Memories of Svetoslav Minkov

In 1922, the twenty-year-old Kazi published his first book under the title "The Blue Chrysanthemum". Svetoslav Minkov published his first book with Dimir Polyanov, born three years earlier. He debuted alongside the then-young Vla. The latter's collection of short stories was entitled "Death". Not long after, their names appeared on the pages of the magazine "Zlatoroga", around which some of the most famous writers of the time were grouped. Minkov's friends liked to joke about the title of his book, asking him in which garden he had seen a "blue chrysanthemum", when chrysanthemums are usually yellow and white. Of course, the joke did not irritate or anger Minkov, he accepted the tease with that typical Minkov smile, in which there was both shyness and mystery. He did not answer with words, he was by nature silent, I would even say withdrawn into himself. In those years, Minkov still loved meetings in the shady Sofia pubs, and there among friends, in the haze of tobacco smoke, in front of a glass of wine, he became talkative and spoke, rather told things, sometimes very bizarre, incredible, in which he seemed to believe, because what he said had an accent of faith, of conviction. But he was funny.