Kiril Berovski

“August used to be a month off for the whole company. Even our customers knew we didn’t operate in August. We went to see our parents in Bulgaria. On 13th August 2002 I got a phone call from Prague: “Kirča, you got flooded!” I wasn’t coping well but I thought to myself: “Come on, I’m not going to kill myself.” I drank a few shots and sat with my wife to talk about what we were going to do. We figured that we first had to see the damage before deciding. We only got there a month later, although it wasn’t possible at first, whole areas were closed down. We had warehouses in Holešovice where everything was underwater. We opened the garage and there were two new cars, completely destroyed. A van and a Mondeo, completely destroyed. We had thirty-seven thousand bottles of wine stored in there. I brought them to the warehouse in three trucks in July. I had an agreement with my suppliers that I would pay them in several installments. I was never able to pay. The state food safety inspector ordered us to throw all of it away. We even had to pay for the containers to transport the goods. I have to admit that we kept two pallets and got horribly drunk with my partners. What was there left for us to do? Then I sat down with my lady and we talked about our options. We decided to continue the business. It had a good name, I was well-known everywhere, I even went on television several times to talk about wine, we were doing great. But we weren’t insured against this kind of flood. We started paying our debt. Within five or six years we managed to get rid of some of it but later we realised that we wouldn’t be able to make it. Not by honest work. We paid our suppliers, started paying the bank loans and then we went bankrupt. It was just awful! I’m not used to turning my back to problems, I always try looking for solutions. But the business was over. That was when I started to look for part-time jobs. I worked at a train station, I don’t think there’s any shame in that. My lady also found a job. Life went on.“