Trump Inspires Cheers, and Alarm, Around the World

By RICK LYMAN

JAN. 21, 2017

The newly formed European Trump Society in Sofia, Bulgaria, watched live coverage of President Trump’s inauguration on Friday.

SOFIA, Bulgaria — The inaugural meeting of the European Trump Society packed the central aisle of a bookstore in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, on Friday evening — women in furs, men in ski jackets, the floor glistening with melted snow. A live feed from the crowded steps of the United States Capitol filled a projection screen on the back wall.

“The election of Mr. Trump means ‘You’re fired!’ to the political elites in America and the world,” declared Boris Angelov, a tabloid editor and a founder of the society, which is strictly Bulgarian at the moment but has wider aspirations.

Ilia Lingorski, a former deputy finance minister, shouted from the crowd, “Bulgaria desperately needs its own Trump movement.”

The inauguration of Donald J. Trump as America’s 45th president, with declarations of “America first,” was met with alarm in many corners of the world.

But not everywhere.

Pockets of celebration broke out here and there, in places where Mr. Trump’s nationalist message matched local stirrings, and his promise of friendlier relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and a harsher approach to Islamic terrorism were eagerly embraced. Photo

A participant at the European Trump Society event reading “The Trump Doctrine” by Borislav Tsekov, a founder of the group.

About 100 Trump supporters gathered around a statue of President Ronald Reagan in Budapest’s Freedom Square for a “Better World Order Inauguration Party.” The speaker was Zsolt Bayer, a prominent right-wing pundit who once referred to Jews as “stinking excrement.”

Standing beneath a banner reading “Hungarian Deplorables for Trump,” he called on President Trump to combat political correctness, which Mr. Bayer said had created a world in which “only the white, Christian, heterosexual people do not matter.”

“For decades, we have been waiting for a miracle that will stop our world from running to its demise,” Mr. Bayer said. “Now, we are hopeful that this miracle is in the making.”

Mr. Trump’s support in Hungary rises beyond the small group in Freedom Square. The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, eagerly congratulated the new president on his victory.

In Moscow, a chain of stores selling Russian military gear offered a one-day, 10 percent discount on Friday to all United States citizens and embassy workers. A poster advertising the sale featured a clench-jawed Mr. Trump, fist raised.

Several celebratory parties were held in Moscow before and after Mr. Trump’s inauguration. At one, the crowd sang, “Trump, Trump, he is a superhuman.” Another featured a triptych of heroic portraits of Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump and the French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen.

A group of Russian gunsmiths unveiled a commemorative coin declaring “In Trump We Trust,” and Life News, a Russian tabloid, reported that Mr. Trump had been declared an honorary Cossack.

Political activists, media figures and dozens of foreign journalists gathered on Friday evening at a conference site just outside the Kremlin for a celebration of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, an event organized by conservative activists and a conservative television channel. Maria Katasonova, one of the organizers, declined to say who had paid for the spacious hall, meat pies and sparkling wine . “It wasn’t the Kremlin,” she said.

Although the event pushed a sense of triumphalism, the mood among the audience was more skeptical.

Many said they worried that “anti-Russian elites” in Washington would stymie Mr. Trump’s efforts.

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