Friday offtopic. *Literally* 3 shittiest new fads in the hub of depravity

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Alcohol tourism has become a trademark of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. If we're to make an advert for our country, we should probably be putting footage of extreme adventures and wild parties all over it.

The new hit of this summer actually consists of three fads, spurting from the delirious alcoholic minds of the unrestrained European holiday-makers. Beware: what is to follow is not for the faint of heart!

The newest insanity is called the Brown Shark, and may've been inspired by the Jaws movie, where a few innocent tourists and a brave sheriff were fighting a gigantic shark. The new "sport" is played by secretly sneaking into the corner of a crowded swimming pool, rolling your bathing suit up and releasing the contents of your bowels into the water. The faecal mass then floats onto the surface and among the other tourists, who start rushing in panic out of the water, screams and curses everywhere. Must be worse than seeing a shark fin popping up above water, no doubt.

Tossing a TV out of the hotel window is another mania that has become very popular with foreign tourists who come to this place to have a blast. A few days ago, a drunken Slovak threw his TV set out of his hotel room in protest to bad service. He got fined 250 euros. And a drunken German was fined for throwing a sunbed out of his room. Oh, by the way this is a consequence of another fad among tourists: now that the Russians have invaded our beaches too, they've brought the practice of occupying sunbeds with towels to a whole new level - now they bring the sunbeds with them into the hotel rooms. A much better way to reserve a sunbed for the whole day, no? But back to that German: when the staff tried to fine him, he attacked the administrator with a bamboo stick, which he pulled out of the lounge decoration in the hotel. He must've imagined himself to be a ninja or something.

When a few Irish guys were interviewed on TV and asked if they liked Sunny Beach, they said they loved it very much: they hadn't left their hotel room for the whole duration of their stay, and the room-service had been bringing them one bottle of booze after another. "This is a perfect place, mate", one stammered between drunken hiccups.

Of course, we can't miss to mention Balconing. It's become a trademark for Bulgarian tourism for a few years now. Every year, dozens of insane tourists, dead-drunk or stoned (or both), climb up the parapets of their hotel balconies, and perform these risky acrobatics. Most do land into the pool eventually, and some don't. You can imagine the mess that ensues afterwards. This, along with the former two fads, is largely believed to have been invented by the respected British tourists, who've been known for proudly crawling on all-fours along the alleys past midnight and puking their guts out into the gardens after a night-long "bar crawl" (another fad: basically, a tour around half a dozen locales serving super-cheap booze; the discounts are amazing).

The stats about tourists ending up in hospital after these shenanigans is quite shocking, and it has prompted the British government to launch a new information campaign among their youth (and not only), informing them of the risks of alcohol tourism in this particular place - like that'd ever work. There was also an IKEA advert, where some Swedish teenager was throwing a tantrum after her parents banned her from joining her friends on a holiday to Sunny Beach. That's how infamous this place has become around the world.

Ironically, Britain is the country that's been most vehement in its insistence to keep Romanian and Bulgarian newcomers away from its borders, on grounds that they'd "come to steal our jobs, and cause a lot of trouble". But in the meantime, little has been said around the British media about the other side of the issue: namely, the actual trouble-makers causing actual trouble, as soon as they find themselves far enough away from the strict rules and penalties back home.

Don't get me wrong. We're largely to blame for this, too. We've intentionally shaped up that resort as the ultimate booze heaven, so we shouldn't be acting surprised that it's living up to its purpose. As the local proverb goes, "Not the one eating the pie is the crazy one; the one giving them the pie, is".

Comments

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

People are idiots. Give them enough ground and opportunity, and they'll be sure to display their idiocy in its full glory.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

As much as I love their culture, I'm sorry I'll have to say it, but I'll have to admit Russians are by far the worst of them all. It's also official (http://www.travelvivi.com/russians-are-worlds-worst-tourists/).

I've just come out of one of a series of General Meetings at a holiday complex with a heavy dominance of Russian owners. It was a nasty nightmare. The non-Russian owners just walked out in the end, saying they'll never again subject themselves to the torture of having to spend another two hours in the same room with a hundred yelling, obnoxious, absolutely repulsive "barbarians", as they called them.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

They're just too sensitive to being treated with disrespect and condescension - for both cultural and historical reasons. If you show them respect and dedicate some personal attention to that interaction, in most cases they'll reciprocate and become your friends for good.

The rough manners, the notion that others owe them something for some reason, and the feeling of superiority (justified or not), on the other hand, is relatively easy to spot in many of them, granted.

I've heard the argument from Russians themselves that a country of that size and with that kind of cultural baggage cannot possibly be ruled democratically, which is why they genuinely prefer and feel more comfortable with the sort of government they've been having since time immemorial (and keep having today).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I assure you the people we've been dealing with over the years have been granted all the respect they're due, and then some more. What we've been getting in return is a caricature, and not a very funny one.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Been saying this for years. Sunny Beach is what it is exactly because we've wanted it to become like that. We've got no one else to blame for what it has become.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Benefits-Costs= Profit.

We had this problem in the US in spades about 20 years ago.

A few towns along the Florida Atlantic and Gulf Coast became, essentially, drunken riots every March and April during college Spring Break. Boozy, horny, obnoxious and entitled college students ran wild. A lot of people made a lot of money. We all got to see a lot of boobs. Some of us acquired inconvenient infections from "some chick from LSU." It also became pretty clear, however, that a lot of other people lost a lot of money. And the costs of making the money became harder and harder to bear. Throwing TV's out of windows? Pool furniture pilferage? Balcony diving? Pooping in the pool? Drunken violence? You think Sunny Beach invented this depravity? Pfffbt. These things sound very familiar to anyone who came of age in the late 80's or early 90's in the US and visited Ft Lauderdale, Daytona Beach or Panama City Beach . And these towns didn't have the luxury of blaming Russians, or Slovaks or Brits. This was (barring a few Canadians) 100% Made in the USA. For the poor people who actually had to live and work in these towns, it became intolerable. Plus, no respectable person wanted to visit at any other time of the year. So business suffered in the long term.

Towns cracked down. No more measly $250 fines. No more blind eyes turned to bad behavior and public drunkenness. Local authorities made is very clear that the party was over. Stagger out of the bar and fall in the street? Wake up in the drunk tank with a huge fine and a court date set for 6 months later. Get drunk and wreck your room? Find yourself in jail for a couple of days, fined enough to make mommy and daddy flinch, and sued by the hotel for damages. Outraged students by the thousands threatened to "take the party money elsewhere." The towns shrugged. Then they actually raised prices. They then found replacement customers, older couples, young families, who could come and spend money and not wreck the place in the process.

Spring Break still exists. But it is a shadow of its former self. Drunken mayhem still happens in the Spring, but it is spread over a wider area and at a much lower level. Most of the extreme rowdy behavior has been sent offshore, mostly to Mexico or the Caribbean. If it was an affordable flight, I am sure Bulgaria would be on the list, too. Cleaning up can happen. But not until the costs of the party out weigh the benefits.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Dunno about crap, but sure sounds like the kind of place I'd like to visit some day. If only for the pics and vids I'd make there.