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As much as the story pains me as Bulgarian, I'd like to provide some more facts rather than emotions. Before the end of communist rule in Bulgaria everything w

As much as the story pains me as Bulgarian, I'd like to provide some more facts rather than emotions. Before the end of communist rule in Bulgaria everything was distributed rather evenly across the country and believe it or not the majority of people were content, there was work and some pay and most people got the same. The exceptions were not visible. After this the country "reset" and places with critical mass of well-educated people did well and the rest not. This is one of the latter ones. It had the bad luck to be close enough to the capitol (50-100km) which basically has zero unemployment rate and good salaries. It is nevertheless not so well connected so you can't easily commute there to work. The population is not enough to have critical mass to attract good investments. There are no universities in this part. Then Bulgaria joined EU and it became even easier to have better life quickly. It's one of the negative effects of globalization if you are not on the winning side. In contrast, there are places in Bulgaria that are doing great. Plovdiv sports 150+ factories with Magna, Airbus, Liebherr and is currently the European Cultural Capitol. In Sofia you can find pretty much any IT company - HP, IBM, Paysafe, SAP, etc.

rienbdj 8y ago
If communism hadn’t collapsed, would these places be better? It’s a fair question, since you cannot keep things in stasis.
kgwgk 8y ago
> the majority of people were content Definitely they couldn’t complain. (By the way, you meant “capital”, not “capitol”.)
witty_user_name 8y ago
As a westerner living here the stand out issue was the utterly random placement of industry. All of the factories were placed to provide employment. When capitalism took over the ridiculous placement of them (far from raw goods & far from distribution) meant they all failed and died. Bulgaria could never be considered a true capitalist country anyway. There is still no rule of law and the mafia choke every last stotinki from the state and the EU.
jacobush 8y ago
Came to say basically what you said. The communist bloc/empire collapsed and was places like these were washed away in the tide of globalization. The same happened in the rest of Europe, but it was especially brutal in the Warsaw bloc. The more capitalist countries were better prepared to handle globalization.
LockNess0 8y ago
The problem is that Bulgaria - particularly Sofia - is getting expensive fast. The country is not handling the development and growth of its cities well, and basic infrastructure is a problem. Poland by contrast seems to be handling getting rich more gracefully. Bulgaria's big advantage is that everyone speaks English. If any poor country wants to become rich, they should simply adopt English as an official second language and instruct all of their students in it.

rienbdj 8y ago

If communism hadn’t collapsed, would these places be better? It’s a fair question, since you cannot keep things in stasis.

kgwgk 8y ago

> the majority of people were content Definitely they couldn’t complain. (By the way, you meant “capital”, not “capitol”.)

witty_user_name 8y ago

As a westerner living here the stand out issue was the utterly random placement of industry. All of the factories were placed to provide employment. When capitalism took over the ridiculous placement of them (far from raw goods & far from distribution) meant they all failed and died. Bulgaria could never be considered a true capitalist country anyway. There is still no rule of law and the mafia choke every last stotinki from the state and the EU.

jacobush 8y ago

Came to say basically what you said. The communist bloc/empire collapsed and was places like these were washed away in the tide of globalization. The same happened in the rest of Europe, but it was especially brutal in the Warsaw bloc. The more capitalist countries were better prepared to handle globalization.

LockNess0 8y ago

The problem is that Bulgaria - particularly Sofia - is getting expensive fast. The country is not handling the development and growth of its cities well, and basic infrastructure is a problem. Poland by contrast seems to be handling getting rich more gracefully. Bulgaria's big advantage is that everyone speaks English. If any poor country wants to become rich, they should simply adopt English as an official second language and instruct all of their students in it.