Markovo Tepe [Markovo Hill] – Catching Out the Smoker
In the 1990s I was attending the Sasho Dimitrov School, now called Antim I. The school is in the centre of Plovdiv and very close to the now demolished Markovo hill. At the time, part of it was still there. It was a small rocky hill, fenced off as a development area. Rumour had it that the socialist decision was to build a huge centre for children there. There was the initial stage of construction works but the project had been put on hold. There were several wagons used by the construction workers left around there as well.
The fence around the hill had numerous gaps for kids to go through. Around the fifth or sixth year at school the division between boys and girls was getting more and more tangible, which was also the beginning of puberty. Until recently gender had not mattered when we were choosing our friends or playmates but now all was different. More and more there was the distinction between activities that were “girls only” or “boys only”. One of those was the regular disappearance of the boys in our class during the long break. A few of us girls decided to solve the mystery around our vanishing classmates. We carefully followed where they went: it turned out they would go to Markovo hill, get through the fence and hide in one of the wagons.
We got closer to the wagon and could see that some of them were smoking in there. We were disappointed and confused. We ran back to school to avoid being seen. We had thought our boys were on their best behaviour but what we discovered challenged that notion. We did not know what to do. I forget whether we tried to talk to them or kept it a secret that we had followed them. In the end we told our class teacher. It was a difficult decision because we were snitching on them but we wanted them to stop smoking.
We got closer to the wagon and could see that some of them were smoking in there. We were disappointed and confused. We ran back to school to avoid being seen. We had thought our boys were on their best behaviour but what we discovered challenged that notion. We did not know what to do. I forget whether we tried to talk to them or kept it a secret that we had followed them. In the end we told our class teacher. It was a difficult decision because we were snitching on them but we wanted them to stop smoking.
Author: E.S.