Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country
bbc.com
bbc.com
If you do this right, you can also become a resident and benefit from a flat 10% income tax which is lowest in the EU. No affiliation; I just find this type of arbitrage fascinating (and am currently doing something similar on the Black Sea coast of a different non-eu country).
- https://www.travelingwithkristin.com/digital-nomad-blog/2019...
- https://medium.com/@matthiasezeitler/where-nomads-can-buy-an...
- https://medium.com/@coworkingbansko/how-any-non-eu-citizen-b...
- https://medium.com/@coworkingbansko/getting-bulgarian-tax-re...
I guess we are talking about farming families moving to Germany and cities looking for jobs because big industry doesn't exist in the villages anymore and they aren't the business type which can adapt to modern farming and way of doing business. Then there's highly educated people who wish to move away from the city and start doing remote work from some nice countryside or business people from the city who want to start a modern farming or tourism industry somewhere. I wouldn't say this is a cycle because this is one cultural transformation which has been going on in transitioning countries for the past 2-3 decades and not something which is happening every 10 years causing people to move back.
This is based upon many fine Polish nationals I've had the pleasure to know over my years and keeping up with current events.
This is not the case.
"An individual is defined as resident of Poland, if at least one below-mentioned condition is fulfilled:
the individual has closer personal or economic relations with Poland (center of vital interests) or The individual stays on the territory of Poland longer than 183 days in a given fiscal year."
So if you have somebody working abroad, paying tax abroad and sends home money to family, then they are open to being double taxed.
I'm sure there is some better article about all this, but this is what I've been told from Polish nationals a few times and one who was giving up a job in another EU country to move back to Poland, due to this and that opportunities for work had improved greatly from a decade ago when they initially left.
Sorry for my confusions, though all did have families back home, so may of been a factor or some tax aspect perhaps as I didn't delve. Though did recall reading an article upon the bbc (though had no luck finding it), but that may of been over 10 years ago knowing me at times.
I think, can't remember exactly, the legislation was introduced in 2007, I never had to pay any taxes in Poland while working in other EU countries, I filed a zero tax return in Poland only once, as the taxes have been paid in the other EU country.
There are edge cases where one still falls under double taxation but they are regulated by respective country's tax treaties. Details in Polish: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/double-taxa..., list of treaties per country: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/individuals/personal-t....
Sending home money is definetly secondary compared to pay for bills, rent, groceries, etc in the country you are actually living in.
Most people don't move to a country like Bulgaria just for a job. It's fine when you're 2X years old, can work remotely and have time to get into the culture, language, &c. As soon as you have a serious gf/bf or a family you can forget it. One of my colleague is Bulgarian, he moved to Germany because of corruption, lack of quality school, lack of good paying jobs, and that was in Sofia, not some random small town.
There is a reason why it's cheap and everyone is leaving. Also, people underestimate the personal cost of moving to completely culturally different country, you'll never feel at home there unless you live in some kind of gated community or expat district.
True. Would you concede that dependent on one's background/circumstances some cultures might be easier to adjust to?
I'm not sure I would call Florida geographically advantaged although a lot of people actually like it. (My understanding is taxes also make it attractive to retirees and second home owners.) Lot of growth in the desert Southwest (Arizona, Nevada) and Texas. It's mostly the Midwest that is conspicuously lacking.
[1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/estimate...
It's also very nice if you like beaches and the ocean, and don't mind playing dodgeball with hurricanes every few years.
What sense would it make for a plumber business or restaurant to move there? None.
What sense would it make for a high tech business to move there? None. No VC, no subsidiaries, and most important, no other business that you need. A hardware start up need tons of expertise from highly skilled suppliers.
Yes, for digital nomads it might work. But so does Panama or wherever.
It's quite a good deal if you want to be a digital nomad since it's an EU country and you can get a really small apartment for almost nothing to use as your official address while travelling. (You'll have to be at least fiscally resident there)
Feel free to PM me if you want some tips on how to get things set up there.
ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, the only problem is with people gone infrastructure around those apartment is quickly going down the drain
Before anyone asks, federal income, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, state income, state sales tax, local property tax, and lesser- luxury and gas tax.
Or maybe people would realize a County like Germany is able to cover the entire County (2x as many people as Medicare) while spending half the Medicare budget. Then, questions of waste and fraud might pop up, which no one involved wants to happen.
