Take My Bulgarian Joke Book. Please.
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, The New York Times
Published: October 27, 2010
GABROVO, Bulgaria – The sign leading into town, faded but still readable in Bulgarian, was as I remembered it. “Welcome and good riddance,” it said. Gabrovians, like Borscht Belt comedians or Delaware Republicans, pride themselves on their sense of humor. Before the Wall fell, this hard-luck but endearing city at the foot of the central Balkans was regarded as the Communist capital of humor.
Seriously.
…
Officials at the House of Humor and Satire, a relic of a vanished regime, on more or less the margins of Central Europe, talk wistfully about becoming a more popular destination once again, if only they could come up with the money and a good plan. If only. Across the former Communist world museums like the House have been repurposed as ironic attractions for tourists often too young to remember much if anything about the Soviet era. Funnily, the House of Humor and Satire isn’t one of these. It lacks irony.
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