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Personal Insights from Bulgarian Visitors to the Falkland Islands By Dr Lyubomir Ivanov and Nusha Ivanova The Father’s Perspective Robert Rowlands kindly invited me to visit his country and give a public lecture in Stanley. And I did it, accompanied by my younger daughter Nusha, on our way back from Antarctica in early March 2003. We spent a week with Robert, enjoying the hospitality of his home, meeting people and seeing both the town and Camp. Having
left Nusha largely to her separate teenage agenda shared with Robert’s
own daughter Jane and their friends, I ventured out on a bit of
exploration, driving and trekking in all direction of the Stanley area
between Tussac Point and Mount Tumbledown.
I had been looking forward to seeing some of the natural wonders
encountered, like the local ‘stone runs’, so similar to the ‘stone
rivers’ of Mount Vitosha on the outskirts of my native Sofia.
Others were less expected, such as the giant rubber-sheet shaped
kelp I came across at Hookers Point, or the shrubby Antarctic lichens
found on the rocky high ground near Navy Point – a species familiar from
the vicinity of the Bulgarian base on Livingston Island. Equally
enjoyable was my one-day tour of East Falkland, first driving west to
Darwin and Goose Green, then Robert masterly navigating trails and slopes
north to San Carlos Settlement and Port San Carlos, eventually turning
back east towards Teal Inlet, Estancia and Stanley, with a brief pause to
fix one of our jeep wheels after the unforgettable experience of watching
it pass by even as we were speeding away from New House of Glamis. A
lot of my time was devoted to Stanley itself, strolling the streets past
neat gardens and picturesque tin-clad houses, with occasional old
brickwork here and there, and newer residential areas dominated by wooden
Scandinavian and Scottish housing; or gazing at emblematic buildings such
as the Christ Church Cathedral and St. Mary’s Church, the Falkland
islands Company premises and the state of the art Community School; or
touring the Stanley Museum to view antiques and artefacts recreating life
from early pioneer days to modern times; or wandering around the Stanley
cemetery amidst so much accumulated history of present and long-gone
Falklands families; or having a drink at the private Falkland Club with
its bar on this occasion tended by Councillor When
at home I used to discuss with my host each and every aspect of past,
present and future Falklands life, poring over plenty of maps, books,
magazines and papers (including the apocryphal Goose
News) from his library. Knowing
my interest in South Georgia, he had me visit his aunt Betty Biggs and her
daughter Colleen, Grytviken or rather King Edward Point old-timers in whom
I was happy to find fellow enthusiasts of that beautiful Antarctic
country. Particularly
appreciated among my meetings in Stanley were those with the Falklands
legislative councillors Jan Cheek, Alexander
Arhipkin, Chief Scientist of the Fisheries Department kindly explained to
me certain peculiarities in the configuration of the Falklands maritime
economic zone and more. While
still there at the floating port facility, I was glad to meet Chris
Harris, whom I knew by correspondence from the Falklands-Malvinas web
forum. Inevitably
the local media got involved too, with Corina Goss interviewing me for the
Falklands radio, and Juanita Brokc for her own electronic edition that
published my lecture along with the Penguin News. My
travel notes featured also ship wrecks and hulks, gaucho corrals, war
monuments and cemeteries, minefields, penguins and upland geese,
motorcycle-shepherded sheep etc. etc. Of
the people to whom I am grateful, Robert naturally comes first.
I extend cordial thanks to him and to all the Islanders I met
during my stay in the Falklands, for their friendly hospitality as well as
for the incredible experience of seeing a country in the making –
something one might have probably felt if visiting the United States a
couple of century ago. I
wish to express my thanks to Nusha for her company, despite the fact that
she skipped my Stanley lecture, like she had skipped her Deception Island
and Hannah Point landings in Antarctica before.