Issues are often just ignored until they go away. It usually works fine though, so it's not necessarily bad.
In someways thats part of the reason our Medicare program is so expensive.
In the US we essentially go an entire lifetime without regular/preventative care, then when patients become eligible for Medicare, they have a lifetime worth of chronic illness that is treated on the tax payers dime.
7 out of 10 Medicare have at least 1 chronic condition, and chronic conditions are notoriously expensive to treat. Whereas nearly 100% of chronic conditions could be avoided if the patient had regular/preventative care (for example identifying prediabetics or patients with high blood pressure, or heart disease) while they were young enough to make the lifestyle changes to avoid these conditions altogether. Our system is essentially designed to ensure patients are both chronically ill and expensive before they are eligible for coverage.
They're wrong because Medicare and Medicaid are more efficient and control costs better than the private sector. Costs are already more than doubled once you add in the private sector. Even if taxes were doubled y'all would still end up paying less on the net because your employers are already paying for healthcare, which is a private tax.
So would many Americans. But those defense contractors need their cut. And non-US projects tend to be more expensive than other countries as well.
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
For example, as a French citizen, I would expect that if we're in the top 5 in terms of spending (regardless of whether it's done privately or publicly), we should have a system that's in the top 5 in terms of outcomes.
I wasn't in any way trying to suggest the US healthcare system is the "best" or whatever, just pointing out that pure cost comparisons are meaningless.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Ke...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...
I'm not sure what warrants that tone, when I was simply stating something obvious (you can't judge a healthcare system by its cost if you don't look at the outcomes).
Thank you for contributing more valuable data/information.
It's interesting to see that the WHO methodology also got criticized. This points to the complexity of actually picking the right metrics/outcomes you want to optimize for.
Sorry if it didn't come across that way, it was meant to be light-hearted ^_^ tone doesn't always carry well over the internet. I wasn't criticizing you at all.
The OECD data is pretty damning. America leads its peers in obesity, smoking, air pollution and bankruptcies, and lags dramatically (1-2 standard deviations) in consultations skipped due to cost, population coverage, life expectancy, doctors per capita and beds per capita. Mission failed, IMO.
All for the low, low price of twice to three times what most other countries spend.
Of course, above calculator doesn't include sales, property, luxury or gas taxes.
Now that Donny capped state, local and property tax deductions at $10,000 per year (meaning you get double-taxed on the rest) and reduced the mortgage interest tax deduction cap from $1M to $750K, that number got much closer.
At $300,000 you're paying 48.65% marginal. That doesn't include, in SF, a 9% sales tax, a 1.188% property tax (that of course even renters pay as owners use rental income to offset that cost), and to your point, luxury and gas taxes.
https://s.kathimerini.gr/resources/2017-12/s3a_3112foroi-eis...
To balance a proper comparison if you're going to include the EU taxes re healthcare, you would have to inflate US wages even higher to account for the benefit that employees receive (money that otherwise would be available for labor competition in the form of salary), which is often a large sum of money given the cost of US healthcare.
US healthcare per capita is typically 100% (double) more expensive than in Western Europe. It's about 130% more expensive versus Britain. It's 200%+ more expensive versus Italy.
A software developer earning $125,000 - $150,000 per year is receiving a minimum of an additional 10% equivalent of their salary in the form of healthcare coverage. More likely 15-20% these days. The cost to put a small family on a good health plan will easily run you $20,000+ per year.
Many American expats in Europe that have acquired the right for local nationality give up their nationality for that reason.
which states that, worldwide, just over 5,000 Americans renounced citizenship in 2017. There are also about 9 million Americans living abroad and ~1 million living in Europe. So, no, I don't think that even if all 5,000 were in Europe that 0.5% renounced their citizenship would count as "many".
Quick research: Kaiserslautern Military Community has ~50k people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiserslautern_Military_Comm...
Now that's the largest, but by far not only location with US Military presence in Europe.
That's only if you're lucky, and move to a country with a no-double-taxation treaty. There's only a few of them. No tax treaty, you pay the full amount due to both governments (after excluding your US foreign earned income allowance ~$90K).
