Selected text
Since I wasn’t able to study at university for one reason or another, I started working as a secretary in the meat processing plant. I am a very sociable person. Suddenly all my friends were gone and I felt the need to meet people, so I went to the Youth Union in our neighborhood. [Editor’s note: After 1944 the UYW was renamed Democratic Union of the People's Youth. After 1947 it became Dimitrov's Communist Youth Union which existed up to 1992.]
That was where I met my future husband, the Bulgarian Todor Petrov Chelibakov. He was also a member of the Youth Union, and led the theater group. We met there and also saw each other at parties and birthdays. He sang very well and was a very direct and sociable person, the Bohemian type.
He had had a very difficult childhood. His mother was a tobacco worker, who divorced her husband when Todor was one year and a half. After that she never saw his father again. He lived with his mother and his grandmother. Later, his father remarried and had other children, whom Todor didn’t know about. Much later, my daughter met his step-brother and sisters and found out by accident that they and Todor had the same father.
My mother-in-law raised Todor by herself. It was very hard for her; she worked as a seamstress at home to earn some extra money. They lived very poorly, but he managed to graduate from high school. My husband has always worked in construction companies as a supplier. He retired in the ‘Patni Stroezhi’ company as chief of the supply department.
That was where I met my future husband, the Bulgarian Todor Petrov Chelibakov. He was also a member of the Youth Union, and led the theater group. We met there and also saw each other at parties and birthdays. He sang very well and was a very direct and sociable person, the Bohemian type.
He had had a very difficult childhood. His mother was a tobacco worker, who divorced her husband when Todor was one year and a half. After that she never saw his father again. He lived with his mother and his grandmother. Later, his father remarried and had other children, whom Todor didn’t know about. Much later, my daughter met his step-brother and sisters and found out by accident that they and Todor had the same father.
My mother-in-law raised Todor by herself. It was very hard for her; she worked as a seamstress at home to earn some extra money. They lived very poorly, but he managed to graduate from high school. My husband has always worked in construction companies as a supplier. He retired in the ‘Patni Stroezhi’ company as chief of the supply department.
Period
Location
Plovdiv
Bulgaria
Interview
Sarina Chelibakova