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Bulgarian-born CNN anchor, Ralitsa Vassileva (r), interviews Bulgaria's first democratically elected president, Zhelio Zhelev, for the CNN documetary about the fall of Communism. Photo by BGNES
The US CNN network will air over the weekend a documentary about the fall of the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria and the country's transition to democracy.
The half-hour film is part of the series titled Autumn of Change dedicated by CNN to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events that shook Central and Eastern Europe.
Bulgarian-born journalist, Ralitsa Vassileva, who has been working for CNN since 1992 traveled back to Bulgaria for the documentary's filming. Before moving to the US, Vassileva worked as a reporter for the Bulgarian National TV (BNT) and tells her memories from her journalist's work in the conditions of political and economical instability after the fall of Communism in 1989.
The documentary also introduces some of the people who played key roles during the years of the so-called “transition period.”
One of them, Dr. Zhelio Zhelev, prominent Bulgarian dissident and the country's first democratically elected president talks about his banned book “The Fascism,” the establishment of the dissident Club for the Support of “Glasnost and Perestroika” in 1989, the Round Table, the cabinet of the Union of Democratic Forces, the myth, he says, that Bulgaria's opposition has been actually the work of the Bulgarian Communist party and about corruption in Bulgaria.
Other personalities presented in the documentary include Gen. Atanas Semerdzhiev, former Defense Minister right after November 10, 1989, and former Vice President, the latest Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, the film director, Evgenii Mihailov, former Member of the Parliament, Emil Koshlukov, who had been jailed under the Communist regime, the founder of Bulgaria's Atlantic Club and former Foreign Minister, Solomon Passy, the journalist Neri Terzieva, who later became press secretary of of former President, Petar Stoyanov.
The film will air on December 12 at 4:30 and 10:30 pm Bulgarian time, on December 13 from 11:30 am and on December 14 at 3:30 and 7:30 pm.
CNN aired another documentary in November dedicated to Vassileva and her views on the changes in Bulgaria, and to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Part of Vassileva's memories can be found on her CNN reporter's blog.
In a segment from the November documentary Vassileva remembers her meeting with Ian Anderson from the UK band Jethro Tull. Vassileva saw him upon learning he had named one of his songs from the Rupi's Dance Album after her - Not Ralitsa Vassileva.
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