Worse, if you live in a foreign country and start a business you now own what the US considers a "foreign controlled corporation" and your new nightmare begins. Not to mention many banks won't do business with you abroad because of FATCA and you have to report your balances annually to FinCEN or risk forfeiture of 50% of the balance in the account. And you can't open a brokerage account in a foreign country because you can't have an account not overseen by the SEC.
Then if your child is born abroad with no other connection to America they'll suffer the same fate for the rest of their lives unless they renounce, which itself comes with substantial costs.
I think the number of renunciations is fairly low because most dont make >90K in foreign countries, and FATCA is new-ish.
" Defined that way, you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad.
Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races’. "
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
It's very true that the Danes receive good free health care and have good universities, but the longer I live here the more I see that a huge amount of tax revenue is squandered on administration. I'm pro taxation, but it's hard to be exposed to such waste.
Considered by whom and for what purpose? Bulgaria certainly aren't going to complain if you start declaring your income as arising there, for example via a Bulgarian company.
Much more important is where any other country who might have a claim on your tax think you are resident, and if you manage to not be resident elsewhere, you're doing fine.
FWIW, some of the other low tax jurisdictions in Europe actually do audit expats living there, to ensure they are actually spending time there. I know Monaco does.
What is it you think would be illegal? You appear to be pretty confused between "liable to pay tax", "resident enough to convince your home tax jurisdiction that you're no longer resident there" and "resident enough to qualify for citizenship programme", all of which are quite different.
first rule and most important one... never F the tax-man.
Therefore such tax optimisations won't work if you can't actually move to the other place and I guess for 99% of us it's not worth the hustle even if it allows you to save much more.
In my case I officially rent a very cheap place in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital (< $100) which I don't use much, and travel a lot to other places (even within Bulgaria, as it's so affordable, so I actually do end up spending a good chunk of time there anyway though).
As a nomad, all you really need to do is make sure no other country has any claims on your tax revenue. Conditions varies - and it may be a good idea to not even own property in some countries. But mostly as long as you don't spend >50% of your time in any other given location they won't consider you liable to pay taxes there.
Note that Bulgaria of course does not have any complaints about me paying taxes in Bulgaria, regardless of whether I'm there or not. I'm basically just giving the tax money - this would probably be different if I wanted, say, citizenship, but that's a different issue.
Hope that's helpful.
You can be registered in your own company as a manager on the minimum wage, pay a fixed sum of social insurance every month (~100 EUR), and then basically set aside 15% of your invoices income for tax, and the rest is yours.
This is exactly what I do for years, it's not fiction and it's working.
Would you mind naming the country? Thx
It has some advantages. I like Tbilisi (the capital) but in the end it is too far off the beaten track to be my base. I need an airport. A good airport!
Ukraine is an interesting place too (not for taxes).
Western media depicts Russia in a much more negative light than how things are actually on the ground. So far I've experienced zero crime and very little antisocial behavior. Russian people are well behaved (the vodka swigging stereotype is greatly exaggerated; we also have great local craft beer and wine) but some are still holding on to some quirky Soviet behaviors that might seem rude to a Westerner. Also, the streets are cleaner than most large US cities and public spaces are nice.
Yes, there are political and curruption problems, but they haven't directly affected me. I'm working for a US company so I can't speak for what it's like working for a Russian company. Prices are generally 40% lower and you can buy nearly anything except good Mexican food (but we have amazing Georgian food). Also, where we are, the climate is similar to the Bay Area (it's a wine region) and the Black Sea coast is beautiful. Overall, my quality of life here is very high VS the US.
Those flats are the same. The $15,000 is probably an absolutely fantastic deal for the seller. There is a reason why the apartment is so cheap. You get what you pay for and it's most likely crap.
In Bansko, most are within walking distance to the main ski lift, the old downtown area, coworking and other public spaces.
It's really a unique opportunity for those who work remotely and want to live in an outdoors-oriented place in Europe with low cost of living and amazing food.
EDIT: mrtksn's comment paints a very good picture.
FYI as an experienced professional I have just been pitched a couple of civil service jobs in London grade 8 to Grade 7 at around 75k - and that would give me about 6.5 k
That's the eqvielent of a full Colonel / GS15 if its the higher grade.
And I bet a FANG in London pays way more than that as do train drivers
edit: mrtksn's comment hits the nail on top of the head.
