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536 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 beautiful scenery, a town enjoying foreign public—it is rare to find so many different nationalities 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 building 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 tourists, 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.
