I struggle to find my associations with train stations before I started this graduation work.
I think at first it was with love
remember all the romantic scenes in the movies?
Later an association with adventures, guitars, dirty songs and misery:
During my travels around Bulgaria - going hiking, climbing and caving.
Later - an association with Corruption and the Bulgarian Mafia - after the scandal around the Architectural Contest for renovation of the Central Station in Sofia. Very ugly story I watched closely in support of my teacher back then - Emil Popov. It was the first time I saw the dirty business side of architecture.
Later - an association with idealism and fear for Bulgaria's future - from the book Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand. Where the Railways are the foundation of a country's economy and the result of man's brain and fare labor.
Later - an association with my struggle for making one of the oldest and most beautiful railway stations in Bulgaria into something well-organized and functioning and modern.
Later - an association with Corruption and the Bulgarian Mafia in the face of TIM - looking at the city of Varna - the closed shops, empty streets (in August!) and misery.
Today - an association with back pain from my last train trip to Varna (7 hours).
So no butterflies in the belly now. Only bugs in the brain asking why I should waste time making a project for a building no one's going to invest in when the trains barely get from one point to another in one piece.
