up in Bulgaria and with pit stops in Essex and Dunedin, New Zealand, apparently without losing her sense of humour on the way. The Guardian has an excerpt of her book, below. Bulgaria is a place I know far too little about, and Kassabova seems to be just the person to hold my hand while I learn. I've already sent a pleading email to the library to buy a copy. This sounds like a book they definitely need!

Kapka Kassabova grew up in 1980...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Nirmal rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had picked up this book at local library somewhat reluctantly. But it did not disappoint me. These are memoirs of a girl who spent her growing life in Stalinist/communist Bulgaria.

It shows the ugliness of communism when (most of the times?) it does not work. Along the way, one learns about Bulgaria’s history -500 yrs of Ottoman Turk domination, Balkan geopolitics including Macedonia being a part of Bulgaria etc., communist regime’s persecution, renaming of Turkish minority, atmosphere of drea...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Pei Pei rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century, coming-of-age, contemporary, historical, international, bulgaria-and-eastern-europe

The best part of this book was the fact that the author grew up in the neighborhood I live in, so I recognized many of the streets and local landmarks she references (hey, there's a photo of our McDonald's!). Other than this novelty factor, though, this book really paled in comparison to other Bulgarian books I've read (and international coming-of-age stories in general - Persepolis comes to mind as a similar story but is far better), not only in quality of writing but also, ironically, in givin...more

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Oct 17, 2009 Francis rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'd give this book 3 1/2 stars.

"Street With No Name" is a very interesting and very personal memoir of Kapka Kassabova's childhood in Bulgaria, and a travelogue chronicling several return trips to visit relatives and discuss the sights. The author appears to have also written a travel guidebook, probably during those same trips, and this book reads more like a diary of those trips. The first part mostly describes her growing up in Sofia, discussing her life in school, various activities such as...more I'd give this book 3 1/2 stars.

"Street With No Name" is a very interesting and very personal memoir of Kapka Kassabova's childhood in Bulgaria, and a travelogue chronicling several return trips to visit relatives and discuss the sights. The author appears to have also written a travel guidebook, probably during those same trips, and this book reads more like a diary of those trips. The first part mostly describes her growing up in Sofia, discussing her life in school, various activities such as the Pioneer groups (somewhat similar to the Boy/Girl Scouts), and contrasting the deprivations of life in socialist Bulgaria with the luxuries of the West (brought into sober focus by her parents' trips to the Netherlands and a visit by some Dutch colleagues). She also discusses her coming of age, getting into a French-language high school, and her family's eventual exodus to New Zealand.

The second half of the book chronicles her trips throughout Bulgaria; the chronology is sometimes a bit unclear, since there are at least three trips interwoven, some to different regions of Bulgaria, and with multiple visits to her aging relatives. She covers most of the major regions of Bulgaria, and her anecdotes include very vivid, slice-of-life interactions with local people, highlighting their conditions, attitudes, and (sometimes) prejudices. While a bit non-linear, I felt this part actually captured quite well the odd mixture of nostalgia and disorientation that one gets when revisiting a place that is full of memories from several trips but that has changed dramatically each time.

Kapka does manage to work in a great many of the large and small cultural highlights of Bulgaria. She discusses most of the major regions, has some discussion of food, works in many significant historical events of Bulgaria (e.g., the 500 years under the Turks, saving its Jews from the Nazis during World War II, the forcible renaming of Turks in the mid-80s) as well as many cultural details (the wedding music of Ivo Papasov, pop-folk/chalga/silicone divas, the fear that air currents will make you sick; I don't think she managed to work in the one about how women shouldn't sit on concrete because of the fear that their ovaries will freeze, however). The descriptions of the horrors of public toilets was particularly graphic, and not (at all!) exaggerated. Similarly, the descriptions of maniacal taxi-driver speeding and perilous potholes is spot-on (I personally have flown down Tsarigradsko Shousse in a taxi at over 100 MPH and feared for my life similarly).

