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Katerina Gadjeva
Bulgaria Ihrough the Eyes of Foreigners
During the 1960s: Photographic
Representations of the “Tourist Paradise”
“T have never before seen such a place ... A town of hotels, embedded in the beauti¬
ful scenery, a town enjoying foreign public—it is rare to find so many different na¬
tionalities in one place: French people stretched on chaise-lounges under blue and
white umbrellas, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Germans resting on the balconies of
their hotel rooms. A couple of English people go out of the hotel foyer. Two dozens
of Russians seated at two tables at the fish restaurant ...” (Kalinkov & Doychev
2007: 19). This is what an Austrian journalist wrote in his article for Völkischer
Beobachter upon visiting the Zlatni Pyasatsi (Golden Sands’) resort in 1957, only
a few months after the first eight hotels had opened. His observations came not
from France or Spain but from Bulgaria, a country ruled for almost a decade in the
spirit of the harshest socialism imaginable, that of the Stalinist type. How did the
coast of the previously unknown and tourist-unfriendly country gain popularity as
the Florida, Cannes, or Saint Tropez (Lapiérre & Jarnoux 1963: 28) of the Black
Sea? And what was the role of photography in the state plan for turning Bulgaria
into a fashionable tourist destination?
In the late 1948, under the direct presidency of Georgi Dimitrov,' the Fifth
Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party was held in Sofia, which set the build¬
ing of communism in Bulgaria as an overarching goal. A clear course was outlined
for the development of the country which had to follow the main features of the
Soviet organization. Soon after the Fifth Congress, a centralized economic policy
was in place as well as total control over all spheres of life. Bulgaria was now one
of the closest and most loyal allies of the USSR. Earlier in the same year, on the
initiative of Georgi Dimitrov, the Balkantourist’ state enterprise was established.
Among its main objectives were “to be responsible for the overall organization of
international tourism in the country, to attract a growing number of foreign tour¬
ists, to receive and provide service to all foreigners, delegates, groups and interna¬
' Georgi Dimitrov (1882-1949) was a hero in the trial for the setting of the Reichstag fire in 1933. He
was a close to Joseph Stalin; a key figure of the international communist movement; secretary general of
the Comintern (1935-1943), secretary general of the Bulgarian Communist Party and prime minister of
Bulgaria from 1946 to 1949. After his death in 1949, his body was embalmed and placed in a specially
erected mausoleum in the centre of Sofia (see Vaseva, this volume).
? Balkantourist is the oldest tour operator in Bulgaria. It was a state-owned government monopoly that
was privatized in 1995.