Your data for Croatian dev salaries is mostly accurate - junior hires will net up to €1k, if they have some exp (interns or good personal projects) that miight go to €1.5k. Actually €1.5k is median dev salary, with seniors fetching €k2 net and team leads maybe up to €2.5k.
Note that this is all net monthly salary. Taxes, social, medical and pension contributions (all witheld by employer) add to roughly again that amount for these salary levels. Here's a recent survey (in Croatian but you'll be able to make sense of the charts and tables) with a lot more details (PDF): https://www.ictbusiness.info/media/infografika/developerske-...
Then there's freelance work, which exploded in recent years, partly due to a miscalculated tax break: if you're freelancer and register as a sole proprietor, you pay miniscule tax for up to €40k per year, handily beating most local companies' hiring budgets.
This lead to massive uproar by said companies, and there's now quite heated debate around the minutia of it. There are primarily two reasons for the complaints: first is that remote companies (which often hire these freelancers on full-time basis) basically get 50% discount, and the second is that local companies started laying off people and "conntracting" them as "freelancers", which is illegal but the guidelines on how exactly that's determined are extremely vague.
And that's just one country :)
That corresponds to a gross pay of ~ US$96k, which gets a decent middle class life in many parts of the U.S. (you can live pretty well on that if you choose a non-coastal city.) You can even live decently in America's 3rd largest city (Chicago) on that.
I'll bet that goes a much longer way in Sofia.
Mortgages in a similar country start from 6%.
Anyway, Central bank has interest at negatives, people are buying houses in EU with very little interest.
Cheaper flats like 15k are almost certainly a scam, and unless you are paying a high monthly bribe for "maintenance" you may get a letter from the local authority that your papers are not in order and the building has to be demolished or otherwise fix your newfound legal issues with the land/permits. Things like that are very common in rural areas.
In bigger cities there are other scams and other rules to follow. Apparently another scam with fake POAs or corrupt judicial enforcers is picking up pace these days too.
Politics being corrupt means that anytime you want law to protect you, there would be a hand expecting bribe. Also, usually medical care in such places tends to be subpar. Etc etc etc.
It might be a good investment, unless taxation on owned property is/will become bad. Unless you speak well local language, dealing with many things related to ownership will be a pain.
wtf are you talking about?
you are in EU and NATO, what is the problem?
Source, Canadian living in BG for 6 years.
Imagine someone saying "Jews are locusts in the Middle East". What do you think would be the reaction?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: your comment history to HN looks great otherwise. That's the opposite of what we usually see when we moderate an egregious comment and then take a look at what else the user has been up to—so I'm sure you didn't mean to be abusive. Just please don't do it again.
* 10% income tax (second lowest in EU), 5% dividend tax
* Very low costs of living (rent is 300-400 eur for a flat in Sofia)
* Relatively easy to start companies
* It's quite safe, at least safer than Naples from where I am from
* Very good quality of food
* Close to the seaside (about 3 hours from Greek coast also)
* Nice summers and autumns
* A lot of mountains and land around Sofia, nice nature around
* !Important: probably lots of EU funds for startup. You can probably get funds for your startup w/o investors if you win a EU project
Personally the only issues I have seen are:
* Yeah, lots of people have left, many are in the process of leaving
* "Made in Bulgaria" is not considered a very good brand in EU like "Made in Italy" or "Made in Germany"
Edit. Added EU funds bullet.
Also maybe some bigger islands could be advertised on this way, although having to go through Athens for business trips might be a negative selling point (longer trips).
I was recently for 2 weeks in Santorini, which is considered pretty expensive compared to the rest of Greece, and everything was actually very affordable (esp. if you learn to keep your distance from the more tourist-infested areas).
The whole time during my stay I kept thinking how nice it would be to work from there. Clear blue sky, beaches and fresh grilled fish. Wow.
High mountains, deep gorges (Samaria was the highlight), probably the best olive oil in whole Europe (but this is valid for whole Greece).
OK back to work, that dreamy look on my face is pretty revealing
Maybe off-season it's affordable. But combined with Mykonos it's an area where the term highway robbery comes ro mind.
In general houses are very cheap in Greece. It is taxes and social security that raise the cost of living a lot. Last time i checked pretty much half of your income (actually a bit more) is lost.