My reaction to this book is that it struck me as very Bulgarian, in several senses that I shall attempt to explain. It is fairly typical for Bulgarians to exaggerate a certain amount when describing a situation: if something happened twice, they will usually say it happened four times; if six times, they will often say 100. Recipients of such statements tend to take this into account when interpreting the statements. Thus, when I retold several of the anecdotes to a Bulgarian who grew up around the same time in the same places, they were met with some skepticism (e.g., she thought that Kapka's father being unable to find a store to buy potatoes in the summer in Bansko was more likely due to his unfamiliarity with the town), and she found the story of Kapka's mother being overcome by the luxury of a Dutch bathroom similarly difficult to swallow.

The author spends a rather significant part of the time on the cultural injustice of the ethnic minorities being forced to change their names to Bulgarian ones in order to "assimilate" them, though she focuses a lot on the Turks, and I think rather less so on the Roma (Gypsies), who suffer at least as much discrimination in Bulgaria and worse conditions. Ethnic identity is a far more prominent (and complex) part of Balkan society than in modern America, in my opinion. For instance, as a Chinese-American watching the Olympics in Bulgaria once, I was assumed to be rooting for the Chinese team. Also, perhaps anomalously, one of the most patriotic Bulgarians I know is a Bulgarian Turk whom I believe was alive during the time of the renaming.

The one thing that I found rather hard to stomach about this book was the relentless undercurrent of pretentious self-loathing; the author takes significant pains to highlight the deprivations of the past and the grim aspects of the present. For instance, she spends a fair amount of time depicting Englishmen and the like as slavering, leering, greedy exploiters, ready to pounce on cheap Bulgarian properties (or, sometimes, her). This is also very Bulgarian, in the sense of perceiving themselves as "being at the mercy of the Great Powers". It would be naive and rosy not to acknowledge the fact that the country is wracked with corruption, gangsters (mutri), and so forth, but she likes to take certain facts and spin them into a narrative of backwardness. For instance, she begins with an anecdote about landing at the "worst-named airport in the world, Airpost Vrazhdebna (=Hostile)" and juxtaposing this discussion with a description of some Germans (who represent the modern, progressive West that Bulgaria strives to emulate). But there is a reasonable explanation, which is that it was built in the village of Vrazhdebna on the outskirts of Sofia (apparently that name comes from when that village was inherited by Bogomil heretics). Furthermore, it seems to me like a rather appropriate name from a superstitious point of view: an airport is a place that is perceived to be fraught with danger and risk (and, having flown in a Balkan Air Tupolev TU-154 out of that airport once, I can fully understand why). So, it seems appropriate that to ward off the threat of evil spirits and happenings, the airport has a powerful, warding name.

In any case, I found this book overall very interesting and informative. She makes a disclaimer up front that everything is true, as she remembers it, but explicitly disclaims any pretense of objectivity. Once, when a Bulgarian I know was dismissing the news reports we were watching about goings-on in the former Yugoslavia as "all lies", I tried to ask how one can ever know what the truth is if all the news you ever get is lies....she explained that her way (which I gathered was a common conceptualization of "truth" in the Balkans) was to listen to it all and then look in your heart to figure out what the truth really is. I feel that I should view the narrative presented in this book as having been filtered through this conceptualization of "truth". The material in this book is a very valuable source but I think it needs to be read and understood in context with other sources and experiences to gain a fuller picture of the history and culture of Bulgaria.(less)

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Oct 16, 2009 Antoaneta Mitrusheva rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ако трябва да определя тази книга с една дума, то тя би била "носталгия". Ако мога да използвам две, бих добавила и "горчивина".
Върна ме много назад във времето, извика десетки спомени. Често имах усещането за "дежа ву" - "да, точно така беше", "да, това и аз съм го изживяла".
Припомних си разни забравени моменти, емоции, усещания.
Научих нови неща - обичам книги, от които научавам нещо.
Но книгата ми нагарчаше твърде много на моменти. Искаше ми се да е малко по-оптимистична като усещане. А не да...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Cailin Deery rated it 3 of 5 stars

