The news of the death immediately spread and the funeral became political problem. First of all, the time was not ‘opportune’: some Soviet cosmonauts just died in their space craft. Bulgaria was supposed to mourn them. The death of Gundy and Kotkov was not announced on radio and TV. Their funeral was to be secret, low key, and strictly family affair. The government thought many things: it was unseemly to display public grief over some football players, when Soviet ‘heroes’, true ‘working class’ heroes, also died. Secondly, spontaneous public action was always dangerous – Bulgaria was called to mourn the Russians, and whatever public grief was to be displayed, it was to be thoroughly organized by the Party – the occasion, however, did not called for massive parades; just well-screened ‘workers collectives’ offering flowers in front of the Soviet Embassy, or Soviet monuments. Suddenly masses of people attended the funeral of Gundy and Kotkov, showing themselves at Levski’s stadium and at the graveyard. The secret news spread very quickly and people went to the funeral, unpleasantly spontaneous. This was interpreted as political act and measures had to be taken quickly – the Communist Party, taken by surprise, was unable to halt and disperse the masses ordinary people, coming from the whole country to Sofia. It had to be the Police taking measures – but the Police was also surprised. Besides, Police intervention most likely would have led to clash with the mourners, and this had to be avoided as a dangerous precedent: a possible clash very likely would have changed grief to anger against the government, an anti-Communist demonstration. Another trouble was the nature of the attendees: they were not only Levski fans. Fans of other clubs and even people indifferent to football attended. Many were not only Party members, but high placed Communist functionaries. The Minister of Interior Affairs attended as well, and since Levski-Spartak was the Police club, he was there in rather official capacity. He was also Levski fan, unfortunately for him. The Police itself was in awkward position – mourning their players and fellow cops, (according to payroll, Asparukhov was Major of the Police. Kotkov also had a rank.), they hardly had reason to stop other mourners. Yet, mostly it was the surprise preventing officials from stopping the massive gathering. The funeral created a myth…

Today regular and football media speaks of 500 000 people attending the funeral. It is presented as somewhat anti-Communist gathering – if not truly political, at least a massive defiance of the regime. Public disobedience, which is supposed to show how unpopular Communism had been in Bulgaria. And also how anti-Soviet Bulgarians were in 1971 – ignoring the Soviet cosmonauts and mourning their own heroes. Communist document concurs: recently an old secret record of emergency meeting of Central Committee of the Communist Party was published. The meeting took place on July 13, 1971, addressing ‘some negative occurrences’ (in the typical lingo of the Communist Party) – namely, the funeral of Aparukhov and Kotkov, and the role of the Minister of Internal Affairs Angel Solakov in it. The number given at this meeting is 150-200 000 people. In his book ‘The Eternal Derby Levski-CSKA’, the sports journalist Roumen Paytashev gives ‘over 100 000’. I think about 100 000 people attended the funeral, more likely on the lower side. The truth is, nobody knows. All estimates are inflated by the myth the funeral became immediately. Only one thing is certain: Gundy and the Kitten were very, very loved and massive number of people went to show respect and grieve.