The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Sofia-Brussels-Washington: From Serfdom to Freedom to Self-Accomplishment: Finding the American Dream by Michael Gloukhov

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Sofia-Brussels-Washington: From Serfdom to Freedom to Self-Accomplishment: Finding the American Dream by Michael Gloukhov Sofia-brussels-washington.com Amazon.com Sofia-Brussels-Washington: From Serfdom to Freedom to Self-Accomplishment: Finding the American Dream is a memoir of Michael Gloukhov’s remarkable life from his war-torn youth to his thriving adulthood. Michael Stoianov Gloukhov was born in June 1944 during the heaviest bombing of Sofia by the US Air Corps. His parents were forced to divorce because his father was an officer in the pre-communist Royal Army. Michael graduated in 1963 and was conscripted in the Bulgarian Army for two years. To avoid membership in the Communist party, he declined to go to Reserve Officer’s School and went instead as a Private in the mechanized Infantry. Eventually, he escaped to Belgium, followed by his mother and little sister. He earned a degree in Political Science while he drove a taxicab and in the 1980s became an international radio broadcaster with the Bulgarian Service of the Voice of America. Gloukhov joined the US Navy Reserve in 1987 at the age of 43, serving all over the world due to his unique, multifaceted background. He is currently married to the former Miss Dobrinka Droumeva and has a son, Ryan, who is now aged 30.About the author After spending over 33 years in the computer and information technology industry, Richard decided to take an early retirement to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional writer and published author. Richard is a leader in the computer industry, serving as Vice President of Consulting at Software Techniques and Beck Computer Systems before settling down as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s. During his twenty-year tenure at that esteemed company, he focused on computer security and preparing for the possibility of disaster. In addition to creating hundreds of articles for the web and blogs, Richard actively works as a professional ghostwriter. In that role, he has completed books on a wide variety of subjects including memoirs, business volumes, and novels. Because of his in-depth background in software management and computer security, Richard has ghostwritten a number of major books in those areas.

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Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Anyway, he is the author of the latest book to come out December 23rd, 2024. It's entitled, Sophia, Brussels, Washington, From Serfdom to Freedom to Self-Accomplishment, Finding the American Dream. We have Michael Glukhov on the show, and we're going to be talking to him about his show. I believe Glukhov, if have that pronounced correctly don't I Michael? Yes that's right. There we go and we're gonna be talking to him about his history and his biography I believe we have here. Welcome to show Michael how are you?

Thank you I feel great being on your show. There you go. It's wonderful to have you give us your dotcoms or anywhere on the internet you want people to find you. I have my website. And what's it called? It's very simple sofia-brussels-washington.com. brussels-washington.com. Ah, okay, that's easy. And that's the title of the book, by the way, folks, Sophia-Brushwills-Washington, when you're Googling it. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in your new book?

That's the only book I wrote. It's a political autobiography. I say political because this is not a kind of monument to myself, but I lived through quite difficult periods in my life under Soviet communism. And this is a kind of testimony of the life of ordinary people, the life on the streets, the life with all those difficulties to overcome, the lack of freedoms. Actually, it was a period of terror when the system came in 1944 and it lasted until 1989. It collapsed after the fall of the Berlin wall the day before. Wow. I mean, you live through an interesting point in history for those who've read

the book, talk to us about how the book begins in the story of where you're at in life, what's going on in that theater, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, the book finishes and ends with my US Navy retirement ceremony. Oh, really? I served for 20 years in the US Navy Reserve. That was my dream to wear the American uniform. I served as a conscript in the communist army two years. I saw how the system works from inside, the ideology of the system, and I figured out that this is not a Bulgarian army. This is an appendix to the Soviet army. And it's a tool to suppress its own people and spread communism around the world.

Yes. Now, what year was that? So we can lay a context timeline here. I was 19 at that time. You can see my picture on the left upper corner of the book at that time, 1963-65 was my service. And initially I was invited to go to reserve officer school, but I turned down the proposition, accepting the difficult life of ordinary private with the associated terror for the main reason that if I accepted I would be forced to become

member of the Communist Party and if that happens you don't belong to yourself. That's a line I was not going to cross, nobody in my family did, and I was not going to be the first one. Let me ask you this, what did you see, what was going on there that made you dissuade it from joining the communists, or at least becoming a communist, or working for the Russians? Actually, communism hit hard my family because my father was officer of the Royal Army, the pre-communist army, and to serve after the arrival of communism and be sent actually to find the Bulgarian former Germany.