I did a bit of searching (then digging) ahead of a work trip to Bulgaria, looking for the already-familiar to build upon (Politicians? Authors? Artists? Film? Major historical events? Anyone of note, for better or worse?), but found very little. (Though did terrorize myself by watching a bunch of Ross Kemp documentaries) In answer to that, I picked up Street Without a Name: part memoir of a girl growing up in Sofia, and part travelogue as she comes back an expat years later. Kassabova’s project...more I did a bit of searching (then digging) ahead of a work trip to Bulgaria, looking for the already-familiar to build upon (Politicians? Authors? Artists? Film? Major historical events? Anyone of note, for better or worse?), but found very little. (Though did terrorize myself by watching a bunch of Ross Kemp documentaries) In answer to that, I picked up Street Without a Name: part memoir of a girl growing up in Sofia, and part travelogue as she comes back an expat years later. Kassabova’s project here is really quite ambitious (therefore rough around the edges) as she scrapes together the sweeping sum of Bulgaria’s modern history, occasionally contextualizing and isolating these frameworks, then other times chucking them in without obvious basis. But I kind of like that in a memoir.

Kassabova’s childhood is a picture of life against a backdrop of a changing political and social scene. It’s a story of a violent homeland, political corruption, a questionable (immoral) social atmosphere, cultural isolation, and ultimately the effects of emigration. Her early childhood was during the time that Bulgaria was under the power of the BCP (Bulgarian Communist Party). It’s also when areas near Ukraine or within its direct airstream were suffering the physical and psychological effects of Chernobyl. Kassabova’s teenage years are a glimpse into life after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent ‘freefall of post-Communism’ in the East. The most enduring undercurrents throughout are those of violence (from groups like the VMRO) and completely deficient information (from the government to the people and especially from one ruling group to another). It’s therefore an experience that is bitter, while also charming and eccentric.

There’s far too much history to reiterate, though I’ll build a little house of cards for at least a spec of context. (A… spec house, if you will.) There’s a great deal of argument as to what Bulgarians’ cultural heritage might be: Thracian? Mongolian? Iranian? Another Asiatic origin? Slavic, Greek, Ottoman? In at least 29 B.C., Sofia was a Thracian city, which the Romans overthrew and renamed Ulpia Serdica for a hell of a long time. Over the centuries, rather than building Sofia outwards to contain older parts of the city and newer areas, the city was build upwards, which means any new building projects are likely to uncover Roman ruins. This approach also had modern day extensions, meaning, for example, that a mausoleum housing a former member of the Politburo (Georgi Dimitriov) was only discovered to be a nuclear bomb shelter (a Civil Defense bunker) after an incoming government tried destroying it by bombing it… 8 times to no success.

In the late 19th century, Bulgaria was liberated by the Ottomans, but a quick penstroke (the Treaty of Berlin) awarded large chunks of Bulgaria back to the Ottomans, which became modern-day Macedonia and contributed at least one prop of one scene of the stage that is the crazy racial nationalism pitting Balkan states against each other. What have I gotten myself into.

Okay, since I’m obviously a terrible historian, I’ll just share another wild fact and abandon any attempt to make sense of this for you. (Okay, or you could just: here) In 1943, the monarch of Bulgaria at the time went to pay a little visit to Hitler. After returning to Bulgaria, he suddenly and unexpectedly died. It wouldn't be so unlikely that he would've been murdered by either the Nazis or the Bulgarians because the Communists hated the monarchy and the Nazis hated the Bulgarians for not wanting to get involved in the war. So his 6-years-old son, born Tsar Simeon II but then called Simeon Borisov of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (mouthful), ascended the thrown for the following 3 years. The Communists then overthrew the monarchy in 1946 and the little king fled the country to go into exile for 55 years … only to come back... 55 years later... as the Prime Minister! That has got to be the only democratically elected politician who was formerly a monarch. Right? He had formed a party in 2001 ‘modestly’ called ‘the National Movement of Simeon II’.

