I'm a very active person, keen on sports, while he is the intellectual type, says Queen Marguerita for Standart in Sofia

- Your Majesty, have you been feeling like a queen all these years?
- I have always been feeling like my husband's wife. I have led normal life, just like anybody else. It hasn't been anything that people would normally describe as "royal". I've been an ordinary woman, housewife, spouse and mother. Yes, I'm married to a king. But this doesn't make me feel special.
- To your mind what is more difficult - to be a wife or a mother of five children?
- Sometimes it is the first, sometimes, the second. It depends on how you look upon these things. I'm a practical person and I know that when problems arise you have to solve them.
- How have you found courage to have five children? Who wanted a big family, you or your husband?
- When I got married having many children was not anything exceptional. When I gave birth to Kalina, for instance, one of my acquaintances in the hospital had her thirteenth child. Besides, when I was a child I had no family, because my parents died during the Civil War. I felt very lonely. That is why I felt happy to have a big family. Certainly, because of the children I didn't have much leisure time to go out, we had to cut off much of the worldly pleasures. But I was very happy.
- Your children are always cited as a model. How did you bring them up?
- I have always been strict with them. My husband was very busy, so I had to be with them all the time. However, he would always sit with them at dinner time and talk about their grades and school. He was very diligent about the upbringing of our children. Now when I see how my daughters-in-law treat our grandchildren I must say that I was much sterner. Well, we were a little more lenient with Kalina. Her father was more easy-going with her, she has always been special to him.
- Have you ever wanted to pursue your own carrier?
- My brother and I were left alone when we were small. Our uncle took care of us. At 18 I had to take over the estate, to cope with the house, servants and workers. Apart from that I became the economic manager of the newspaper that my father started. Its name was the "Economist" and it was a weekly. We sold several years after I got married. So I had to shoulder responsibilities at the early age. I was at the university and have studied philosophy and literature, but only for two years. I knew that I'm not going to practice it. In spite of that I did show interest and went to lectures to develop background culture.
- Is Simeon II easy to live with?
- Yes, because he is a very nice and kind person. He is exceptionally strict and wants everything to be done in a proper way. But when someone is well-bred you can always come to terms with him. We two are very different. We get along just because we love each other so much and can discuss things civilly. I'm a very active person, keen on sports, while he is the intellectual type, he prefers to sit and read. But we have found the way to complement each other and we accept each other as we are.
- Are you jealous? - I have never been jealous and he had never given me any reason to be.