The Bulgarian Military Press is a mysterious organization that operates a tiny storefront set inside a huge building in downtown Sofia. When we initially proposed our residency, the Bulgarian Military Press agreed to print our books for the exhibition. I try to find out a bit about them and googled the Military Press and found nothing except for a company listing and a listing for a book they published in 2005: The Catalogue of Bulgarian Orders and Medals.

Somewhere along the way the Military Press rescinded its offer to print our books and instead offered us a coffee and a tour of their old letterpress. The letterpress is quite famous and had been the subject of an Italian documentary, our contact told us.

On the day of our visit, there were very few people in the building and most of the doors we passed were closed and sealed. Our contact’s office held a fascinating mix of furnishings spanning several decades, possibly centuries.

Our meeting started rather collegially: we were introduced by our translator and were offered coffee. We asked about the history of the press, but our contact only talked about its future. The building was being privatized and the whole press, furniture and everything else, was to be sold with the building.

Then something happened: the translator, presumably translating whatever our contact was saying, started asking why we were there. Then he said that the coffee machine was broken, and hustled us out of the office, down the hallway to another sealed door, at which point another man unsealed the door and opened it to reveal the letterpress, tucked away at the back of the room, behind discarded papers and boxes.

As we moved boxes away to look at the machine, the man who let us in tapped his foot on the floor. He seemed hostile and his impatience was evident, so we gave up and left the building.

We were standing outside the Military Press when air-raid sirens started. Everybody on the street stood still, cars stopped, and the sirens continued to wail for three minutes. It was noon, June 2, Botev day, the day Bulgarians stand in silence to remember the revolutionary poet Botev and all others who died fighting for freedom and independence in Bulgaria.