That didn't matter. He had medals, he participated in combat. But the label fascist officer never left his image. Oh wow. It followed all the way to me. So I could not have higher education, I could not have a good job, I was condemned to go with the flow and probably to the factory and stay there until I perish. Oh wow.

One day in misery. Wow. And that's something I did not accept. Yeah, perishing in misery is on my list of things never to do. Ha ha ha ha. So I can't blame you. That's, this is where the system locks you.

Your path is predetermined unless you're part of the privileged class or as a Soviet intellectual Vosleensky called the nomenklatura class. They have the strong currency traveling in the west, double or triple salaries, high education, you name it. But you need to be a member of the party and obey the party. Oh, always obey the party. Sounds like 1984, the book. What was life like in... You guys were under Soviet communist rule in Bulgaria at the time,

and you probably grew up in that rule. Do I have that correct? Yes, I did. Actually, the communism arrived with the Soviet army which crossed the Danube from Romania and one million Soviet soldiers occupied Bulgaria and imposed immediately a Soviet-type rule. The first thing they did is to arrest and execute a large part of the previous government, actually even member of parliament. They had a predetermined percentage of 75 percent of members of parliament to be shot, which they did. That was the Soviet model. And of course, the misery started almost immediately. Empty stores, no meat, no electricity, no water for quite a long time, a few years, I would say.

And after that, of course, the civil society basically, if some survived, a lot perished in the labor camps. And after they purged everything which was intellectual and creative, they installed the uneducated, faithful militants of the Communist Party. They gave them a quick education. They became the director of factories, of enterprises, just to sign, but somebody else was working for them. The former owners had to move the economy because communists were incapable to do that. And that lasted for very long years until they created their own elite. However, people like me, even 20 years later, were condemned to be ostracized and not to have access, as I said, to higher education,

to visiting Western countries, no passports were issued to these kind of people. And the alternative is either go with the flow, accept your destiny and just move on with not a bright future, just move on with not a bright future or take a risk to escape, which I did. Not everybody succeeds. Some are trying to cross the physical borders, are shot, or at best put in jail for the next 10 years. Others got deported to labour camps. the next 10 years, others got deported to labor camps.

I managed to beat the system and to escape after very good preparation and planning because and keeping it in secret. Totally. That's something an amazing read. The details are in the book, right? Yes, because you don't know to whom you're talking, who is going to report you, probably the same day. And basically that's the rest of your life. That's how the system holds through constant spying, especially party members have to spy on their own family, their neighbors, their colleagues,

their friends actually do expect to be betrayed by a friend. Wow. You cannot trust anybody or no more than two or three percent and yet you take a chance and you feel very heavily the lack of freedom. And you feel very heavily the lack of freedom. Let me ask you something. That sounds like quite the system when you really think about it, where it's an overlay of instead of dear leader, the authoritarian or the fascist or the communist have to try and police everyone.

When there's that self-policing going on where everyone's telling on everybody just to race to the bottom, it's almost like a bucket of crabs when you really think about it. Everyone's pulling each other down and destroying democracy or any sort of freedoms, and they're accepting of it. In fact, they're participating in actively the restriction of freedom. Kind of interesting. You see different echoes of that, what's going on in our political system in 2025. What does that feel like to want freedom so bad and be able to see outside of the box? Did you find that you were kind of unique in a way that you, like some people, if they don't grow up with freedom and democracy, they don't understand it. Russians still have a hard time with our system because they've always ruled under oppressive kings and rulers. And so,

they don't have a historical sort of background like Americans do of freedom and democracy, at least we used to, let's put it that way. What does it feel like to be in that sort of regime? Because you're talking about the Russians, they're a separate case, because the Russians have never been free in their history. Actually, I'm using in purpose the word serfdom. using in purpose the word serfdom. The serfdom existed only in Russia, already from the middle ages and the reign of the so-called Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Grozny. The Russian society was a society of peasants that were basically linked, locked to the land they used to live, into the feudal that they had to obey to pay taxes, and the local church at that time. So those were the pillars of the serfdom. had no freedom whatsoever, they could not discuss anything.

If they go for military service it would be for 20 years. And serfdom historically was abolished by the Russian Tsar in 1861, but that was only in words and in paper. And then when the revolution came, actually the first Russian Revolution was 1905 when Russia lost the war to Japan. But then in 1917, which is the official date of the Russian Revolution, that was not a revolution but a military coup by Lenin and the so-called professional revolutionaries He is the one who continued practically deserved them by eliminating

immediately all traces of civil society he elaborated developed and elaborated a system of grabbing the power, holding the power, and never relinquishing to anybody else under any circumstances. And then under communism, initially communism in one country, as Stalin proclaimed, but that was only during the Second World War, where the United States were military present in Europe.

