Ray Bulgarin
Rodislav "Ray" Bulgarin is a character in Grand Theft Auto IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony. He is a Russian mobster who had immigrated to Liberty City in the 1980s only to be deported after being arrested on human trafficking charges. At some point following his deportation he moved to the Mediterranean where he lived in a large mansion overlooking the Adriatic Sea. He ran a smuggling operation from there and employed Niko Bellic. Bellic worked for Bulgarin smuggling people into Italy from Eastern Europe until during one run Niko was stopped by the authorities and forced to abandon the ship. The ship was seized, and Bulgarin blamed Niko for the loss, demanding restitution and thus forcing Niko to flee to Liberty City.
At some point during the early events of Grand Theft Auto IV, Bulgarin returned to America and met up with his old friend Dimitri Rascalov, who was at the time coincidentally an employer of Niko. Dimitri offered Niko to Bulgarin without hesitating as a token of friendship during the mission Russian Revolution; however Niko escaped the ambush with the help of Little Jacob. Bulgarin also crossed paths with Luis Lopez and Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince and hired Luis to assist him in acquiring Liberty City's professional hockey team, the Liberty City Rampage, but at some point they had a falling out. He later encounters both Niko and Luis for a final time during the Grand Theft Auto IV mission Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend when Niko and Luis are representing opposing parties (the McReary Family and the Ancelotti Family) in an hostage exchange. The Ancelottis offered the McRearys a large quantity of diamonds in exchange for Don Ancelotti's daughter, Gracie, whom the McRearys had kidnapped. The exchange goes awry however when Bulgarin shows up and claims that the diamonds are in fact rightfully his.
Mysterious Disappearance
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Part of this article are based on realistic Speculation and might not turn out to be correct. |
Following the story line's completion, the police database lists Bulgarin as dead, although no details are given. If one were to take a visit to a local Tw@ computer cafe and observe the criminal database, Bulgarin is listed as "Deceased" even before being encountered by Niko in the Russian Revolution mission. He possibly faked his own death to evade higher authorities and Interpol after his smuggling operation went awry.
Another plausible scenario is that Bulgarin may have been killed by Luis Fernando Lopez, the protagonist in the second downloadable episode of GTA IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony. One variable that supports this is that Bulgarin's final appearance in GTA IV was also coincidentally Luis's final appearance. In a cutscene during the mission Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend he states that, "the big fag and his Dominican bitch," (referring to Luis and Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince) stole his diamonds. At the end of the cutscene Bulgarin orders his men to attack Niko and Packie and he makes his escape and is not heard from again for the rest of the game. The same can be said for Luis and Gay Tony in this scene. It is quite possible that Bulgarin is confronted by Luis and Gay Tony and killed following this cutscene.
There is some confusion as to his nationality; he may be Bulgarian, as Bulgarin means "native of Bulgaria" in various languages and an artwork released with the game that shows a man that looks a lot like Bulgarin holding a molotov cocktail is labeled as 'Bulgarian Molotov' on the Rockstar Social Club website. Niko, however, seems to allude to him being a Russian at several points in the story.