As I walk down Ohrid Street for the first time in my young life, headed towards my friend’s childhood apartment, I glance around at the post-Soviet broken-down buildings that loom over me, sturdy and familiar. For anyone living on this street, “beautiful” might seem like a complete joke. It’s old. It’s broken down; it’s communist. It’s a reminder of a regime that built a whole country in haste. But as I looked at the old signs, the flaking posters and the dirty, falling cables, I found myself taking my phone out and snapping a photo.

The Japanese call it wabi-sabi (侘び寂び ), the idea of appreciating the imperfect. But they’re merely talking about a crack in a beautiful, handmade plate. What about the cracks I’ve found in the beautyless panelki? What about the dirty, wide streets, littered with holes and cigarette buds? Does appreciating the ugly get a pretty word too? Or am I simply to call it nostalgia?

In this zine, you will find my take on the themes of nostalgia, illusions, and conventional beauty reflected in the intentional and unintentional cultural tracks found in my home country, Bulgaria. This experimental mix of photography, design, prose and, unexpectedly, poetry aims to share how nostalgia, or something else, plays mirages on the romantic mind.