The elections in the US seem to have displaced, at least for a while, the coronavirus pandemic in world news programs. Soon everything will calm down and most people will go back to their daily round, focusing mainly on work.

One of these people is Bulgaria’s Ivan Ivanov who has been developing his own business in the country of unlimited opportunities for many years. His business in America is related to professional cleaning of hotels and homes. And he will remember the year 2020 with the fact that the Covid-19 crisis has multiplied his work and, consequently, his profits.

Paradoxical as it may be, at a time when many people were left out of work, Ivan had to work overtime to fulfill all orders. This fact is explained by the tendency of Americans to support local businesses, especially in times of crisis such as the current one. They en masse chose to visit their native tourist sites instead of spending their holidays abroad. Thus, the multimillion-dollar tourist flow of the United States filled the hotels in the country, and this inevitably led to a lot of work and record-high earnings for Ivan, compared to previous years.

Naturally, the new circumstances presented him with new difficulties, especially with finding additional workers, because in Boston, the city where he lives, there are no unemployed workers. He finds a solution to the problem by helping Bulgarian students start working at summer brigades in the United States.

This year Ivan, who was born in the village of Grozdyovo, Varna region, found an opportunity to return to Bulgaria. Apart from his home, here he also takes care of his remarkable botanical garden, which he is constantly expanding and enriching.

Regarding the measures against the Covid-19 crisis, Ivan Ivanov says that safety requirements are observed much more strictly in the United States than in Bulgaria:

"In the United States, masks are mandatory to wear also outdoors. An American may even meet you in the street and tell you that the mask should be worn not only above the mouth, but it must also cover the nose. Rubber gloves are also mandatory. We didn't have such strict measures as the checkpoints at city entry and exist points there, I don't know why we were even banned from walking in the park. In order to come to Bulgaria I did a test which cost 160 dollars. I saw a case of a passenger who boarded the plane with symptoms, and only after the plane landed was it found that this person was positive for coronavirus. I wonder why such a person should be allowed on the place at all? ”

Ivan Ivanov is also the creator of his own botanical garden, where he experimented in the cultivation of subtropical fruit trees and perhaps it is the only one of its kind in Bulgaria. He started planting the garden in the 1990s in the yard of his native house. He called the place "Margarita" because there is a large group of flowers, trees, shrubs and cacti in the world that are called so.

"If we take into account all types of plants, including herbaceous plants, there are definitely thousands of species in my garden. Apart from being visited by tourists, the garden also has a research purpose. We are constantly experimenting with subtropical species, how they adapt to colder climates. Every visitor here admires the garden, but the view of the palm trees makes the strongest impression. These are the typical representatives of the southern flora. But in the autumn, when citrus fruits ripen, they are most attractive. Almost nowhere in our country can you see ripe citrus fruits in the middle of a meadow. For me personally, the biggest success I have achieved here is growing olives directly outdoors and some evergreen plants that are not typical of our climate.”

Compiled by Gergana Mancheva (based on interviews on BNR Horizont and BNR Varna)

Photos: "Margarita" botanical garden