British paper "Guardian" lists Albena and Maxim among the "living icons of Bulgaria"...

LINK: http://dnes.dir.bg/2009/04/18/news4323028.html (in Bulgarian)

Translation of the important part by google:
"The newspaper states that the living icons of Bulgaria are Georgi Ivanov (politician and former cosmonaut), Raina Kabaivanska (opera singer), Christo and Jean Claude (artists), Dimitar Berbatov (footballer), Veselin Topalov (chess-player), Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski (figure skating) and Grigor Dimitrov (tennis player)."

... just want to add the original English article from English "Guardian", naming Albena and Maxim "Living icons of Bulgaria"...

LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/country-profile/bulgaria (in English)

Bravo for the Guardian!!

It seems they are just discovering what WE on this forum have known for some years.

I'm very happy for Albena and Maxim and hope this news will spread far and wide so everyone in the world will hear of it.

Interview with Albena from Trud newspaper (again thanks to Ged )

http://www.trud.bg/Article.asp?ArticleId=211282
It's about the Olympic qualification and the fact that, most probably, there won't be any Bulgarian skater in Vancouver . Sad, but this is the reality.

I translate (with Google) only the most interesting parts, because it's long and I just don't have time to translate it all

Did you see the new Albena and Maxim?
- We have promising figure skaters from 9 to 11 years, and if the policy continues in this direction, probably soon we'll have good rankings. But the big problem is the material base. How to have concurrence, when there's no ice rinks? I had lot of conversations about the construction of a new ice rink, but we remain at the level of conversation.

The politicians promised you lot of things. What happened?
- I don't remember now what they promised (laughs). If it comes to the ice rink, there is no sense to comment on. Obviously that is not realized. Figure skating, short track, ice hockey train at one rink - "Slavia". However, the capacity is limited and there's no big opportunities for development.

You and Maxim have your own club - how it goes?
- It was originally designed for ice dancing. Unfortunately there is no single pair after my sister Ina and Yuri Kurakin have splited. We decided with Maxim that to go to competitions just for a trip is not correct. Ina is preparing alone and is looking for a partner. We have three individual skaters and coaches, we help with advices, camps abroad ...

What are your plans?
- In the last few years I have learned not to make long term plans. As people say - you think, but God disposes. I know what I want to do - to be on the ice. The work as a choreographer attracts me... Recently I and Maxim, we received an unexpected invitation to work with Brian Joubert. We'll travel to France and it will prepare him. He will fight for an Olympic title. We were unable to return to this Olympics and we didn't get a medal from the Winter Games. Through our work with Joubert, we hope to get our little prize - the Olympic gold.

Did you plan to return in Vancouver?
- At the last Olympics we made a small mistake in the original dance, but we were punished severely. A month later we became world champions. We suffered that we remained without an Olympic medal. We wanted to return. But over the past two years, many things happened to us and now this is impossible.