A
DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SCORPIO
Dr. Xenia Kisselincheva
“It aches my heart letting
the grains of gold sift through my fingers”
The grains of gold are the
bright kids, Rossy Alexieva discovers at the MENSA intelligence tests across
the country. Soon after that, one third of them are blown out of Bulgaria
Her father, the solid
German-trained doctor secretly prayed for a boy as his first-born. A boy, which
will carry on the family line, who will excel in his profession, perhaps in his
public contribution too. I think his prayers were answered, though not in an
obvious way. A girl was born to the family, but she was endowed with a brilliant
mind and strong mettle that are found in the best of men. As she was growing
up, she revealed, one by one, the rich spectrum of her talents and abilities.
They opened up as petals of a rose on a June morning. At school, she was
equally popular with her classmates and teachers, and most of all she was her
dad’s joy and pride.
Her name was always
mentioned at national math competitions when it was prize-awarding time, her
name stood under the most seditious writings in the juvenile periodicals and
she was at the heart of club activities, ranging from math through biology to
creative writing. She seemed to influence people in a profound way - they were
either shocked and denounced her, or they admired her and were ready to join
her endeavors. Some of which, naturally, were full of mischief, like leaving
the university entrance exam at 10 o’clock and rushing to see a film of
Vittorio de Sica. Later, Rossy would challenge the opinions of her professors
at the English Department, she admits she owes them a lot, though. Her special
favorites among them were Sider Florin, the
famous translator of Jack London’s works and prof. Marco Mincoff, the
great Shakespearian scholar.
It was at that time, that
she was unexpectedly struck by “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.
Her beloved dad, whom she adored, suddenly died. Alongside with her studies,
she had to get a job in order to help with the raising her younger sister. Her
first job was as an interpreter at Technoimpex, a foreign trade enterprise.
This was the dream job of many English graduates. But not for Rossy, who had an
insatiable urge for self-perfection, which, in her words, seems to be typical
of creative Scorpios. She knew what she wanted and, not before long, she was a
law student at Sofia
University
First and foremost, she is
incredibly amusing - even her most serious comments are made with a tongue in
the cheek. Madame Scorpio cracks jokes right, left and center, she is an
unusual character to whom unusual things happen all the time. For instance,
when I arrived at her MENSA office in “Sheinovo” street, she treated me to some
chocolate candies in the shape of cigars. Guess what their name was: “Rossy, Clinton
Do you know what she did
when she turned 45? She decided to take part in a “Miss 45” beauty contest. She
borrowed her daughter’s tight bermudas and promised her Indonesian husband to
be discreet about it all, especially before his colleagues at the embassy. But,
to her husband’s mortification, she was the winner in the competition and her
photos in teenage bermudas were all over the place! Nobody cared to hear that
she impressed the jury mostly with the display of artistic inventiveness and a
sense of humor. She performed as a two-faced figure: her present self,
represented on the front and her future self on the back, symbolized by the
mask of an old Indonesian woman. There is definitely a show woman’s side to her
personality, where the performing gusto meets with her extravagant sense of
humor and improvisation.
Mrs Sukra-Alexieva was
immensely successful in a number of TV chat and quizz shows - Variant-3, “In
less than a minute”, “Something out of nothing” and, naturally, she had her
crowd of admirers. Once a journalist, who was interviewing Rossy, asked her how
she felt as “a star”. To which, Ms Alexieva, known for her quick repartee,
replied “I am not a star, I am a whole constellation!” She could spot flattery
from a mile and never missed a chance first to enjoy it and then to discard
with a mocking remark. “Intelligence is no cure to vanity, as Rossy says, “and celebrities
of all walks of life are a living proof of it.”
Unusual characters seem to
provoke fate and they make unusual things happen to them. After pursuing a
successful career as an interpreter at the Indonesian embassy and a legal
adviser at the Red Cross and then the National Library, Ms Alexieva decided to
retire at the age of 50 in order to gain the freedom to do her own projects. It
turned out a “whole constellation” of projects!
One of them is the “The Friends
of Indonesia” club, which she started in 1993 and keeps it going to this day,
with regular gatherings on the 17th of each month. Rossy appears to cast a
magic spell over the club members when she starts interpreting the subtleties
of this exotic culture, they feel like living in a mesmerizing virtual reality,
something like a look at the jungle from an elephant’s back. They watch films,
learn the Indonesian language, listen to the lulling sounds of citars and ...
some of them try to cook spicy Indonesian dishes, consulting from the book,
which Ms Alexieva published “Exotic cuisine”.
Rossy’s love of continually
testing herself makes her restlessly looking for new venues. Taking part in
competitions makes her feel more alive. Up to 1989 she was a member of the tremendously
popular “Quick-witted” club and she participated with great relish in a number of
intellectual TV games, which kept the audience breathless before the screens.
The idea behind that club was very close to that of the MENSA organization, the
first one of its kind. The main objective was to encourage people’s ability to
be creative and resourceful, to find quick unconventional solutions, without
having much initial information.
In 1991, Ms Alexieva passed
the MENSA test with extraordinarily good results. Then she was elected on the
Executive Board - for the last three years she has been president of MENSA, Bulgaria
At present, Sofia is playing host to the MECE meeting, that is MENSA for Eastern and Central Europe . This is a special honor for Bulgaria , which had to go through a tough competition
with Slovakia
MENSA was founded in 1946
in London Bulgaria is ahead in
covering a lot of criteria, compared to other member-countries as Greece , France ,
Italy
In September 1998, Madame
Mensa started an experiment in a Sofia
Rossy is untiring in her
public endeavors. For six years, she has been organizing the gatherings of the
club of Scorpios, amounting to about 150 members. It turned out that there were
quite a few celebrities among them - the magician Astor, the mayor Sofiansky,
the education minister Metodiev, the sculptor Stavri Kalinov. Rossy also keeps
in touch with cartoonists - you can guess it by the patchwork of cartoons on
the walls of the office, most of them with autograghs by the authors. Among
many prizes, she won the first award for writing the wittiest cues under Donio
Donev’s series of cartoon “The Three Fools”.
Apart from all this, Ms
Mensa organized a club of couples of mixed marriages, always spiced with
real-life anecdotes, caused by cultural differences. In a profile, a psychologist made of her
personality for a professional fitness test, it is said that “she is
hyperactive and is inclined to engage herself in too many activities at the
same time.” But, if you ask her, this does not worry her - she usually copes to
keep all balls in the air. Because of her lateral thinking, this inspires her
to generate more new ideas. As a friend of hers said: “She hasn’t tried to
organize only an earthquake yet.”
Rossy still lives with her
Indonesian husband on the “Cherkovna” street, where she grew up. She is
considered as an “authority” on residential matters by her neighbors and she
takes complaints or suggestions from them, whenever she pops out to dig up the
green patch in front of the house and to clean it from plastic litter. The
stray dogs recognize her straight away and immediately vanish out of sight before
she has organized a stray dogs’ cleansing. I forgot to mention that she ran for
mayor of Sofia
Sofia Western News Monthly,
1999
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