Sava Popov set off for South America, but did not even manage to reach the intermediate stop – the island of Martinique. He left Sofia for Paris on July 24, 1939, by train. In his passport we see visas and stamps from the transit passage through Yugoslavia, Italy, and Germany. In Paris he received a letter from his father with instructions for visas, steamship companies, and the opportunities for immigration, but as he was only issued a tourist visa, it was impossible for him to continue across the ocean. His father, Yordan Popov, offered to send money from Sofia, and if he didn’t get an emigrant visa, he should return, and “we’ll think it over.” Sava Popov carried in his luggage a journalist’s card, a letter of recommendation to the editorial office of a newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela, and a letter authorizing the issuance of a visa to Argentina with the stated purpose of the trip – “to research the market.” It is clear from the correspondence that all this had one ultimate goal: the United States of America.

We learn the reasons for this distant trip of Sava Popov’s from particular paragraphs in his correspondence. We read in a letter to his fiancée, Dushka, that if only he could settle down in the “new world,” he would take her, too. But after a whole month of wandering unsuccessfully between the embassies in Paris, the departure failed. On September 1, 1939, the first day of the Second World War, Sava Popov traveled back to Bulgaria. Also at that time, Iliya Beshkov fell ill. He spent his time mainly at the hotel, had no energy to draw, found no reason to stay in Paris, and returned home prematurely.