But then communism kept expanding. So this system was perfectioned, and although it ideologically collapsed with the disappearance of the Soviet Union, it was adopted by all totalitarian systems, the same system with some modification that exists in China, let alone North Korea, which is a time capsule of Stalinism, Venezuela, Cuba, and even countries like Iran, which is not communist, but adopted the same system of grabbing the power and survival and no wonder they're a lie to Russia today. The name should not necessarily be communist. Russia has a type of fascist system today, but the old principles are still valid.

The opposition is physically eliminated, and that's how it goes. Yeah, that's how it goes. So you escape, people have to read the details, of course, in your book, the, and then you, yeah, I believe you go to, is it, was it Brussels? I think you went to next to Brussels? Yes. That was not a direct flight. I actually never took a plane. Okay. I moved first to Yugoslavia, which was nominally a star socialist country, but not like the socialist countries of the Soviet block. It was a kind of neutral and take advantage of the East and the West, but they

had a lot of freedoms, they could travel around the world, quite a difference, and for that reason it was not easy to go to Yugoslavia, to be allowed to go. You can go only with organized travel, very expensive. I could not do that. Or have some relatives there, which is a possibility because of the change of the borders during the several Balkan wars. Yugoslavia and especially the area of Macedonia was passing hands between Serbia and Bulgaria and Greece. I used that type of connection, although I didn't have personally relatives, my own relatives, but I managed to use this paragraph and it was not still even that way was not still possible to go easily, especially for me because I had to basically make false statements in my applications.

But I made it, I managed to beat the system that they allowed me. But that doesn't mean you're free. In order to be free you have to cross the borders of the West, which means either to go from Yugoslavia to pass to Italy or to Austria. So I managed with Yugoslav passport that I didn't, it was not a fake passport, didn't change even the picture, but somebody agreed to give me his passport. And that's how I passed with the train. Oh, wow I took some chance in case they catch me

But you cannot Just live to the West without taking some kind of risk. It was a calculated risk and I succeeded Congratulations, you're here today. We'll skip around here a bit on the so eventually you get to America and What makes you want to join our military you go from the Soviet military basically to ours. I Don't misunderstand me. I hated the communist military sure I've been terrorized there, the details are there. And I basically told myself I'm gonna take everything that comes on me. I'll survive and I'll escape and dedicate the rest of my life to the destruction of communism. And my dream was actually to serve in the NATO army in Western uniform.

I almost did in Belgium when I became citizen. I was conscripted and actually I wanted to serve. It was just a bad time because I graduated in the university at that time and I had to prepare my dissertation. They gave me one year for that, I mean for bachelor's degree. And at that time I've been called for service and it was really bad and I told the authorities can we postpone it just to get my diploma. I fought so hard to have it. They said no. You take it or leave it. You give it a chance for a moral cause to not to serve. There are two conditions, you satisfy both of them, the first one having served in another army, which I did for two years,

and be older than 28. Yes, I was older than 28. And reluctantly I had to just drop this opportunity. But when I moved to the United States the first thing I tried was to do military service there. I didn't have the right information. Like for example they told me you need to be a citizen. No, you need to be a citizen only if you have to be an officer. I didn't know or didn't cross my mind or nobody told me that in order to be enlisted in the US Armed Forces you don't have to be a citizen. It's enough to have a green card which I did have. Ah! And I didn't know that. When I learned it, I was close to the ultimate age limit.

I was too old for the army, too old for the Air Force, but not too old for the Navy. And even for the Navy I had another problem because they couldn't believe that somebody like me would like to serve. I was almost 43. I had a good job, very high education, including PhD. They could not imagine that somebody would go and list it just unheard of kind of. So they said I might be, it's got to be a spy. And they just caught a spy at that time, 1984, John Walker, who went to the Soviet embassy and gave the ultimate, the highest, top secret of the United States Navy.

Pete Why was that, why did you feel that was important to you to join our military and make that part of your journey? What was the feeling? What was the motivation behind that? What did it do for you? The motivation was first, it was a gratitude for having the opportunities I had in the United States so fast, a great job which was corresponding to my ideals to work for Voice of America radio. I've been listening to Voice of America and Radio Free Europe since the age of 15.

