city of legends
"They still do that, you know. The mayor still has the power. They hold a meeting and give an accomplished athlete an apartment upon their return."
rakiya sales
"Which is why you should buy more!"
terlitsi and plants
"There is always a need for terlitsi! Or how about a plant, you need some plants for your balcony... And then we will find you a man!"
jurassic park
"You know, edno vreme, in the village we used to do everything with a sickle and a palamarka, like this...... "
tumbling balconies on a thumb
"I released it from the crane and it fell, knocking off every balcony on its way down."
jungles
"I can't do anything without a lamp all day. Can you imagine?! A lamp!"
fading characteristics
"It was Ivan who thought of them. I remember the font. It was Helvetica! And it matched the building color."
black and arial.
razchupena sun and shade
"Thank god, the one bedrooms stick out further than the sun can reach. We are saved!"
oranges in bloom
"I decided to paint my kitchen."
"I've meant to it for the last 20 years."
А9 legacies
"You know we never had to be in the mud like everyone else.
We were the first ones."
fractured reflections
"In 1997 we went back. We pieced it together with what had already been done."
panelka gardening
The sausage always must be sliced fresh and sliced thin.
the beautifying campaign
"bez kozmetika, Baba kakvo pravi!?"
without the cosmetic things, what's a Baba to do!?
balcony to basement
pipe works of new kitchens on balconies.
big church and a soviet neighborhood holiday
But in Trakiya, our holiday is the time we opened the big church.
resident babas
Sitting at the entry bench, checking our shopping bags and letting us know if the vegetables we bought are good.
messenger pigeons
"It's nothing, we can talk from here, I'll just yell for you."
the biggest pain
'The whole concept, the whole point!!..'
ins and outs of individuality
"Through orientation!"
"Their view!"
"Their balcony!"
"And most importantly, looking at the building from the outside!"
ac honors
'it is in honor of Rusi Slavov - a fugleman who saved the lives of thousands of Bulgarians from Aegean Thrace......
Word and Voice
Grandpa would always send me out with 20 stotinki to buy Word, cigarettes, and gum.
a disgrace in bloom
"Don't you think it's ugly, everyone doing their own thing? It's a disgrace to the architect."
shades of grey
"You got here at the worst time"
empty fountain playgrounds
play pens parents stick the little ones in to keep them in one area,
soccer pit where boys aspiring to be the next …. take turns making shots at one . . . . . . . .
women’s day
"This is why March is a women's month.."
monuments of Trakiya
and they gather around them, looking up their skirts, comparing who is the bash maestera
muffin tops
"It's like putting on a shirt that's way too small...."
gyps karton
He smiles and slaps on more mud....
finding the leak
"I'm not. I am but I'm not. I just do everything. I've lived here since the beginning, and I'm curious. So after 40 years, I know how everything in the Panelka works. You've seen what I do with the apartments."
morning strollers
Every morning the Romi from their neighborhood to the north filter through Trakiya with their souped up strollers and bikes working their way from dumpster to dumpster.
With the construction . . . . . . . .
frames, apertures, and filters
The blocks of Trakiya were designed for maximum sunlight.
True to modernist form, the windows are large, the balconies beyond them reaching out to pull in more sun.
The inhabitants . . . . . . . .
the cost of electricity
"Most everyone speaks fondly of the memories of how they used to go around in tank tops in the house in the winter..."
kolio’s balcony
Every morning Kolio comes to his balcony, parts the fresh white lace curtains, and swings just one of the panels of his glass enclosure inwards. From there, he leans out and lights a cigarette....
turn your chair!
The view from my chair, looking in, looks straight into a shelf Nina has used to divide her bed from the rest of the room.
seeing myself
But it's a detached sense of individuality, like a baby discovering their arm or their leg for the first time...
cleaning the archives
"People do it anyways, take down the walls, but they don't get our permission, then we have to come in and bust down their doors with the cops..."
pakaging
"For a country that grows so much, and a town that used to have the largest factories, we have to resort to getting it all from Turkey!"
the entry council
The lace looks forward. The brick turns a shoulder, slyly stepping its own entry down to the ground out back.
vhod fall
"Whose idea was it to plant all these stupid trees?!"
meet oscar
"The pipes run through, she'll be fine!"