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Yordanka Hristova was once called
Forty years on, the 64-year-old Bulgarian pop diva keeps the gossips guessing about her relationship with the revolutionary icon himself, saying all that matters is her love for Cuba and her admiration for its leader with the beautiful brown eyes.

The singer was first introduced to Castro during his visit to communist-ruled Bulgaria in 1972 and fell for what she called his macho charisma. He praised her for her good Spanish rather than her looks, she recalled.

"I was impressed with his eyes, which looked very beautiful, brown, slightly transparent," she told Reuters.

Dismayed by the collapse of ties between Havana and Sofia after the end of communist rule in eastern Europe in 1989, Hristova has helped set up a foundation to revive cultural links, named after Cuba's national hero, Jose Marti.

Marti, a poet and writer, died in a cavalry charge in 1895 in the fight against Spanish colonial rule. Hristova says his life mirrored that of Bulgaria's own revolutionary hero Hristo Botev, also a poet, who died in an uprising against Ottoman rule in 1876.

The foundation has erected a statue of Marti on a small square in Sofia and is pushing the capital's mayor to name the square after the fighter for Cuban independence.

In the communist era about 40,000 Bulgarians worked in Cuba, mainly as engineers and agriculture experts. The Balkan nation exported chemicals, machinery, wine and canned food to Cuba and imported the Caribbean island's sugar and citrus fruit.

(Reuters)

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