Free thinking and tolerance exist in our society for centuries hand in hand with prejudices and striving for a “pure nation”. But what meaning has the concept nation in reality? Is there still any sense in it nowadays, when state borders disappear and all nations in Europe integrate, keeping at the same time their own cultural specificity, way of life and temper.

   Balkan peninsula is an important crossroad not only in the geographical context. It has been colonized by various tribes and folks through the years. And now, on the brink of the hi-tech era, some primitive people try to provoke ethnic hate, even violence and war, appropriate to the Dark ages. Democracy, though the highest form of social organization today, can not guarantee, to our regret, mutual respect and tolerance. Often less worthy meaningless, but more popular culture is spread out. Art is not able to avoid or fight accumulated bias and prejudices.

   Bulgarians are supposed to be well known with their tolerance (or they whish to be so). But there are such people among us who tent to recreate a “great nation”; who still feel deep mistrust and sincere hostility to the “foreign” ones. People with self-consciousness, built up not on their civic awareness, but based on the instinct of mimicking among similar types.

   I am not convinced that in Bulgaria “pure” Bulgarians really exist. And I feel deeply satisfied to live in this region like “melting pot”, enriched by different cultural traditions. It doesn’t matter to me what nation people belong to and what stands in the corresponding column of their passports. My grandparents for example are coming from Bessarabia and Macedonia. The blood in the veins of us all has its origin from all over the Balkans and exactly this natural mixture makes the greatest human wealth.

   All this prompted me to start taking pictures of people with typical Bulgarian names only (of “pure Bulgarian origin”). I am acquainted with all of them and they all are different in age, profession, occupation, and belong to different anthropological types. So for the viewer some may look like Slavic or Aryan, others are Gypsies or Arabs alike, or Jewish, or Armenians (if following the stereotypes).

   I have decided to portrait only men, because it seems to me that on the Balkans men are still taken for the dominating gender (and mostly behave this way). On my pictures only faces are shown, and the portraits (although big-sized) may look like passport photos. On the other hand I have chosen one and the same pose which gives the opportunity to compare better face’s features and characters.

   Very often I had to explain to the photographed ones why do I want to take pictures exactly of them. Surprised to some extend I remarked that those who were told to look Aryan or Slavic, were easily ready to pose. By intuition I had to give indirect, more sophisticated explanation to the others. This is one more reason for me to show indirectly how meaningless and stupid it is to accept or judge others by ethnic /national/ criteria.

   I gathered the 24 portraits in 4 conditional “ethnic” groups together (according to the stereotypes again). They’re taken on different backgrounds, and under the photos only the Bulgarian names will stand.