![]() ![]() Coin-op games were expensive to import, so Bulgarian operators would buy kits to install in the cabinets of older games no longer earning. However, Bulgaria's Kombat cabinet looked nothing like the hardware found across North America. He dabbled in home games like Super Mario Bros. He wanted to build kingdoms out of LEGO bricks. Growing up, Andrey Stefanov had zero interest in video games. No one except a 10-year-old boy with preternatural hand-eye coordination and enough strength to tear a head free of its body. If you weren't there to buy drugs, the cabinets with their flashing screens may as well not exist. Anyone who game rooms knew not to approach a cabinet if local dealers were playing, usually surrounded by a coterie of toughs who were there to protect him, or push their own supplies, or both. Local law enforcement had no clue what was going on.īy 1993, Bulgaria's dealers thought of themselves as kings. Soon, they were unafraid of police intervention. With nothing to do between serving customers, they commandeered coin-op games until a buyer approached. To avoid detection by law enforcement, they stashed heroin in pockets or, bolder still, held it in their hands until they made a sale. The market's reach grew as dealers worked together to trade secrets and strategies. The clientele consisted largely of children and teens who were unsupervised, and the latter group showed an interest in substances that would guarantee them a good time. Amusement parlors became prime spots to conduct business. In 1992, incidents involving heroin addicts soared by 31 percent as the drug spread.Īs those who ran the drug market grew bolder, their dealers emerged from the underground and set up shop in more public places. Rates of heroin usage climbed over the next two years. They were careful, operating out of locations such as the underground shopping area of the National Palace of Culture. At the Hemus Hotel, located downtown in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, Iranian refugees who had fled to escape the politics of their homelands spread word that they were open for business. ![]() Still, Bulgaria avoided an epidemic until the fall of 1990. and abroad, were a huge part of the gathering. ![]() Drugs, a staple of the counterculture movement in the U.S. They traded stories of where they lived and what they liked to do for fun. That changed in 1968 when Bulgaria's International Youth Festival allowed young people to meet attendees from other countries. Residents of countries such as the United States and Europe had access to a plethora of recreational drugs, but a drug network taking root in Bulgaria was viewed as next to impossible. The country was part of the Soviet bloc, a totalitarian regime whose agents policed drug channels in and out of regions under their control. In this excerpt from the book, a small boy earns the respect of the drug dealers who rule his arcade by besting them in a fight-in Mortal Kombat.īulgaria's opioid crisis didn't happen overnight. Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 – The Fatalities and Fandom of the Arcade Era goes behind the scenes to reveal untold stories from the making of Mortal Kombat 1 through 4 and explores how the franchise impacted popular culture, and is funding now on Kickstarter. Long Live Mortal Kombat: Round 1 Book Cover
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