2 Bulgarian Girls Given Warm Hello

It wasn’t exactly the red-carpet treatment normally afforded visiting VIPs. But it wasn’t a bad way for a couple of Bulgarian kids to spend their first full day in the United States.

“We didn’t even know exactly when they would be arriving,” said Disneyland spokeswoman Sydne Huwaidi. “The family did not contact us directly. Their tickets were provided to them by someone else. Someone had to point them out to us when they arrived.”

Nevertheless, when Nikolina Zekov, 12, and her 5-year-old sister, Christina, arrived at the Magic Kingdom’s City Hall, they were treated to a personal greeting from Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

“It seems like children all over the world want to meet him,” Huwaidi said.

The Zekov girls were reunited on Saturday with their parents, who fled Bulgaria three years ago.

Limousine for Ride Home

The family was given tickets to Disneyland by Executive Coach Builders in Springfield, Mo., which also donated a limousine to take the girls home. Their luggage, however, was left in Frankfurt, so their parents bought them new clothes to wear to Disneyland.

Mrs. Zekov said that although she’s been in Californa for three years, she had never been to Disneyland because she didn’t want to be reminded of her children. “I thought it would make me sad,” she said.

Grabbing a map of the amusement park’s 55 attractions, the family quickly scooted off down Main Street after the City Hall greeting.

“They just wanted to have a nice private visit,” said the park spokeswoman.

Mrs. Zekov, 33, and her husband, Jordan, 38, defected from Bulgaria while on vacation in Austria three years ago. They left their children behind with Zekov’s mother.

“I wanted freedom,” Mrs. Zekov said. She and her husband believed the children would be allowed to join them, she said. But the wait was longer than they had expected.

The Lakewood couple have fought to regain custody of their children since they arrived in the United States. They received word Wednesday night that the girls had been granted final permission to leave Bulgaria to rejoin them.

On March 23, unknown to the couple, the Bulgarian government agreed to release the children to their parents.

“Nobody told me,” Mrs. Zekov said. “On May 15, I received a letter from the American embassy saying they got approval from the Bulgarian government. I think the press and the American embassy did it.”

In April, Mrs. Zekov had appealed to 12-year-old Soviet peace emissary Katerina Lycheva--who also made a much-publicized visit to Disneyland--for help in getting their daughters. Katerina was given a letter written by Mrs. Zekov and addressed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but it was not known whether Gorbachev received the letter or intervened.

Mrs. Zekov, a mechanical designer, said the couple recently moved from a small Long Beach apartment to a two-bedroom duplex in Lakewood.