Today we are doing something a bit different in Expat Stories; we are featuring a Bulgarian that has been living outside the country for the last 15 years. Аnd now is back to help preserve and spread the Bulgarian culture and rich traditions, and he will share with us about his life back in Bulgaria and the project Insiders that bring him back to Bulgaria,
How would you define yourself?
I consider myself a purpose-driven, multidisciplinary individual with endless learning curiosity, striving for continuous self-growth while contributing to bringing value and improving people’s lives.
Tell us about your journey until now.
When I was 16, I moved to Spain due to family reasons. Adaptation to a new culture is never easy, especially for a teenager, however this helped me grow as a person. On the other hand, I have always been keen on connecting with people from different cultures, learning about their customs and behaviours, which helped me welcome this new period with more excitement than fears.
I later entered University, completed my Bachelor’s degree in Tourism, spent one year in exchange in Germany, before coming back to Spain to do a Masters in Tourism Management. I was honoured to receive distinctions for excellence in my studies, which boosted my confidence in succeeding in the professional world, making a real impact on society. However, after a few years climbing the corporate ladder, I realized how far I was from my values and from finding purpose through my work. Several unexpected adverse events in the company I was working for supposed the wake-up call I needed to have a fresh start.
Here came surely the most creative time of my adult life. I started testing many different ideas, assisting to entrepreneurial events and meeting lots of inspiring people. I discovered a whole new world full of great opportunities for the ones who dare to change the status quo. However, I soon realized that to be successful as an entrepreneur, I had to change my mindset, be ready to embrace uncertainty and go out of my comfort zone and this is what lead me to a journey to the other side of the world.
In January 2017 I moved to Australia, where I studied, worked and travelled for more than a year. Rather than a journey of discovering these beautiful lands, this was more a journey of self-discovery, about what I wanted to achieve in life. This was one of the toughest periods I’ve ever experienced, having to work really hard different unskilled jobs to sustain myself and pay my studies, without any free time, while feeling more alone than ever before. However, this made me more aware of what I valued the most, allowed me to build new healthy habits, a growth mindset where the fear of failure got replaced by the drive for contribution.
What brought you back to Bulgaria?
In reality, before moving to Australia, I did not consider going back to Bulgaria. I was comfortably living with my family in Spain, being able to go on holidays regularly back to my country. When in Australia, for the first time in my life I started experiencing strong nostalgic feelings. I realized actually how connected I am to our culture and traditions and not having anyone to share it with caused me deep pain. Unconsciously, the idea of going back to Bulgaria started incubating in my head.
Up to this point, I guess that all the negative news coming from the media did not allow me to see the blue sky behind the noisy clouds. I did not believe that Bulgaria would be the place to reach my full potential. Moving to precisely one of the most developed countries in the world allowed me to see things from a different perspective. I started valuing much more the immaterial wealth that we, Bulgarians have, a country with great history and traditions that unite us, how hospitable and honest we are, the great food we have or the beautiful landscape and cultural heritage that our ancestors have left us.
Tell us about your project?
My stay in Australia made me explore many different ideas. The one that stood out the most was about helping other people find meaning and fulfilment through work while contributing to solving real problems of the society. Although it did not evolve to anything particular, it planted the seed for what my project would become lately.
Afterwards, while I was doing some travels to fascinating countries, in addition to being amazed by the beauty of their landscapes and the intriguing stories, told by locals, I was making continuous analogies with what we have here in Bulgaria. I thought to myself: “Our country has nothing to envy others – we have a beautiful nature, rich culture and history, excellent food, long-preserved traditions, great hospitable people…”. Only really few of those I met abroad were aware of this and I wanted to contribute to changing this perception.
Once I came back to Europe, in a deep brainstorming exercise, it did not take me a while to connect the dots and integrate both ideas, these significant problems that genuinely bothered me, into a project that I would devote all my energy. This is how Insaiders was built.
What is Insaiders about?
Insaiders is a peer-to-peer platform for authentic experiences that aims to show the richness of our cultural heritage, astonishing nature, unique folklore and traditions, ancient arts & crafts, diverse cuisine…the real side of Bulgaria. The experiences are provided by local professionals, tour and mountain guides, chefs, artisans, craftsmen, folklore dancers and instrumentalists, people passionate about what they do and are willing to share it with others. These experiences are oriented to foreigners, be it travelers, digital nomads or expats, offering them the possibility to immerse into our culture.
Our country has a great potential in tourism, however, we are not beeing able to make the right use of all our assets, including the intangible ones, as the stories behind our history, traditions, customs, know-how. We, Bulgarians are not aware of this neither and I believe that by increasing foreigners’ awareness of what makes these lands and these people unique will increase our sense of belonging and pride to be Bulgarians. The growth of tourism interest on our traditions can also help us better preserve them for the new generations to come.
What is your impression of Bulgaria?
After 15 years living abroad, I just came four months ago and I have probably never been happier in my adult life. Every day I meet people who want to make a difference through their work. I have had the pleasure to meet lots of NGOs and private initiatives aiming to solve important social, cultural and environmental problems. There is a fast-growing start-up community and here I have met some of the most brilliant minds I have ever come to know. There are lots of opportunities for professional development and personal growth and a great number of positive people to help you spread your ideas and turn them into a sustainable project.
People say everyone is leaving but actually, there are more people returning than we think. Having lived in more economically prosperous countries, I can say that Bulgaria is a wonderful place to live. There are lots of problems that we face on a daily basis, true, however, we should see these instead as opportunities to improve. We hold in our hands the key to building a better home for all of us; we should just believe more in ourselves and trust each other.
