I did not intend to watch this film, but friends insisted and I do not regret listening to them. Few of the “kids” who were waiting in front of the “Vasil Levski” stadium remained. to get Gundy out. The same guys were waiting and Yakimov of course.
We were all from a generation that cheered for the champions and dreamed. Information was sparse and one-way. Somewhere in the West, according to the few newspapers, there was another hostile world to which we had done nothing. At one time, we learned from radio points that Soviet tanks had invaded Hungary and defeated the counter-revolutionaries. The news spread from mouth to ear that the best Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskas had fled to the West.
We really started sobering up and putting dreams aside after the Melbourne Olympics. In the quarter-finals, our team defeated that of England – the country invented football by 6:1. In the semi-final we play against the USSR. Bulgaria is the favorite! Already in the first minutes, Kolev scores a goal and our supremacy is indisputable. At half-time “Leaders of the team“ invade the dressing room and in the second half our players are unrecognizable. The Russians beat us 2:1 and the natives of Zapalyankov realized that Bulgaria is a country with "limited sovereignty".
In Bulgaria at that time reigned the one-party system, led by Todor Zhivkov, who rejoiced in Bulgarian victories when they were over Western opponents. Levski's victories and the “blue wave” they raised on the domestic front worried the rulers because they expressed the discontent of ordinary people. Levski's main opponents, the CSKA team, symbolized the dictatorship. Kolev, Penev, Yakimov, Panayotov, Naydenov and all the others were officers. Not because military service is their vocation, but because there was no professional football in Bulgaria.
In the regular clashes between the two teams, the Zapalyankovites laid the foundations for the division of our society into Blue and Red, with a clear superiority of the former. The appearance of Georgi Asparuhov in Poduyane tipped the scales dangerously. There was no footballer who scored goals with a backscissor like him! Then General Solakov, Minister of Internal Affairs, came up with the merger of Levski's team with the hated – Spartak, managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “Bin up your butt, may your village be peaceful!“ And Gundi dawned with the epaulettes of a militiaman, with which Boyan Radev, Petar Stankov and many other champions were unwittingly.
The travel of the teams in the country and abroad gave birth to a new profession in the ranks of the DS. They were called “Leaders of the team”. For travel in the country they were sometimes in uniform. For abroad - always civilians. “The Guides“ they looked after like children's teachers for a boy's league went on an excursion. One of them confided in me that he vouched for me and asked me to promise him that I would return. I kept my promise. Another “Guide” showed me the “Feature“ in which it was written that I was an “unreliable element”. He advised me in the friendliest way to run because I have no future in Bulgaria. And he asked me to keep our conversation deep inside because he has a family with small children.
After seeing the movie “Legend of Love”, I can confirm that the facts are real. Like Gundy, I had a girlfriend – daughter of a Nomenklatura family. She was 16, I was 17. Love at that age is like fruit juice compared to champagne. Her father, in order to tear her away from me, like Velichka, enrolled her to study abroad. Before making up her mind, she asked me if I would marry her? I said no because I was getting ready to run and I could only hurt her. After that she left and I went to the border.
The movie I saw is instructive. The presented facts and the atmosphere in which they develop are credible. How these facts are interpreted is another matter. To what extent DS caused the end of Gundy's career is also a matter of dispute. I can only contribute to its objectivity. If the thesis of the producers of the film is accepted, that DS is to blame for the death of the most beautiful Bulgarian football player, I am obliged to admit that DS helped me.
In the ranks of this cruel police machine there were also honest officers who knew that the fate of innocent people depended on them. In the German film “The Lives of Others” perfectly describes this change dictated by conscience. In “Gundy, Legend of Love” there is also, albeit discrete, evidence. When the boss fires the recruiter, the latter says: “Asparukhov is a decent man!“