Our conversation draws to a close and I’m left with the impression of someone at home in his own culture but at the same aware of having had to make certain compromises with the mainstream political system within which he lived. K presents us with a signed copy of his book that L and I unfortunately cannot read.

Back in the centre of the city the streets are almost empty, cordoned off with the ubiquitous plastic ribbons of the ‘police line: do not cross’ variety. Visual reality does not fit with our inscribed images of how a state visit should be but rather how a city might appear after a state of emergency has been declared. The experience here, and that last year in Vienna, shows an increasing (not only physical) gap between politicians and people: the curtailment of democratic rights, escalating security costs, cities at a standstill, demonstrations the addressees never see except in the media (if at all) are symptomatic of that increasing distance.

Along with others who are curious about the deserted-town atmosphere, curiosity seekers in the best sense, we patrol the edges of the ‘closed area’, noticing immediately when we cross the invisible borders into normal life. Another visit by the president of the United States who, according to the newspapers, wants to make a deal – Bulgarian consent to the stationing of weapons on its territory, part of the so-called ‘shield against Russia’ that Poland acceded to a few months ago, in exchange easing of visa requirements for Bulgarians wishing to enter the USA, or help in negotiating the end to the Libyan nurses crisis.