In the Legal Department of the Ministry of Institutional Coordination and Regulatory Serenity, activity abounded. Not, of course, with actual work, but owing to a recruitment competition. An opening for a legal counsel had been announced, which in this ministry created an atmosphere like Oscar Night – lacking a red carpet but brimming with theatrics.
The Director of the department, Mrs. Radoslava Topchiyska, known to colleagues as “The Iron Lady”, summoned a meeting in her office.
‘Colleagues, it’s imperative that we comply with all requirements under the Civil Service Law and the relevant regulations,’ she said, adjusting her glasses to appear both erudite and faintly menacing. ‘But let us not forget,’ and here her voice sank to a conspiratorial whisper, although the door was firmly closed and the air conditioning had been switched off for budgetary reasons, ‘that we already have our own.’
‘Of course!’ said a grinning Chief Expert Gicho, whose primary professional skill lay in recalling within the public administration every familial connection to the third cousin.
‘No, I mean the other one – Slavi, my cousin’s son. Bright young man – graduated in Law at Plovdiv, though it was perhaps more accurate to say that the degree graduated him. But he’s our own. And, most crucially, he knows who’s related to whom across the entire ministry.’
‘So, the competition will be…’ ventured Denitsa from HR, treading as cautiously as one would across a minefield.
‘…a mere procedural exercise, Denitsa. Just pray that no excessively credentialed applicant disrupts the arrangement.’
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the building, secretary Milka was posting the competition notices in places where genuinely motivated candidates would never look – behind the coffee machine, on the union noticeboard last updated in 2018, and in the men’s lavatory on the third floor, where the light flickered. Thus were the stage directions set for democracy’s grand performance.
On the appointed day, three candidates appeared. Three! An unmanageable throng by local standards:
Slavi, their man, attired in a rented suit from “Elegant Man” (15 leva a day, inclusive of tie and knot-tying instructions), and who carried a lustrous folder filled with pristine blank sheets, arranged with geometric precision.
Gergana, a 26-year-old ambitious jurist with three specializations (one in Brussels), diplomas in four languages, and an implausibly abundant enthusiasm for the Bulgarian civil service. She bore a “portable library” type bag and the look of someone who peruses statutes for pleasure.
And finally, Bai Asen, a pensioner from the system, participating “for the sport of it” and because his wife had instructed: ‘Get off that sofa and make yourself useful somewhere.’ He wore the only suit he owned – from his wedding three decades earlier – and which still fit him.
‘Where are you from, lad?’ inquired Bai Asen, appraising Slavi with the seasoned eye of a bureaucratic veteran.
‘Voyvodinovo. Studied in the city. Graduated with… well, I graduated. The point is to have a diploma, not to trouble over the specifics inscribed upon it, eh?’
‘Well said. But be mindful; they already have their man here,’ remarked Bai Asen with the gravitas of someone who had been rejected from competitions many times. ‘It’s my fifth attempt for a legal counsel post, but I always end up second. Just recently, for the Ministry of Agriculture competition, there was another “our own”. He knew the difference between barley and corn, but not between a law and a regulation.’
‘Who was it?’ asked Gergana, still clinging to the hope of meritocracy.
‘Doesn’t matter. The tasks were drafted by a lawyer whose wife sat on the panel. Impeccably legitimate, of course. On one occasion, the task was to explain why their marriage did not constitute a conflict of interest.’
The examination room was furnished like a high school classroom, those selfsame scarred timber desks, engraved with the monograms of 1990s pupils, and a portrait of Tsar Simeon (which one was immaterial; the essential thing was to have a Tsar).
The panel members sat with expressions which plainly said, ‘Let’s conclude this swiftly; luncheon is soon, and kebabs at “The Happy One” are not to be kept waiting.’ The chairwoman, Mrs. Velichkova, stroked her pen as one might a cat, producing a strangely hypnotic effect.
‘You have ninety minutes to resolve a case concerning an administrative contract with contradictory clauses, applying the principles of good governance,’ announced the chairman, with all the enthusiasm of one reciting microwave oven instructions.
Slavi leafed through his immaculate but vacant folder as though seeking something of moment, then bent to sketch what he would later describe as a “paradigm of administrative engagement within a closed ecosystem incorporating social partnership dynamics.” It bore a remarkable resemblance to a house with a chimney and a few smiling stick figures.
Gergana wrote with fervour, quoting jurisprudence from The Supreme Administrative Court, inserting footnotes replete with ECLI numbers, and, by the sixtieth minute, transitioned into Latin purely because she could.
