Meet a member: Vasko
Posted by Huw,
In the second of our meet a member series we talk to Vasko, aka Vasil, who's a university student in Sofia, Bulgaria:
What is your first LEGO memory?
The first moment of my life that is related to LEGO that I can remember was in 2003, when I was three years old. My cousins had just arrived from the US, where they live, and as you would expect, they brought some gifts.
To 3-year-old me’s surprise, one of the gifts was a big red bucket from Creator (4116 Animal Adventures Bucket), that was very colourful and didn’t resemble anything I’d seen before. Once I opened it, I would not want to stop playing with the pieces for any reason and I spent many hours a day building things.
Surprisingly, the red bucket was technically not my first set, as back in 1998, when I was not even born yet, my father received 2554 Formula 1 Pit Stop from a Shell promotion when he was fuelling up the car with petrol. I only received that when I was a bit older, around 4 or 5, but I am delighted that he kept it for so many years to give it to me, as if he knew I’d grow to love LEGO.
Vasko, age 3, is on the right.
Did you have a dark age and if so what caused you to emerge from it?
I wouldn’t necessarily say I had a strongly defined dark age. Conversely, I’d say the period of my life from the age of 16 until now has been the one where I have bought the least amount of LEGO and done the least LEGO-related things.
Despite that, I never actually stopped buying sets and I still bought the occasional set every few months, including a decent number of collectable minifigures. That was possibly helped by the fact that I still remained active on Brickimedia (the site that actually introduced me to Brickset around 2013).
I was an administrator on Brickimedia and regularly updated different articles for sets and minifigures, as well as occasionally writing reviews. That definitely helped me keep my interest in LEGO and also kept me up to date with the LEGO world.
Which set or theme has been most influential upon you, as a LEGO fan?
My favourite theme of all time has to be Bionicle. That’s also the theme (excluding Collectable Minifigures) that I own the most sets from and have always loved. I became interested in Bionicle along with my childhood best friend, as we started collecting every year’s sets between us two.
We decided that we would (mostly) split the new characters between us and we would almost never buy the same one. In my opinion, the best year of Bionicle was 2008, and that is when my childhood peaked.
When I was young, I found out that the three virtues (unity, duty and destiny) of Bionicle that were so prominent in the movies actually proved to be a good life lesson for anyone who cares to be a good person, and I would say that they can be practised in adulthood as well, though now I think of them a bit differently.
How do you store your LEGO?
My method of storing LEGO is quite basic. I keep all the boxes for my sets, so I can store the sets inside. The reason I don’t keep many sets on display is simply because they get really dusty very quickly. It usually takes only about a week for them to be completely covered in dust and some of them are quite hard to clean.
On display, I only have a couple of the Architecture skyline sets that are a bit easier to dust off, as well as a few Star Wars vehicles that I think are good display pieces. The two sets I’ll always keep on display are the 10265 Ford Mustang as that’s my all-time favourite car model and it looks terrific, as well as 70786 Gali - Master of Water, as that is the final Bionicle set that I ever bought. As for the boxes, I just store them in a couple of cabinets and shelves, apart from the Bionicle ones, which I’ve got sorted in two large separate cartons.
What is your favourite part?
I don’t really build custom creations anymore, as I just can’t find the time to do so. With that in mind, I can’t say I currently have a favourite piece that I like to build with. Going back to my younger years though, I always loved how versatile the minifigure neck brackets (42446) were. I would use them for things such as custom minifigure jetpacks, backpacks and all sorts of different attachments that I would put on the back of minifigures.
Keeping in mind the limited customisability of minifigures back then, that piece was revolutionary when it came out in the early 2000s. For a couple years, I only ever had one, and that was from 5018 Snowboard , a small promotional Sports set that quickly became one of my favourites just because of that piece (can’t deny that the snowboard was pretty cool as well).
What theme would you like LEGO to produce?
The theme that I had always wanted LEGO to make when I was younger was The Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, that wish came true, but I only ever bought two sets, and I regret it to this day. I would really love it if LotR came back to LEGO one day, then I would definitely buy more, if not all the sets that they release.
