These past few weeks have seen me and Annette chasing all over the place sorting out the documentation for our car. First there was the business of changing the tax from area to another from the past owner to us, we have driven the car for a year with Power of Attorney. He lived under a different municipality to us, so we had to pay the tax in his district first. Then it was onto the KAT office in VT, they were very helpful considering my Bulgaski is only slightly above minimal.
Straight into three of their windows and paid some money in each and then off up to the other end of the premises for the registration plates to be taken off. We were waved into this shack type building and the hand went up for us to stop and turn off the engine, then three men were doing things, by that I mean one had a clip board, one took off the rear number plate and another the rear plate. In the UK it would have been man for the lot, but at least it employed three people we thought.
Then we drove outside and stopped the car and another man appeared to check the engine number and the chassis number check. Only trouble was we didn't know he wanted the chassis number and the man kept pointing to the rear wheel arch and I ended up underneath the tailgate looking at the spare wheel. Then he just disappeared and returned with a piece of rag and again pointed to inside the rear wheel arch, then the penny dropped!! The chassis number was there and the rag was to clean it off so that he could check the number against our documents, a quick dusting off for me after laying under the car and off to another window where we handed in the old plates.
The woman pointed to some seats and we sat down for 20 minutes and then we were told to go back to the shack. Once up at the shack the engine was switched off and the same three men attended to fixing the new plates. When they had finished they pointed to the road outside the KAT office and we knew we had finished, what a relief!!
The next day it was insurance day at a translators office in Pavlikeni and that went well apart from the fact I had to part with some money. The following day was MoT day and again into Pavlikeni where we had gone last year, so no trouble finding the office. We arrived at the Testing station at about 10.30 am and to our surprise no other cars where being tested, so off with the engine, into the office and an exchange of Bulgaski, an exchange of documents and a tapping of particulars into their computer and off we went into their bar come coffee shop while the car was being tested.
We were treated to two free cups of coffee by the bosses daughter and once we had exchanged a few sentences, she called her Dad into the coffee shop for some conversation which we all enjoyed and her acting as translator. Then her Dad went into the next room and reappeared with two free T shirts for me and Annette which we thanked them very much for. Our car had passed it's test and the new sticker was on the window. I went into the office and paid the usual 36 Leva and collected our new documents. So in all, we had two coffees, two T shirts and an MoT for a total of £15, not bad eh?
So a busy week, but made very pleasant by everyone we met and also very helpful of all of them because most of the time we had no idea what we were doing. Full marks for Bulgaria and their Civil Servants for the way they handle us foreigners and making us feel so welcome.
This story comes to you from your very own East European Correspondent, nestled here in the heart of Bulgaria near Veliko Tarnovo.
Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:25 pm
