Keep them bored for months, keep them in adulation for the rulers, keep them in shame for their condition and, from time to time, allow them a small indulgence: a short holiday, a bit of carnal pleasure, a salary bonus, one kilogram of pork for Christmas or a foreign movie on the “6 March Boulevard”. This was the communist secret recipe for keeping a whole nation in leash for 45 years. These times I keep remembering, I cannot let it go. The “warm tributes” for the leaders were replacing our breakfast, the agents of the communist secret police would always ring twice, people had their poor lunches placing the communist Scanteia paper as table mat, the trembling in fear and cold and shame formed our daily life. Every 1st of May or August 23rd (the glorious day of our “liberation” by the Red Army), our leaders used to wave at us from the shelter of the high tribunes. Were those times so bad? Definitely yes, but I was so young back then. Now the time has squeezed, places are closer, but the distances among people are wider. What did we have and what is left? Do you remember  the odd and even number car tags Sundays, Ceausescu’s portraits on the walls of every classroom, the small and large forms for emigration, the blue paper used to cover the notebooks, the purple stains we got on our fingers from the chemical pencils, the Bulgarian perfume packed in car-shaped bottles, the “shared” telephone lines and Radio Free Europe? Do you remember the immense joy we felt when we could find an empty table at a restaurant downtown and we could order “Cabernet with Pepsi”?