Aside from that, a theme that I would like LEGO to produce now would be a historical one, a theme that would let us sail through the years and explore all the different eras of human history. Obviously some of that has already been done (for example Ancient Egypt or the Viking Age), though a theme that encompasses many different historical periods would in my opinion be interesting to many people.
What is the availability of LEGO like where you live?
Nowadays in Bulgaria, you can easily buy most of the new LEGO sets in the same month as they release worldwide. This is a great privilege that I haven’t been able to experience for my entire life.
When I was young, I would always look at the new sets and themes on LEGO.com whenever they released, though they would only ever arrive here about a month or two later. My issue was with Bionicle in specific, due to the fact that I was playing all the new games with the new characters on the Bionicle website, and I couldn’t play with the same characters in real life.
The only issue I currently have with buying LEGO is that we don’t have a LEGO Brand Store in Bulgaria, and the LEGO Shop doesn’t ship to here either, so the only way I can get exclusive sets like the Ford Mustang is to ask my friends abroad to ship them to me, which makes it a bit more difficult.
How long have you been visiting Brickset?
I found out about Brickset in early 2013 and now that I checked, my 7th anniversary on the site was on the 23rd of March, just a couple of days ago. Since then, every single day that I sit on the computer, one of the first websites I check is Brickset.
What's your favourite/most used feature of the site?
The definite first place holder, as far as my favourite features of the site go, has to be the news section. I read almost every article that is posted on there and I must say they've all been of outstanding quality.
Out of those, my favourite articles are the set reviews, as well as articles with coverage of events that some of the Brickset staff have attended. Aside from the news section, I can't imagine how I would be able to keep track of my LEGO collection without the system integrated in Brickset, which makes it so easy and enjoyable.
And lastly, how can I not mention the "Random set of the day" articles that I see every time I log in, especially when a set that I own pops up there every now and again.
Do you have any interests or hobbies other than LEGO?
In my free time, there are a couple of different activities that I like to practise. Prior to this whole situation that’s going on right now and is keeping us all at home, I regularly visited the gym (4-5 times a week), an activity which I really grew fond of. I still do workouts at home, which definitely isn’t the same, but we have to make do with what we have.
Another thing I like to do when I have time is watching association football where I follow a couple of championships (especially the English Premier League and the Champions League). I’ve been following them closely for the past few years and I will continue to do so once sport resumes to be played later this year. I also follow the NBA and I like to watch snooker, though I don’t watch those as much as football.
I am also somewhat of a “gamer” as I do play video games regularly, but not as much as I used to before. I’ve been playing every FIFA game that came out in the last 2-3 years, as well as a couple other popular games such as Counter-Strike and Call of Duty. Lastly, I am a big history enthusiast (that's the main reason why I would like to see a historical theme made in LEGO), and I love reading history books and articles, as well as watching historical movies and playing history-related video games.
Thanks Vasko! Want to be next? Get in touch!
74 likes
9 comments on this article
Thanks Vasko! Much appreciated.
@Huw, I’m sure this was posted briefly yesterday because I went on it, read the whole review, but couldn’t see the pictures. There were also a couple of comments. Then, I went back to the home page and it disappeared until now. Not sure what it was about, though.
"I would like LEGO to produce now would be a historical one, a theme that would let us sail through the years and explore all the different eras of human history."
I really like that idea!
^^ It was available for 10 seconds or so yesterday due to a user error on my part ;)
Great interview Vasko!
@darthnorman said:
""I would like LEGO to produce now would be a historical one, a theme that would let us sail through the years and explore all the different eras of human history."
I really like that idea!"
Time Cruisers ( https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Time-Cruisers )?
@Zander said:
Time Cruisers ( https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Time-Cruisers )?
That was over 20 years that LEGO created that theme, so it would be cool to have one that isn't vastly outdated.
Excellent! Nice to meet you, Vasko.
Keep the articles coming Brickset gang!
That's a surprise :) Never thought that you will have a bulgarian in your team. Our LUG group in Bulgaria never heard of him :) Vasko, please check out LeBGo Club :)
Good to see you still floating around, Vasko! :)