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After referees, politicians and traffic policemen, but not necessarily in that order, they are among the most hated bunch in Bulgaria, and yet everybody has one. For the bigger part their distinct quality is unbelievable nosiness, but lack of tact and the ability to run everyone up a wall come a close second. They are the house registrars, the domoupraviteli as they are known in Bulgaria, and their job (on the side) is to take care of the order in every block of apartments.
By Petya Sabinova
Naturally their job isn't a very pleasant one, because it involves knocking on doors, asking people for cash to pay for the elevator electricity bill and the cleaning lady, and what's worst of all, coming up with rules and enforcing them. They must have been elected at some point but it so happens that by the time you move in someone has already done the voting for you and you are stuck with whatshisface, who has done the job for more than 10 years now and is pretty good at it.
Why would anyone hate them, you may ask, apart from the fact that they come asking for money? Well in Bulgaria there is this grain of communism spy-on-your neighbour attitude left, which is also noticeable in countries like Austria. Problem is, it is quite a grain and it doesn't really seem to wear off with time.
"We each have to pay a certain monthly for every person who lives in the flat," Rumyana Nikolova* from Sofia complains, "and our house registrar keeps on harassing us for more money, just because my boyfriend spent the night once or twice." The young woman explains how in her block of flats, the registrar has a whole mafia-like spider web with several of his close relatives leaving in the same block so "there's one on the lookout for who goes in and out around the clock." Nikolova's example may ring very true to many, but as her story goes on, things start to take on a shade of film noir. No one really dares argue with the block mafia, she explains, as they are known for taking the matters to the plane of physical confrontations. Legends are whispered from ear to ear about the things that may lend up on one's car if it is unfortunately parked near any of their balconies. And so they continue to harass, ask for more money because an uncle came to visit and basically make people feel miserable in their own home, the one place where the one person normally allowed to make them feel bad is themselves.
Although not all cases are as extreme as this one, house registrars, constantly on the vigil for those who are breaking the rules, are indeed towards the top of the who-I'd-like to see-with-hemorrhoids list. There is, occasionally the odd one out, a really nice guy, who doesn't harass or bully, but, as Murphy's Law would have it, wherever those exist, there's the obligatory old lady nosy neighbour, who more than makes up for it. But that's a completely different story...
*The name has been changed.
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