It's 8pm in Bulgaria. The main Soviet news programme Программа Время, beaming straight from Moscow into Bulgarian homes. Read by Igor Kirilov. For many years, without translation and the only choice on a Friday night, until Bulgarian TV started its second channel in 1974.
Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's Communist leader for 35 years, declared on the occasion of a visit by then Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1962: 'We must say that our political watch-dial is exact to the second with the watch of the Soviet Union, that our watch is working to Moscow time. This is a matter of great pride for all Bulgarian people', Rabotnichesko Delo daily, 28 May 1962.