An Interview with Neda and Margaritha Mihneva

Margaritha: When she was a young girl and she was listening to what I have benn telling her. When she showed her character I started to get annoyed. We are very alike, that's why sometimes we can't stand each other. We, the both of us, are hard characters and very egocentric. That's why we cannot pass to each other sometimes. If we were married, we would divorce. But I respect every individuality, however there is a difference between the respect and the ability to live with somebody.

Interviewer: Neda, what is that advice, that you constantly refuse to listen to? When are you yourself?

Neda: When I have my own oppinion and shedon't agree with it. We always argue about small things.

Margaritha: We have generally one issue. I am not very pleased with sports, I have never been on the court to watch my daughter playing. I think, that it is not educational to go there and support her as the other parents do. I think she should face it alone. I don't respect the qualities that sport creates. Me, myself, have never made a single step in any sport. It is true, they (sportspeople) work hard, but what is to become a champion at 20 and that you have to seek for another meaning in your life?

Interviewer: What did you want your daughter to become?

Margaritha: I have never had an aim what is my daughter to become, I don't want her to make the wrong steps. The sports people are physically well developed, but they miss "Under the joke" (she means a very popular Bulgarian novel, a must in the high school)

Interviewer: A quality that you don't want to see in you daughter?

Margaritha: I think I am too much like a housewife, from those pedantic one, that are even unpleasant. It is neither modern, nor meaningful to such one for a person. You lose time and energy. I don't want Neda to be like this and to want to much from the men, as I do. Because when you do, it happens just the opposite way. In my life all the men have been dependent on me. Destiny. I like to read, to observe, to think and to watch the life. I am lonely, and she is more communicative, much more connected with life. She lives more normal than I do.

Interviewer: Do you have many secrets from your mother?

Neda: The sport has thought me to be independent. I don't tell much my mother, I don't tell much my friends. What I do, stays in me.

Interviewr: Doesn't this bother you?

Margaritha: No. Everybody has their own world, and they can defend it. And I keep my secrets for me, however she is more curious. She asks me more intimate and private questions. She behaves herself like a Margaritha Mihneva.

Interviewer: Do you have a special ways of bringing up?

Margaritha: Like every mother, I wanted my child to be different from me. I have never insisted on her copying me, because my life is not happy. I born my daughter at 32 and I had observed her growing up. And I realised that it is inposible to change a person. And this is good. I have had a conflicts with her, but I have never succeded in changing her habits. And now I don't even try. I just want to show her a way in life, but it doesn't work as well. I didn't prove a good educator, because I have no impact on her. She doesn't hear, what I am saying, I am annoying her. And the only thing I want is to keep her from the mistakes, that proved to be fatal for me. Not to waste her time with sport, to learn languages. I don't feel confident, because I don't speak fluently many foreign languages.

Interviewer: What was the most difficult thing, you had to explain to your mother?

Neda: Our main issue is about the sport. I have been attrackted by it from a small child, and due to my father's impact I wanted to become a world famous sportswoman. I couldn't explain, that this is what I want. She wanted me to be a journalist and a better person than her.

Interviewer: Who makes the first step, when your have had an issue?

Margaritha: We never stop talking to each other, but we argue. We insist on our point. She, however, has influences me, because at the end I stop.

Interviewer: Who cries more?

Neda: Margaritha Mihneva could never be overcried. We know each other too well, so we know how is the other to react.

Margaritha: Sometimes beeing silent speaks much more than crying. To cry means, that the silence didn't help.

Interviewer: Don't you accept some of her advice with the time beeing?

Neda: I start to comprehend some of the things. I start to listen more carefully to our conversations. On the telephone, I pretend to be her secretary. We receive 50 calls a day.

Margaritha: This morning I received a telephone call from Novi Pazar. A homicide. They wanted me to leave immediatelly for the place.

Interviewer: If you are locked in a room for the whole day, what would you talk about?

Margaritha: We don't speak very much. She is quiet, and I don't want to disturb her ideology of life. Let her be quite if this is what she wants. If were are locked in a room, I will make her clean it, becuase she is very untidy. Than I will ask her for some peace and quiet, so that I can have some rest. She, however, will turn on the radio loud and will start talking on the phone. This makes me crazy.

Interviewer: What would you demand from your mother in such a situation?

Neda: Her work and the people around her, make her very nervous. She cares for me and for her mother. I will probably ask her to calm down and to talk like a friends.

Interviewer: What present would you like to receive from the other for the holidays?

Neda: I have always been a oversatisfacted kid and have receieved what I wanted. I am pleased with all presents, that mom gives me, I don't want nothing concrete.

Margaritha: My daughter travels around the world, due to her tennis duties, but she is not to bring me presents. She buys for herself, and there is no time for me. That is the new generation, however, I am responsible for her clothing. She chooses them, and I buy them. I would also like somebody to pay for me, but not my daughter. I can't find a man that would do it. The presents makes happy the one that gives it. One gives the feeling, that they've imbued in the present. I haven't given many presents in my life. All my life long I was looking for sick people. That's why the present is luxury. I had received a lot of presents from my partner (not the father of Neda). The presents are from the parents to the kids, I cannot force my daughter to give her last money, to buy me a present.

Interviewer: What is your fears connected with Neda?

Margaritha: That she hadn't read enough. On the other side, I say: Well, I have read so much, but what did I achieved? I hope she wouldn't be that lonely as I am. To be a journalist means to be alone. The television takes to much of you. The work is very hard. The people envy me, that I am so popular. I don't have many fans. I would like to be like a woman, not like a man. I act too much like a man.

Interviewer: And what are your plans for the future?

Neda: Tennis achievments

Margaritha: That is bad. Achieving in tennis, will bring her career down at some point. The peak in tennis is the beginning of the end. And that peak is in the youth. This is the charm and the tragedy of the sport. By the way, our relations is not an area, that I have explored enough. Let her only be happy!!!

This material is taken from the newspaper "24 hours" (the 8th of December 2001), many thanks to Nikolay Ignatov for delivering it to me!!!