Bai Asen inscribed on his first page: “This is not real, but I shall attempt it again” and devoted the remainder of the session to studying a ceiling stain which, upon reflection, resembled the map of Bulgaria.
When all had concluded, the panel withdrew to “deliberate” in Topchiyska’s office, where they actually discussed Denitsa’s new perfume and whether the air-conditioning was too noisy.
‘Well, Mrs. Topchiyska,’ began the chairwoman, ‘my lad writes with admirable style. He even sketched a diagram.’
‘I see that. Quite the creative approach. However, this Gergana… she knows far too much. She could pose a challenge.’
‘And Bai Asen?’
‘At least he’s honest. I value honesty in a person.’
Three days later, the results were discreetly posted on the ministry’s website, within the “Competitions” section, sub-section “Results,” sub-subsection “Archive 2025”, and accessible solely via direct link and a three-digit password.
Results:
Slavi Topchiyski – Score: 5.60 (“Excellent analytical approach and innovative thinking”)
Gergana Yordanova – Score: 5.58 (“Good theoretical grounding, yet deficient in practical application”)
Asen Petkov – Score: Commendation (“For participation”)
‘It was not a house,’ Slavi corrected her with a smile of diplomatic supremacy. ‘It represented a paradigm of administrative engagement within a closed ecosystem incorporating social partnership dynamics. The figures embodied the stakeholders.’
Gergana was incredulous. She read the results thrice, cross-checked the zeros and commas, even speculated whether a technical glitch might be at fault.
‘How is this conceivable?!’ she exclaimed outside the ministry, drawing no notice from passers-by since such outbursts were heard at least thrice weekly. ‘Yes, perhaps I misinterpreted Article 14, Paragraph 2, but Slavi drew a house with a chimney and smiling people.’
‘It was not a house,’ Slavi corrected her with a smile of diplomatic supremacy. ‘It represented a paradigm of administrative engagement within a closed ecosystem incorporating social partnership dynamics. The figures embodied the stakeholders.’
‘And the chimney?’
‘The communication channel, naturally.’
Bai Asen nodded with solemn philosophy. ‘Don’t fret, girl. I once believed in justice and honest competitions too. Then I began taking notes.’ He displayed a well-worn notebook entitled “Who, With Whom, and Why – Vol. III”.
‘There are volumes?’
‘Five thus far. I’ll gladly lend them to you as a primer for youthful idealists. Volume Four is especially enlightening. It concerns the competition for a veterinarian in the Ministry of Culture.’
The following week, Slavi was ensconced in his new junior legal counsel’s office, a six-square-metre cell with a single window overlooking a ventilation shaft, and a computer from 2019 that loaded webpages at the pace of a bewildered gastropod negotiating a traffic circle. Upon his desk lay a folder marked “Current Cases” and another, sealed, brimming with documents with titles like “Complaint from Citizen X against Decision Y regarding Z”.
‘But Mrs. Topchiyska, is there no training?’ he asked, labouring to log into the system with a password delivered on paper bearing an official stamp.
‘No, lad. You’ll learn as all others do – trial and error. Just ensure you favor the trial over the error.’
‘And if I commit a significant error?’
‘That’s why you’re a lawyer – to explain yourself afterwards. Moreover, you can always claim to have acted within your discretionary powers or that the matter was one of interpretation.’
‘And what precisely do legal counsels do here?’
‘Everything, lad. You scrutinize contractual documents, draft legal assessments, correspond with citizens, spar with prosecutors, and elucidate why matters are as they are rather than as they ought to be. Principally, you generate documents explaining why other documents cannot be generated.’
Slavi nodded gravely, though the only thing of which he was certain was that his work would chiefly entail composing documents about documents concerning documents.
The competition had been, in official terms, a resounding success. Every requirement had been observed, verified three times by different departments. No procedural gaps had been found, and the department had acquired a new functionary, one who knew more individuals in the administration than articles in administrative law.
In the end, the system remained the system. And Slavi was now part of it, a modest cog within a colossal mechanism that no one truly understood, yet which somehow contrived to produce paper in industrial volumes.
And so the public administration continued along its enigmatic, meandering path – punctuation perpetually misplaced, yet invariably the right individual held the right position, possessing the necessary connections for each irregular circumstance.
Tamara Atanasova (pseudonym) was born in 1975 in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. She holds a master’s degrees in International Political Relations & Security and in Pedagogy from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski.” With extensive professional experience in public administration, she draws literary inspiration from its paradoxes, dynamics, and human stories. She volunteers in cultural initiatives, collects rare English porcelain dolls, crafts her own herbal tea blends, and paints.
Instagram: @tamara.atanasova.author
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