I trust she enjoyed our time in the Falklands, judging from her
enquiries about possible future trips down south. The
Daughter’s Perspective – Land of People, Penguins and Sheep The
Falkland Islands are situated 13,000 kilometres from Bulgaria and 4,000
kilometres from the South Pole, their southernmost point being Beauchene
Island. The two main islands,
West Falkland and East Falkland are separated by Falkland Sound, whose
name was given more than three centuries ago by Captain John Strong who
made the first ever landing on the islands in 1690. The
islands are surrounded by the South Atlantic Ocean, and separated from
Antarctica by the Scotia Sea to the south.
Most of their territory is covered by grass and peat, with no
natural forest. The weather is
cool and wet in summer, colder and windy in winter.
It is very similar to the marine British climate, different from
our continental Bulgarian climate that has both real warm summers and real
cold winters. Not to be
forgotten, the seasons in the Falklands are the reverse of those in the
Northern Hemisphere; also the sun travels right to left through the
northern part of the sky. Our
flight from Punta Arenas to the capital of the Falklands, Stanley lasted
one and a half hours. One of
the most important connections of the islands is Punta Arenas in southern
Chile, with regular flights once a week only.
There are also weekly flights to England via the British island of
Ascension in the Central Atlantic. The
Falkland Islanders were liberated from a brief alien occupation that
lasted ten weeks and was terminated on 14 June 1982, at the end of the war
between Britain and Argentina. Today
the people in the islands are working very hard in the name of their
country’s development. They
owe their prosperity mainly to their fishing and squid industry.
The islands have become a popular tourist destination as well,
visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. Stanley
is a very small town with a population of about 2,000 inhabitants.
It is the most southerly capital in the world, along with Grytviken
in neighbouring South Georgia. Most
prominent in the city centre is the historical Christ Church Cathedral
with its high bell tower, colourful tinted glass windows, and wall
inscriptions inside. Unlike
the Bulgarian churches, it has no icons though.
Nearby in the churchyard is the Whalebone Arch erected in 1933 to
commemorate the country’s centenary.
Most of the Stanley houses are brightly painted and two-storied
with small tidy gardens. Every
family has its own car or tow, mostly jeeps as befitting a predominantly
off-road country, while there are taxi vans available to the tourists. Our host Robert, who had invited us to the Falklands, lived together with his daughter Jane in a house located not far from the centre of Stanley. Jane was 15 years old, attending the modern Falkland Islands Community School which boasts science laboratories, Internet rooms, large library, sports hall, and swimming pool. After graduating from that school at the age of 16, Falklands students usually leave to have their college education in England. Of
all the places that we have visited during my journey with my father, the
Falklands were the only one where I had the opportunity to meet and mix up
with students of my age. Every
evening together with Jane and her friends Elane, Pollyanna, Kate, Ashley,
Matthew and Patrick we used to meet at a billiard hall chatting till late
in the night, playing billiard or cards.
During the summer vacation most of the students in Stanley work as
baby-sitters or shop sellers. There
aren’t many discos and cafes but there are lots of other interesting
pastimes. Not so far from
Stanley is the Mount Pleasant Airport built after the war, and one day we
even drove to the military base there to play bowling. In
a large shop near the cathedral, Matthew showed me some books by his
grandfather Ian Strange; they were full of beautiful pictures of penguins
and other birds. There is a
wild diversity of wildlife species on the Falkland Islands, including the
largest breeding population of Black-browed Albatrosses, and several
penguin species: Rockhopper, Magellanic, Papua (Gentoo), King and
Macaroni. However,
failed to see any Falklands penguins, as I preferred to spend the
time with my friends in Stanley rather than join my father going to the
nearest penguin colony at Gypsy Cove.
I was fascinated to see some Falklands flightless Logger Ducks
right on the city waterfront, and the Upland Geese were to be encountered
everywhere. While travelling
on the airport road I saw some of the sheep that abounded in large numbers
and had been the main source of living for many Falklands generations in
the past. The
Islanders are very kind and hospitable people.
There is nothing like visiting a Stanley house where you would be
met with a smile, and drink some hot chocolate on a terrace looking down
over the city at the Atlantic Ocean waters splashing in the Stanley
Harbour. Our thanks to Dr Lyubomir Ivanov for allowing us to publish these extracts from his book 'The Future of the Falkland Islands and its People' published by Double T Publishers, 2003
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