But like others said, I m not sure where this leads ... Cheap countries are cheap for a reason.
But you you have very high social insurance, pension and other welfare fees, just like in any ex-bloc country. They will amount to 30%+ of employment cost.
iirc, bulgarian social tax was something like 14.5% - retirement, 5% medical. But the best part is: there is max amount for social and it's a joke - less than 1540 euro. Above that it's just not taxed.
Fun fact, we've only ever had 2 serial killers that we know of!
1. the food is amazing and inexpensive. Fresh high quality produce and meat, reasonably skilled chefs, and an incredible blend of French, Italian, Greek, Turkish, and Russian food. Seriously, the produce is amazing and so cheap.
2. the newer apartment buildings are well constructed and extremely cheap
3. Sofia is depressing. It looks like a dying city. Everything is falling apart, there's graffiti everywhere, not many people under 30 except those who can't leave for various reasons. There's a lot of pro-soviet nostalgia and suspicion of modernization and foreigners.
4. people hang out in public smoking, drinking, playing table tennis, and exercising. I bought a bottle of wine and drank in a park in city center until late and I felt perfectly safe. That doesn't appeal to everyone so it can be a plus and minus.
5. people drive like madmen with loud music and poorly modified cars with no mufflers. Lots of macho culture and posturing.
edit for something I forgot:
I was walking downtown sofia at about 8pm on friday night and saw a train of 3 new AMG mercedes following what looked like a modified Lambo. I also saw a Porsche GT2 RS, a mclaren, and several bentleys very clearly illegally parked for days outside a luxury hotel. I don't know where that money is coming from but I assumed it's corruption or drug trafficking given what the rest of the city is like.
The answer to the question "why this is the case" is...it makes sense a lot of sense. Bulgaria joined EU in 2007 and right after that the crisis hit Europe and the world. Wages at that time were probably 25% of the average in EU, suddenly no restrictions to move (that's the point of Europe right?), people wanted to try how it is because they've only heard and read how much better it is, some people took loans before the crisis, etc. But it's the same reason why people from East Germany move to West Germany, or from poorer states in US to California..
That said, I believe it's a good place to work and live and I claim it's reversing the trend slowly. I can bet there are more people coming for the IT/engineering jobs than leaving nowadays, many foreigners living in the big cities, you can afford to buy an appartment in 5 years, go to ski in Bansko and to Greece/Croatia/Black Sea for the summer. Income tax is at 10%, food is good, there is interesting companies, VC and acquisitions. Unemployment rate is 4-5% and if you're halfway capable you can get a job in no time.
I got a comfortable job in IT which makes me a outlier though. I pay around 20% of my income in taxes and national insurance funds, excluding VAT. I actually believe I should be taxed more, even thought I'm far from the 1%. My costs for housing, utilities and transportation are low. Entertainment is cheap and the cafe's and clubs are always full.
I get to eat out or go out as much as I want without straining my budget and I appreciate it because my friends in Western Europe live in lonely suburbs away from any friends and from the expensive city centers. And comfortable as they are they are still foreigners - something I tried for a few years, but didn't enjoy too much. That said I know a lot of expats that love it here.
My friends in richer countries afford nicer cars and Apple products, but spend very little time outside their homes, long commutes and workplaces. I have yet to have one I envy even the slightest, but many people here believe that emigrants are showered with money for nothing.
I travel a lot, both in richer countries and have been poorer parts like in Africa and Latin America. Travelling has only made me appreciate my country more. Seeing much people in poorer societies being much happier and grateful is eye opening!
The healthcare is actually not that bad, if you have private insurance. People complain about the ZOC because it covers very little costs, but is focused on the most needy. I have close friends who had very expensive heart surgeries and didn't pay a lev for it. It is shameful and suspicious to say good things about any government institution so these friends keep quiet anout it. It is true that many of the medical workers stay here because of their families and out of charity for the country. Recently the nurses went on strike because they are paid close to minimum wage.
My perspective might change if I get older, but so far I'm happy.
I don't think the statistics are misleading but I don't think they represent the future. The trend is your friend until it ends..
This only makes sense if BG had an efficient govt that wouldn't steal your money. The reverse is very much true, so this is a mistake. If it happens, you should try to fight it, as that money will just go into the pockets of state-connected oligarchs.
