A symbiosis of creative soul and business mind

It is a cold and snowy afternoon in Blagoevgrad, but even the bad weather cannot remove the glowing smile from Liliya’s face. In her beautiful burgundy dress and white fur she sits on the red couch in Skaptopara 3 in the American University in Bulgaria, and with excitement in her eyes she is ready to share her story.

Liliya Safarova came to AUBG at the age of 18 as a student in the English Language Institute at AUBG. “When I came here I didn’t know English at all,” she says. She spent three semesters in the Institute and after taking her TOEFL exam she became a regular student in the University.

Liliya is a time-managing person and she likes to have everything planned. She came to AUBG with the desire to major in Business Administration with concentration in Finance and throughout her four years in AUBG she didn’t change her mind. “When I came here I already knew what I want from this university, what classes I will take. I even have an Excel sheet with all the classes that I am taking and I have already taken, and I should take. This Excel sheet was done before my very first semester in AUBG and I have been following it through all the years,” she says while laughing.

Safarova likes the freedom that the university provides in addition to choosing the classes that you want to take and also that you can always change your mind. While playing with her long dark hair, she says: “We are in this age when we are not sure what we want to do and this university gives us the opportunity and the time to see and decide what we like and what we don’t like.”

She has a lot of hobbies and interests like dance, music and photography. Liliya has always wanted to learn to play an instrument and here in AUBG she takes a piano course for four semesters in a row. She is happy that the university gives her the chance to implement her hobbies. She was part of the On Focus club which is connected with photography, which she is doing for around 10 years. Liliya has taken many photographs of places, but her passion and inspiration comes from Nature. She explains with a big smile on her face: “The thing that inspires me is Nature. I always get inspired when I watch the sky and stars.”

The best quality that Liliya likes about herself is her self-confidence. She says that it helps her a lot in life and it helped her through her university experience. It helps her to make new friends and it helped her mostly during her second year in AUBG where she faced the struggle of being alone. “I had a company of friends, but then they graduated. We were always all together and I didn’t communicate with other people, but only them. When they graduated it was difficult for me to start all over again to get to know people.” This moment didn’t break her down. She pulled herself up and she started making new friends, so as to feel and to become a better part of the AUBG community.

However, during that time she wasn’t completely alone. Liliya is from Moscow, Russia, but she moved to Bulgaria at the age of 14 with her parents. She graduated high school in Sofia, so she had her friends in Sofia as well.

Liliya met one of her best friends Nataliia Kravtsova here in AUBG. This year they became roommates, which strengthen their bond and friendship. Nataliia says: “Liliya is very stubborn and confident. We do everything together, like buying groceries, watching movies and all the things that best friends do. We spend 20 out of 24 hours together.”

Now, at the final stage of her AUBG experience, Liliya is even more excited to welcome the life after she graduates. With no doubts she says that she has several ideas for her future development. Crossing her legs she says: “I think I have three options, how to continue my life after AUBG.” She wants to work in the sphere of finance so she would either stay here in Sofia or go to Moscow and find a job, connected with finance, or she would start working in her father’s business. Despite those three plans, after working for some time in the business sphere she imagines herself as a business woman and she wants to open her own business. She says: “I want to be independent, I want to be the leader.”

###

Ivet Petrova is a student in the American University in Bulgaria, majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication. Ivet Petrova shares one and the same hobbies with Liliya Safarova.