Okay, maybe getting into the history of Bulgaria was a bit of a bad idea. How about I leave you with this line, which is a great synopsis of both the disorder of this memoir and the confounding history of Bulgaria:

“One of the few things I’m now sure about is that Bulgaria is a country living simultaneously, effortlessly, casually almost, in several different time planes.”(less)

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Aug 23, 2009 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

In reality the first half of this book was solidly 4 stars for me and the second half was only 2. I found Kassabova's description of growing up in Bulgaria and moving to the West in her late teens absorbing and transporting. There were some interesting parallels to my husband's experiences in the Soviet Union during the same time period that made it even more relevant to me. The second half is a travelogue of Bulgaria that jumps around in time and space in a way that was confusing for me and tha...more

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Sep 30, 2008 Albena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bulgaria, second-language-writers

The book is a very honest account of the author's childhood in Bulgaria during the last two decades of the Cold War, and truly reflects her emotional experience in the country of origin after nearly two decades of living abroad. (Kapka Kassabova emigrated from Bulgaria in 1990, and writes in English).
During her visit to Bulgaria, Kapka Kassabova describes in an intimate way and at the same time with a fine sense of humor places and people, revitalizes memories and layers of history.
Please, take...more

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Apr 13, 2011 Anne Van rated it 2 of 5 stars

Delighted to read a book about Bulgaria, by a Bulgarian, no less. But, the book....a memoir of growing up in Sofia, leaving for the West in 1991 when she was 17, then returning for a month's vacation to travel around seeing the "Bulgaria Now", felt superficial. The memoir section was pretty interesting, even though it seemed more like an adolescent's diary, but the travel sections simply had me skipping over chunks of it. I'm just not that interested in what kind of taxi driver she had, the line...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Alisha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dark and fascinating; an intense and personal portrait of a tragically overlooked country. My favorite bit was the memoir in the first third, but her travels around Bulgaria are intriguing as well. I loved learning about the history of 1/8th of my roots, and taking a little tour around the country. But I was left really wondering what happened to Kapka between landing in New Zealand and moving to the Scottish Highlands--and I wish she had more hope for her native land.

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Mar 02, 2013 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an eastern european travelogue from the point of view of an ambivalent expatriate returning home, which gives an added dimension compared to travelogues of interested foreigners like, say, Rebecca West. (There's a point when the narratives of this book and "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" almost touch, in the chapter dealing with Macedonia.)

The first and more autobiographical half of the book was often quite poignant, as were the later parts in which the author visits her ailing, lonely rela...more

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Jan 20, 2010 Moche rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Living in Bulgaria and married to a Bulgaria, I really enjoyed reading this book, particularly the first half when she talks about growing up in Sofia. Some things made me laugh, and some things were so familiar to me, living here 30 years later, that it made me cringe. Fun read for anyone who knows Bulgaria.

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Sep 01, 2012 Ariel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bulgaria

The first half of the book I would give 4 stars, but the latter half deserves a two at best.

While the memoir was fascinating and informative. I felt too often that in her travelogue section she slipped too often into "speaking for" Bulgaria, even though she admits at times she at times felt like a stranger, having been living as an expat for so many years. I would have been more expecting of her interpretations and conclusions if she had given us more of the observations that got her there... b...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Rene' rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Such an interesting perspective on Bulgaria! I was fascinated (and saddened) from beginning to end. A must read if you have ever lived in Bulgaria or if you want to know more about the influence Russia had on its satellite contries.

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Aug 10, 2010 Ilona lalova rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book is very engaging, especially for those of us who lived through that period in communist and post-communist Bulgaria. The first part is amazing, it reflects to the tiniest details the absurdity of everyday life during the 70s and 80s. It made me cry more than few times. The second part is definitely engaging too, even though I felt it was a little rushed and forced at times. I like Kapka Kassabova's sense of humor even though I think some of its beauty was lost in the translation.