This is all I was doing and that's how I got informed. And at that time, 1987, still in Brussels, the Bulgarian communists, with the help of the KGB, killed an important Bulgarian defector, Georgi Markov, known as the Bulgarian Umbrella Case, because he exposed the corruption on the highest level in the Bulgarian regime, communist regime. So they killed him with poison, actually toxic, with no counter poisoning substance for that. He died. And I thought, okay, I'll try to take his place. It's normal.

So I applied for BBC. And I've been called, I took the test, I succeeded and I applied also for Voice of America. I've been accepted there too, but it's a stringer for Washington, for Brussels I mean. They closed that office after that for lack of funds and later on I reapplied when I decided to move in the United States, which I did. And so my dream was, as I said, to serve in Western uniform. I had the possibility to go as in the sailor in the US Navy Reserve, which was a good possibility. That possibility didn't exist in Europe. The American Reserve System is unique in the world.

And that was my greatest time. I also thought it was the peak of the Cold War. At that time, the medium-range nuclear missiles, Americans were installed in Europe as a countermeasure of the Soviet SS-20. And it was pretty close to a hot war. And I thought that my place should be there. If that happens, I would like to participate on the side of the United States and the side of freedom.

Okay, it didn't happen and I was very satisfied not only to wear the uniform but to be on opposing side against communism. My first unit was a submarine warfare. I wanted to serve in intelligence where my background is the strongest. But that took a number of years until I reached that, and 12 years until I had top secret clearance adjudicated. But I made it that one too, and although I have tricities in ships, kind of exceptional. But I made it and after the fall of communism, I played an active role of helping the former communist countries to become good members of the West, members

of NATO. And so I had, I served with the US warship in Romania, in Bulgaria, then I had more active duties, two more active duties in Bulgaria and been in Germany also. That was actually the fulfillment of my American dream. The fulfillment of American dream, this is how immigrants come to our country. It's interesting how they love democracy more than we take it for granted. And what an interesting journey. So as we go out, why do you feel it's important for people to read your story? What do you hope they gain from it?

What do you hope they learn, et cetera, et cetera, as we go out? Actually, a lot of people who knew my story were pushing me to write a book and I was very busy. I even didn't have time but after I retired from the Navy I decided to start writing that book and this is my legacy to the American young generations actually is good for all ages but the young generation can benefit from my experience to live, survive and succeed under incredible physical and mental pressure. Oh yeah. And to see what communism is through my eyes. To see the life in two continents and three different systems.

Because after I left communist Bulgaria, I lived for 13 years in Belgium. I had a very good life and achieved all my education there. And I'm very grateful to this country. Symbolically, the cover of my page is the Belgian flag. Because you cannot have self-accomplishment if you don't have freedom.

And Belgium is the one that gave me the freedom. And however, in Europe there is a kind of type of socialism. For example, very high taxes. There is another tax called value-added tax, which at that time it was 36% over whatever you buy, merchandise or any kind of services, which doesn't leave you a lot of financial potential to spend on yourself. That's very true. Also age limits.

That was the main factor I decided actually to live in the United States. There is a mandatory age limits. You have to retire at the age of 60, 65. In France they've been having general strikes too. They didn't want to work over the age of 62, no matter what. With the present level of education, medical care and advances, I mean, what is 62 years till we're young? And I want to work. The United States gave me this possibility. Actually the agency I've been working, I'm going to retire this year, actually. Oh, you're retiring this year.

How old are you now? 81. 81. Retiring. Good for you, man. Good for you. I, I espoused to Warren Buffett saying I I'll retire seven years after he dies. I'm grateful.

I've been allowed to work and I've been very productive. I was teaching some people of the intricacies of what I've been doing because it takes years to learn and I enjoy it. That was a kind of political mission too, because the voice of America is not just information, but also to spread the ideas of democracy and freedom. That's why I've been listening to it through the jamming. Okay, technically speaking, it has been just closed by President Trump with some other agencies. I'm not going to discuss the

policy of this government, but I'm going to retire later this year. Congratulations. And what an amazing story to share, a journey in historical context. Thank you very much for coming to show Michael We really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I've been more honored to be on that show. We've been honored to have you sir I mean what a journey that you've done What an amazing life and people can read the full story the details the escape from Germany sounds like it should be a movie Thank you Michael for coming the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you Thanks, my audience for tuning in order of the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Order of the book, wherever fine books are sold, it's called Sophia

dash Brussels dash Washington. From serfdom to freedom to self-accomplishment, finding the American dream out December 23rd, 2024. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1, The TikTokity and all those crazy places. Be good to each other, stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that's your time with us out. Michael Gorman, the man who made the world.