Balkan Beauty

Lost in the tumult of events that make up world affairs, most of us have been downright insensitive about humble Bulgaria and everything it has done for us. Like what? you ask. Well, it's not as if we can look on the back of a VCR and see Made in bulgaria or watch nimble Bulgarian gymnasts capture our hearts at the Olympics. It turns out there's a good reason we haven't been grateful to the Bulgarians. While they seem to have plenty of time to churn out machine parts and tobacco for their main ally, the Soviet Union, they have given us nothing, nada, the big goose egg. Until now. With the Communist Party out of power in Bulgaria, the paterfamilias, Mikhail Gorbachev, hanging by a thread and the success of Desert Storm showing the world who's top dog, the Bulgarians apparently want to make amends. And they're doing it in the best way possible: by sending us one of their leading rock stars. This isn't the first time Sonia Vassileva has been sent abroad to make her countrymen look good--she was also the very first Miss Bulgaria to carry the flag to the Miss World contest. (It was in 1988 and Miss Iceland won, but there were, no doubt, politics involved.) Already a star in her native country, Sonia has been angling to get out of Bulgaria for years. "I want to be famous not only in Bulgaria," she says in surprisingly good English. "I want to be famous all over the world." But at first, getting out was not easy--in the pre-glasnost days, there was no such thing as a Bulgarian passport; the government simply assumed you weren't going anywhere and you obliged. Sonia made the best of the situation by performing with a top Bulgarian duo, the Pop Top Twins, and entering beauty contests. She entered 16 contests and won all 16. One of them named her Miss Bulgaria and allowed her a trip to Great Britain, which opened her eyes to all sorts of possibilities not available at home. "It's so difficult in Bulgaria," she says. "My family and my friends, they don't have food, they don't have clothes. Things are changing now, and the road they take is probably a good road, but it's going to take them a long time. I'm twenty-two years old and I don't want to see what they're going through. I really miss my parents and friends, but once you're outside, you don't want to go back." Being Miss Bulgaria enabled Sonia to wangle permission to go to Norway. There she received career and diplomatic advice from Paul Stanley, of (text concluded on page 148) Balkan Beauty (continued from page 74) the rock group Kiss. Stanley, always one to give refugees advice, particularly those who win beauty contests, was the first star from the West Sonia had ever met. "I like him. He's really nice," she says. "He said, 'You must go for it.' I didn't speak English very good at the time, but he had the patience to talk to me. He told me I must go to a country where everybody speaks English. So I went to England."

London was not as hospitable as Paul Stanley. In fact, after a year, and a messy little problem involving using a friend's passport, she was deported back to Bulgaria. "It was not a good time for me," she recalls. "But I could not give up." She started touring in Bulgaria again and aimed her sights at what she hoped would be a friendlier English-speaking nation: the United States. "When I walked into the American embassy in Bulgaria for the first time and tried to ask them for a visa, the consul just looked at me--at the way I was dressed--and said, 'No, I'm not going to give you a visa.' It was because I looked good. He thought since I was single and looking good, I'd want to go to America and not come back. All those years I wanted to come to America, but I couldn't. This is the place for me. This is where dreams can come true."

Shortsighted American consuls notwithstanding, Sonia stuck to her dream, making her way to Singapore, where she not only entertained but became a successful club and concert promoter. She arrived in the United States at the beginning of the year and now lives in Los Angeles, where she's currently modeling, talking to record producers and trying to relaunch her career, American style. "I really like rock music and what I listen to at home is only rock music: Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Guns n' Roses. I'm never going to do this kind of music," she complains. "It is difficult for a female who looks like me to sell rock records." But Sonia is determined. "It took me three years to come to America," she points out. "It doesn't matter how long it's going to take me." So far, things are looking good--her modeling career is doing well and she has signed up to take singing lessons with the man who taught Michael Jackson, Madonna and Paula Abdul. "This class is good for me. I don't think I speak English very good," she says modestly. "But when I start singing, you can't really tell that much. If I release a record, everybody will know it's me, because it's kind of a different sound."