it was changed with anecdotes about the "learned" one! It isn't clear when at last we will stop trying to check whether the "learned" can do the work of the "unlearned"? The reversed experiments are not made, because the answer is clear! And in order not to accuse the author in partiality let us stress that the situation in Bulgaria is wide away from that of the times of the cult to Stalin in the Soviet Union, or in the times of the cultural revolution in China, so that we can wait a bit more and continue speaking about the cares of Party and Government, which (at least up to the moment) have come with such a delay, that immediately thereafter the question could have been raised again.

     Furthermore, the state uses the financial mechanism for stimulating of development of some industry branches declared for strategic and defining, what is logical in itself. But in Bulgaria for strategic were declared such branches of industry, in which we have

had no traditions

: electronics, mechanical engineering and metal processing industry, the "big" chemistry, and nowadays the biotechnologies. If similar measures are taken in the well developed countries that this is done so, that the production of the strategic branches were competitive. The policy of centralized planning and state monopoly, especially after the legendary April Plenum of the Central Committee from 1956, have lead to serious investment in this areas and ... to nothing more.

     If, roughly speaking, the standard of life in Bulgaria is 10

times

lower than in many western countries (because the food prices, those the of productions of light industry, of cars and homes in our country, given in Bulgarian levs, are practically equal to the corresponding prices on the West, expressed in US dollars, with this "tiny" difference, that the average working salaries in Bulgaria are about ten times less), then in some of this areas were set "records". So for example, one personal computer of type IBM-PC/AT costs 2,000 - 2,500 dollars, or one average salary there, where in Bulgaria it costs (Bulgarian one, and "high-quality") about 35,000 levs or 10

annual

salaries, what gives a quotient of

100 times

! More or less the same is situation also with the video appliances. A bit better — with the instruments and the production of mechanical engineering. What concerns the "big" chemistry and metal-processing industry, if there the quotient is less, so this is at the cost of our lungs, because of the practical absence of modern and high expensive cleansing facilities. But on the other hand we very "clever" suppress the progress of agriculture, because in this area we

really

have had traditions. Such disproportions can't be explained from common sense positions.

6.

Maybe it is now time to cast a look at

our attitude towards the nature

.

     The author does not pretend on priority of the statement, that whatever out attitude to those like us is, such is also our attitude to everything around us, i.e. to the environment. The simple peasant kills some animal or cuts off a tree when he needs to eat or to warm himself, but not just to boast that he is stronger than the nature. We have cut down our forests and taken the most fertile land for to raise up our industrial giants; have polluted the rivers and lakes; have turned our parks to garbage pits; our Black Sea has become really

black

; the level of air pollution in the cities, industrial areas, and in the capital, has reached record values on a worldwide scale; we have made our "worthy contribution" also in the radioactive contamination. Together with this the road sign for bicycle alley is practically unknown in Bulgaria; and if somebody wants to keep a dog he must pay the corresponding (again record high) tax for his love to the animals and keep it in suitable cage, or teach it to fly — this isn't yet forbidden. In short, we have learned to show out contempt to

everything

around is (in the name of the great goal) and now the nature takes revenge on us for our unreasonable pride.

     It still is not clear why we have decided that the more developed we become, the more we must concentrate and enlarge everything. In the nature the things are mutually balanced, but we have decided that we are stronger than it and must change it. The industrial giants were not enough for us, we must have raised them near big towns, to the very capital. And is it possible for a capital not to be the best in every one aspect: in industrial, administrative, political, educational, and so on? It is true that in many western countries are formed separate administrative centers, separate small university towns, separate industrial areas, but this may be so because they can't "plan" so good the things as us?

     And what we have done with our homes? We have filled the towns, but also the small villages, with multi-storey apartment buildings — away from the earth, near to the industry. Instead of making "villages of town type" — with their classic two-storey houses and one decare of land around them, but with central heating and telephones, we have made "towns of village type" — have built panel houses and declared the villages towns! The common sense requires that the man lives amongst the nature,

merges with it

, if you want, and we have masked our incapability in this relation with loud phrases about "the cares of Party and Government and personally of the comrade ... ". But in the same time some "deserved comrades" have built themselves nice country dachas, and to the folks were explained that if they want to join the working class they should go to the towns, where they can receive their due "box" after approximately 10-20 years hard work of "deeds and only deeds" (it is known phrase of our Todor Zhivkov — "deeds, deeds, and only deeds"). Oh, silly people,