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Dec 09, 2008 Jaq rated it 3 of 5 stars

really enjoyed the parts about growing up in Bulgaria under the Communist regime. The travle bits were not so gripping for me but an interesting read and makes me want to go to Bulgaria.

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Jun 13, 2011 Teegan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wished I could give it 3 1/2 stars. Like most memoirs, could've been 75 pages shorter and I had a hard time figuring out the people who were constantly coming and going. But she funny enough for me to round up to four stars instead of down to three=).

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Feb 04, 2010 Toni rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who enjoys good storytelling that gives readers a sense of place

I enjoyed this book immensely, particularly the author's stories of her childhood in Communist Bulgaria in the 1980s. It tended to wander toward the end, when she revisits her native country over more than one period of time, but that didn't take away from the emotional depth, wry wit, and rich sense of history the author imparts in her storytelling. A side note: while I realize this probably wasn't the author's doing, but the publisher really could have included a map or two, because the storie...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Ann added it · review of another edition

I'm trying to get this in my "To Read" list! Thanks Rene', it looks good.

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Aug 03, 2010 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this author's writing style, and it was interesting because I've never really read anything about Bulgaria. It highlighted my ignorance of eastern European geography, though, so I sometimes found it hard to follow. I wish there had been some maps! Perhaps that was a deliberate choice to get readers to look it up for themselves...

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Jul 25, 2011 Sheri rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wonderfully well-observed memoir and travelogue through the last years of communism and Bulgaria, past and present. What I especially loved were its reflections on the malleable natures and interplays of identity, nationality, geography, and religion. And of the creation of identity through the retelling of stories - I recently saw Enda Walsh's WALWORTH FARCE and NEW ELECTRIC BALLROOM, and they nicely complemented my reading of STREET WITHOUT A NAME: CHILDHOOD AND OTHER MISADVENTURES IN BULGAR...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Meg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bulgaria is a weird place.

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Jan 02, 2010 Suzanne rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was disappointed with the writing and particularly with the author's tone, which was like that of snidely critical adolescent. However, my interest in Bulgaria kept me reading and I did learn some things about the country.

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Dec 19, 2009 KU rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished

The book started out slow for me but it warmed up towards the last half of the book. Some of the stories reminded me of Taiwan, I think a lot of it had to do with living in a socialist era.

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Feb 04, 2011 Huelo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Required reading for anyone who's spent time in Bulgaria! You'll laugh, you'll cringe.

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Apr 12, 2012 Marlela rated it 2 of 5 stars

I would give it 2 1/2 stars.

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May 16, 2013 Alice marked it as to-read

Shelves: europe, around-the-world-in-80-books, non-fiction

May 09, 2013 Traci Azbell added it

Shelves: world-lit-nonfiction

May 08, 2013 Johnek marked it as to-read

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About Kapka Kassabova

Kapka was born and raised in Bulgaria in the 1970s, and educated by her scientist parents, the French College in Sofia, and two New Zealand universities.

In 1990, the family moved to England, and later to New Zealand. Five years ago Kapka moved to Britain because the climate is so much better here.

She lives in sunny Edinburgh as a cultural mongrel and is working on a simplified version of her Eas...more

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Quotes from Street Without a Name:...

“I chose to see emigration and globe-trotting as an escape, not as a loss. Nowhere to call home? No problem, the world is my oyster. Where are you from, they ask. Does it matter, I answer.
But it does. Because how can you truly know yourself, and how can you know other place and people, if you don't even know where you come from?” — 2 people liked it

“Where do nations begin? In airport lounges, of course. You see them arriving, soul by soul, in pre-activation mode. They step into no man's land, with only their passports to hold onto, and follow the signs to the departure gate. There, among the impersonal plastic chairs and despite themselves, they coalesce into the murky Rorschach stain of nationhood.” — 0 people liked it

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