The Bridge in Lovech 2007

A Story of Music, Duty and Serendipity

In May 2007, two lives, shaped by entirely different worlds, unknowingly moved toward a shared destiny. Chris, assistant tour manager on the road with Swedish rock legends Europe, and Bo, a Bulgarian journalist reluctantly covering a music festival in the city of Lovech, were on a collision course—not just with a show, but with fate itself.

Chris had landed in Sofia late in the evening, embarking on a three-hour ride through the winding Bulgarian countryside. Though exhausted, duty called. As always, he went straight to work—alone, under the cover of night—making his way to the town square to inspect the stage. With doubts clouding his mind about the technical standards, he found, to his surprise, a setup that exceeded expectations. It was a good omen.

Meanwhile, Bo was fuming. She hadn’t planned to be at the festival at all. A dedicated mother, she had left behind her sick five-year-old son in Sofia. Her media outlet Standard Daily had sent her to cover the event as part of the "You Are Not Alone" campaign for the Bulgarian nurses imprisoned in Libya. She didn’t want to go. But reluctantly, she did. And perhaps the universe smiled.

On the morning of May 11th, Europe’s tour team met their local liaison—Bo Kolchagova, known as Bo. It was supposed to be a professional arrangement. But something shifted in the air between her and Chris. She noticed him—first vaguely, then with curiosity. He, in turn, found her presence magnetic, different from the usual hustle of tour liaisons.

Bo spent the days asking international performers to support the nurses' cause. Some responses were absurd, some touching, but it was Joey Tempest’s press conference that became a strange echo of her own experience. When she asked him, “Why did it take you so long to come to Bulgaria?”, his answer—that there was no real explanation—seemed to mirror her feelings about Chris. Why had they not met before?

That evening, the hotel bar buzzed with post-show euphoria. Chris and Bo found themselves beside each other—laughing, talking, gently circling around the connection forming between them. The bar, though festive, felt hollow. So they stepped outside, away from noise and neon, and into the cool night.

They wandered through the quiet streets of Lovech, drawn by the rhythm of a different kind of music—one played not by instruments, but by the soft steps of fate. Their path led to the bridge. Shrouded in mist, surrounded by silence, they stood close. And there, beneath a sky washed in early morning light, their lips met. It was more than a kiss—it was a moment outside of time, where two strangers became something more.

But the sun rises, and with it, reality. The next day, everything moved quickly. Chris and the band departed. Bo returned to her world. Both carried the memory, unsure what to do with the spark that had so unexpectedly ignited.

They stayed in contact for a while. A few messages. A promise to visit. But life happened. Time passed. And yet, in the background of Bo’s life, Chris remained. She looked for echoes of him in others, never quite finding a match. For Chris, the memory of Bo never faded. The mist on the bridge, the laughter in the night—it lived on.

Then, in November 2023, the silence broke. The moment returned.

And in 2024, their paths crossed again—not by accident, but by intention. The circle had closed. The story they began in Lovech had waited patiently, just like them, for the right time.

And now... they we living & writing it together........