The number of Bulgarians emigrating abroad has been constantly rising. Unfortunately, many skillful people who can't make a career in Bulgaria are among those emigrants. This process has been lasting since the totalitarian regime when many bright Bulgarian professionals who disagreed with the system made great efforts to depart to the “free world”. One of the best arm surgeons in the USA Dr Georgi Lazarov is one of those Bulgarians. Georgi Lazarov is a doyen of the Bulgarian community in Baltimore. He was born in the city of Plovdiv in 1931. Although he faced a series of difficulties and obstacles, he managed to establish an Arm Surgery Center in Bulgaria. However, the old system did not allow Georgi to expand his business and he left Bulgaria. Here is what Dr Georgi Lazarov told Radio Bulgaria:

“I had a long career and went through a series of obstacles. I studied medicine in Bulgaria and majored orthopedics and arm surgery. This was the time when the coup in Libya was held and Gaddafi took over. As a result, all Italian doctors left that country. Meanwhile, Bulgaria needed foreign currency. That is why I was allowed to go to Benghazi, although I was not a member of the communist party. I headed the traumatology department in a local hospital. I worked there for one year and later instead of returning back to Bulgaria, I departed to France together with my wife. However, I had to start from scratch there and do all medicine exams, in order to practice my specialty. My French was excellent, but the whole process would have taken several years. Meanwhile, demand of young doctors in the USA was high. In the beginning I worked as a probationer there. Later, I joined a prestigious hospital in Baltimore. I was lucky, because this was the time when the US arm surgery group was forming.”

When Dr Lazarov retired he devoted himself to Saint George foundation which puts through initiatives aimed at preserving the Bulgarian culture and heritage. The foundation organized the annual international contest of contemporary Bulgarian symphonic music in seven-eighths which promotes the creation of music pieces with Bulgarian sounding. In the recent years Georgi's foundation managed to unveil monuments to the victims of communism in Plovdiv, to Bulgarian violinist Alexander Nikolov (Sasho Sladura) who was killed by the communists in a labor camp near the city of Lovech (Central North Bulgaria), to celebrated Bulgarian painter Tsanko Lavrenov, to the renowned Bulgarian democrat Svetoslav Luchnikov, to journalist Georgi Markov, as well as to Georgi Lazarov's class tutor Kamen Vichev.

“I studied at the French college in Plovdiv and Kamen Vichev was my class tutor. He was teaching philosophy and ethics. Father Kamen Vichev and my chemistry teacher were sentenced to death and executed by the communist regime. When the democratic changes came in Bulgaria I wanted to commemorate that person somehow, because no one said a word about the victims of communism at that time. Then, I contacted Danko Nakov, a very skillful Bulgarian sculptor in Plovdiv. Thus, we unveiled a monument to Father Vichev near the catholic cathedral in that city. We became good friends and have been unveiling one monument per year ever since.”

In Georgi Lazarov's words, he unveiled the monument to Georgi Markov, so that the name of the emblem that fought against communism would never sink in oblivion.

Georgi Lazarov has held many patriotic and charity initiatives. It would not be wrong to say that Bulgarians living abroad are bigger patriots and more responsible for Bulgaria than the ones living in this country. There are many wealthy people in Bulgaria, but unlike the ones living abroad, only few of them contributed to the preservation of the Bulgarian memory. 

English version: Kostadin Atanasov