July 11, 2000

Sitting in the “Imperial Club”, a corner café here in Dupnitsa, I see a black Mercedes Benz SUV pull up and a big man in casual clothing gets out and carries his cell phone to a nearby table. At the table there are about seven other men, laughing heartily and leaning toward the small table filled with nearly empty glasses. Some rest their upper body on their elbow, supported by their knee, giving them a look of ownership over this classy café, in an otherwise typical Bulgarian town. They glance up quickly and acknowledge the other man’s presence as if they had just seen each other a few hours before. Not only is the Mercedes Benz SUV completely out of place here in Dupnitsa, but these men are built like tanks. I whisper “mafia” to my host-sister who is sitting with us, eating an ice-cream sundae. She affirms my conclusion with an unassuming look – she doesn’t want me to say that word too loud. The rest of the people here in Dupnitsa make on average the equivelant of 50 US dollars a month and the $50,000 vehicle looks just a wee bit out of place. I wonder if they are carrying any guns on them and I look at their waistline to see if I can spot a protruding piece of metal that might resemble a pistol. Unfortunately I can’t see anything. The one who pulled up in the SUV finds his own table and from someplace two other men come up and join him. The waitress, who made us sit for nearly 20 minutes as she buzzed around the 10 tables she was trying to serve, went immediately to his table.

As sat watching these men I wondered if I should be nervous. I wondered if I should have been completely sarcastic and risk my life by pulling up the handle on the Mercedes SUV to make the alarm go off. I wondered if I should have accidentally bumped into them and see if they all pulled out guns and waited for me to back off like an innocent bystander in a cheap film. I think I could pull that role off pretty well. “Whoops sorry man – oh no, please don’t shoot!” I wondered if anyone around me was thinking what I was thinking. And then I thought, maybe I should just try to be Bulgarian in this situation. Everyone else around me seems to be going about his or her business. I’ve never been so close to organized crime – it was pretty cool. Maybe Marlon Brando was somewhere in the backroom watching the whole thing on a secret camera. Maybe the whole town is actually American and just speaking Bulgarian for our training here for these three months. One of the other trainees asked me on a whim – What would happen if instead of 70 Peace Corps Trainees here in Dupnitsa, 70 hardcore gang-bangers from NYC or LA, or for that matter, Columbus, OH, replaced us? Would they give the mafia a run for their money? If I were Marlon Brando in the back room, I wouldn’t mind seeing that on a secret camera.

There are a couple mafia hangouts here in Dupnitsa. There is a discotheque called the “Continental” which I haven’t been to and another café that is popular for our fellow men in black. A few days ago, in Kyustendil, a town not so far from Dupnitsa, I saw another black Mercedes. They usually have tinted windows. Could they possibly be anymore obvious? No one in Bulgaria could afford a Mercedes on an average living wage even after a lifetime of blood, sweat and tears. He just sat in front of our hotel, checking his antifreeze and adding water to his radiator after looking over his engine like a clueless mechanic. He walked past us, wearing cologne that could attract a female penguin from Antarctica. He seemed sort of insecure and I wondered why a person with such money and connections should be so insecure.

I have heard of some mafia bosses who have decided to be the philanthropists in their town or city. By giving their nice, clean money to the Church, school, and other institutions hard up for dough, they have won over the popular support of the town. The police and mayor are powerless. It is better for the civil servants to turn the other way than risk being the enemy of the mafia and the general populace. I have to admit it’s a good game plan. Other mafia bosses are more selfish with their stash and prefer to spend it on themselves. Sadly, they only have enormous homes, three or four new German cars, a motorcycle or two, imported clothing, and automatic garage door openers. They have no friends and I hope they can find some solace in their status - - one step above the common Bulgarian and two, or possibly fifteen steps, above the “Roma” or “Gypsies” who walk the town with all of their possessions and begging for money. (More on them later.) For now I am fascinated with my supposedly gun-toting pals in German cars.

-Josh

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