Baiy Ganyo

Bay Ganyo is a fictional character created by Aleko Konstantiov. He is an iconic figure representing the typical anti-hero: uneducated, rude, ignorant and egoistic. Since then he has become also a hero of many national jokes as a rude but cunning person who outwits all of his foreign partner.

Бай Ганьо

Бай Ганьо е известна графика от Илия Бешков

Niagara Falls

Several steps down, a semicircular stone fence and... Niagara Falls! Here at last!!... It took many minutes until we came to ourselves! All observers stood benumbed as in a tableau vivant! Everybody's face bore an imprint of infinite awe! All faces were serious, slightly pale and as if frozen! As if they were standing not before God's creation, but before God himself!... If anyone can describe this picture, please describe it; if anyone can photograph or paint it, please do so!... I cannot.

Chicago Slaughterhouses

I had read a detailed description with illustrations back in 1886. I envisaged huge, well-lit and clean buildings with neatly dressed workers. But oh my God, what a difference! I saw some cattle that were entering the pen, raise their heads and on seeing hundreds of their kind killed, skinned and severed into pieces, were taken by such utter terror that they gazed open eyed and stood petrified; at this point the butcher would raise his hammer indifferently and fell the ox on the planks with a measured blow between the horns. They pierced the animal's neck with a knife and a stream of blood and filth gushed out onto the floor. Several machines cut the meat into pieces; numerous workers filled endless bowels on dirty wooden tables, then tied them with twine, loaded them onto carts and took them to the storerooms. Everywhere was dark and slimy with offal - and the stench!... I felt sick; had I stayed for five minutes longer, I would have succumbed and passed out.

Arrival in New York

I approached the customs officer too. He asked my name. On hearing a surname ending in "off", he muttered: 
"You are Russian?"
"No, I am Bulgarian"
"?!"
"I am Bulgarian, from Bulgaria."
"??!!"
"Bulgaireean!" I spoke up stressing the syllables, because the carelessness of this American was beginning to offend me. Was he deaf or something?
"Bulgaireean!"
"Hungary," he corrected me.
"What Hungary! Bulgaria, on the Balkan Peninsula." I was both angry and felt like laughing at the same time seeing him racking his brains to remember - where for Christ's sake was this kingdom! I realised that I may not have pronounced the name of our principality correctly in their tongue, so I took out and spread a map of Europe before him and poked my finger into the centre of Sofia.
"Oh, yes, Turkey, all right!"
"No, sir," I objected, but he wouldn't listen and wrote me in as a Turk. In the same manner he Turkicised Filaret and the doctor. The latter was disillusioned and conceived a hatred for the Americans.

To Chicago and Back

"To Chicago and Back" is one of the most famous books by Aleko Konstantinov. It was written in 1893 as travelogue. It is as much about America as it is about the Bulgarians. It sounds as current and vibrant now as it did in the late 19th Century. Aleko Konstantinov, went to the World's Columbian Exhibition in 1893 and returned with a travel book that has been set reading in Bulgarian schools for generations. The Happy Man described the Niagara Falls and the Chicago slaughterhouses with alot of humor. Although he had travelled widely throughout Europe and was well read, he realised the moment he arrived that nothing could have prepared him for the culture shock he experienced on seeing New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington. Following are some excerpts from "To Chicago and Back" that the modern reader will be shocked to find it as relevant and spicy today as they were at the end of the 19th Century.

Bay Ganyo kills Aleko Konstantinov

Известната графика на Илия Бешков - "Бай Ганьо убива автора си".

Banknote 100 leva

Aleko Konstantinov as depicted on 100 leva bill which is currently issued and used in Republic of Bulgaria

Първо организирано покоряване на Черни връх

Участници в първото изкачване на Черни връх организирано от Алеко Константинов през 1894 г.

Who was Aleko Konstantinov?

Aleko Konstantinov was a Bulgarian writer, best known for his character Bay Ganyo, one of the most popular characters in Bulgarian fiction. He was born in Svishtov in 1863 to an affluent trader. He studied at the Faculty of Law of the Odessa University and graduated in 1885. He worked as a jurist in Sofia before embarking on a writing career. His first novel Bay Ganyo describes the travels through Western Europe of an itinerant peddler of rose oil and rugs. Though impertinent and clumsy, the nevertheless ingenious Bay Ganyo has been seen as a mirror for a modernizing Bulgaria. At the beginning of the novel Bay Ganyo is seen mainly as trading rose oil while at the end he is portrayed as a political man. His prototype is the Karlovo tradesman Ganyo Somov. Aleko was a cosmopolitan. He was the first Bulgarian to write about his visits to Western Europe and America. He visited the World Exhibitions in Paris in 1889, Prague in 1891 and Chicago in 1893. He described his travels in his most famous book "To Chicago and Back" providing the Bulgarian readers with a portrait of the Western world. Hе was assassinated on 23 May 1897 near Radilovo while traveling to Peshtera. It is supposed that he was targeted because of his critical essays, exposing the hidden insidious intentions of the rulers of his day. Aleko initiated the tourist movement in Bulgaria. He was the initiator of the first organized climbing of Black Peak of Vitosha in August 1894.