Анкета

Анкета [anketa] means survey in Bulgarian. I will probably never forget this work. I had to ask tons of people if they wanted to take my survey in Shumen (NE Bulgaria) this past weekend. The respondents were not super excited. Luckily, Laura helped out. She knew a lot of the students in the town and made them help me.

BH with some surveys

Laura making a student do a survey

One older man couldn't read without his reading glasses, so I had to read it out loud to him. I did write this survey, but some other people had helped me with corrections and I hadn't really read the final draft. So I fumbled with my Bulgarian, but helped him finish the survey.
We needed to mix fun with play, though. So we decided to climb the monument to 1300 years of Bulgarian history. There were 1400 steps to get to the top of the monument. Built in 1981, it is this huge concrete mass. Not necessarily beautiful, but worth the 1400 steps.

Radiating communism

We also saw the Tombul mosque, which is the largest mosque in Bulgaria. We couldn't get in, but the exterior was lovely.

The evening was spent trying to get more surveys done. We finished about 60. That was a lot better than our try in Haskovo. However, all the respondents were ethnic Bulgarians. I need to find Turks! We tried to go to a smaller Turkish village the next day, but no buses on Sunday. Hopefully I'll have better luck in other villages.