by Christina Dimitrova

In spite of May's high temperatures and the long holiday weekends, Bulgaria's media was preoccupied with scandals and assassinations.

 

DEATH IN A PORSCHE

The murder of the controversial head of Nesebar's municipal council, Dimitar Yankov, dominated the front pages on 11 May. Yankov was shot dead in his Porsche Cayenne in front of his girlfriend's Burgas home on 9 May. He had risen from being a humble bartender to become the owner of several hotels and restaurants in Sunny Beach. Yankov had had several brushes with the law in the past including arrests for alleged attempted murder, assault and connections to the supposed head of Nesebar's drug trade, Dimitar Zhelyazkov, known as Mityo Ochite.

"From bartender to emperor of Nesebar", headlined Standart. The paper recalled Yankov's 1994 boast: "Nesebar will be an empire - I will be the emperor and everybody will work for me."

"It's not the first time a municipal authorities' representative is murdered", wrote the daily. "But this time he had too much Mafia paraphernalia - the Porsche Cayenne with a thug's registration plate, his well known connections to the criminal underground, his ostentatious wealth, even his appearance, spoke volumes. In the minds of many people Yankov was a mobster."

SCANDAL ROCKS GOVERNMENT

Amid the strikes, murders and various scandals, the furore involving Economy and Energy Minister, Rumen Ovcharov, and the head of the investigative service, Angel Alexandrov, dominated the front pages for days.

The saga, a mysterious series of allegations surrounding the heating company Toplofikatsita, has led to two deputy ministers losing their jobs, the banishment of Ovcharov on leave and a request for European Commission experts to observe the botched investigation. It was unclear whether Ovcharov had threatened Alexandrov or what would happen next.

The affair earned Bulgaria plenty of bad press abroad. "Bulgaria - a small country with big intrigues", wrote the German Die Presse. The paper quoted MEP Geoffrey Van Orden who said that Bulgaria was a swamp full of alligators. "A corruption scandal shakes the Bulgarian government", wrote the Austrian Der Standart.

BREAKING THE LAW

"British open phantom hotels on a mass scale", declared Trud on 11 May. The publication claimed that dozens of British property owners in Veliko Tarnovo - conspicuous new arrivals in recent years - had transformed their homes into hotels without registering and declaring income to tax authorities. The paper claimed that these illegal "hotels" are advertised on the Internet offering low prices together with bonuses such as washing machines and libraries stocked with English books. According to a representative of the municipal authorities, the offenders in question have claimed that they were merely inviting friends and family to stay.

"It's outrageous," said a hotel owner in Veliko Tarnovo. "Some people do as they please while law abiding hoteliers have to pay all sorts of taxes, fees and licences."

MYTH OR FACT

Shortly before the 131st anniversary of the April uprising against Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the idea of a planned "revisionist" conference enraged Bulgarians and filled newspapers for several days.

The controversial project, dubbed "The Myth of Batak", sprang from a German professor at Berlin's Free University and a Bulgarian art student. The media claimed that the conference was trying to suggest that the 1876 Batak massacre, in which the Turks allegedly slaughtered thousands, didn't square with accounts of contemporary commentators.

"The order comes from Turkey", wrote Monitor, recalling that the project was sponsored by two German foundations to the tune of a five figure euro sum. "The blood on the church walls is still there", the daily added, quoting Batak's mayor who referred to the church in which hundreds of women, children and elderly people were slaughtered trying to hide from the Turks.

"Falsification of history is not a European idea", wrote the Socialist party daily Duma, quoting the head of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, a German daily, Neues Deutschland, published an article by German translator Tomas Fram, who lives in Bulgaria. He wrote that, contrary to popular opinion, the idea that the slaughter at Batak had led to hostility towards the Turks and Islam in Bulgaria was incorrect.