Or do you want to talk about the fact that BG fuel prices are about the same as all other eastern EU countries, all the while, BG has the lowest fuel tax rates and the same (or lower) VAT, thus more money goes into Lukoil and gas station monopolies than anywhere else.
You are very uninformed.
This is a good article, but fails to show the breadth of the topic. I also disagree with many of the comments here, which (expectedly) are on the pessimistic side. This pattern of a big spike in migrants when a country joins the EU isn't new. The Polish, the Czech, the Hungarians all experienced this. It might be frightening to project a % of the population leaving yearly far into the future, but it's almost certain that the trend will not continue. There's a trend of economic equalization which starts after a country joins the EU, and this makes it less and less attractive for people to leave over time. So although I don't see net positive migration soon, the current numbers will not be the same long.
Every time a country becomes better off, the most entrepreneurial and driven people reap the benefits first. This is already showing in the big cities in Bulgaria and some of the comments about salaries here agree. Of course it is true that the not-so-skilled haven't benefited yet, but I think this is also going to happen and the current environment will give birth to much innovation and job creation, which will permeate society and give good reasons for even the poor to stay. These processes take time and Bulgaria hasn't yet gone through the full cycle, so we can't judge it yet.
It's true that there's plenty of corruption and bad practices, but if I compare today to what was happening in '97, it's in a different league. We went from rampant hyperinflation and drain of national reserves to small racketeering. If the bar is zero corruption, that will never happen. The good thing about the economic progress from recent years is that it's driven by industries which the mafia can't control. It's no wonder that Software and IT services are such a big employer and contributor, because it's not a business with large tangible assets that can profitably fall into the hands of the wrong people. This means that corruption and mafia have less and less impact on the quality of life of the average citizen. The situation in key strategic industries (e.g. energy) is obviously very different and won't be improving quickly, but that's the case in many developed countries as well.
There are still many things which need to be improved when it comes to quality of service and administration (at least on a public level), but these are solvable problems. I have high hopes and I'm optimistic about what's coming, with an eye open to return one day. And for those who haven't visited yet, I would whole-heartedly recommend it.
This is true for both sides. As a resident of a wealth EU country working conditions have become so dire with the constant flow of workforce from countries like Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia and others.
Good for the employer who benefits from reduced employee power, bad for those who have ever been there.
thanks
It's a mountain ski village in the south of Bulgaria, there is an abundance of modern style flats which sit mostly vacant in the summer months, as well as the charming old town, this makes accommodation very affordable (much cheaper than the capital, Sophia).
Cost of a small studio flat is about 350 BGN per month, a lunch is about 5 BGN, a large dinner about 12 BGN.
There's about 100 members in Coworking Bansko and has two locations in Bansko, one close to the Ski lift (convenient in the Winter if you like to Snowboard/Ski) the other in the Old Town. A third site is underway in a building where many coworkers own their own flats (flats are cheap to purchase outright).
But, this is being resolved by: People moving to other countries resulting in a decrease in government tax revenue, giving less incentive to extort money through corruption and forces efficiency on government services (out of necessity), and in the end, it makes it a competitive market again.
People like my parents who left will never go back. But for people like me, if the conditions in those countries improve and become attractive again (and they seem to be improving), I have no problem with going back.
Not my observation. Several months ago the fixed social insurances quietly got higher by 2-3%. This tells me that the government is like "oh well, less people pay social insurance, so let's make it a little bit more expensive for the others to compensate!".
I am not seeing any tangible pressure on the people of power in Bulgaria, and that's very worrying.
Reform through other means? Blasphemy.
Иване, "there" и "we" някак не се връзва.
It is not going to be easy to revive that spirit, but "we" have no choice but to try and be юнаци :)
[0] Random search gave me the following paper: http://tru.uni-sz.bg/tsj/TJS_Suppl.1_Vol.15_2017/76.pdf
The education system pretty much sucks here, IMO, but most good devs got so by being interested in their field. I would say fresh grads as worse than those in other countries.
I find it interesting that the best people tend to cluster together. I live in one of the bigger cities in RO and in my field it seems everyone knows everyone and the most experienced ones tend to hang together.
The possibility of living comfortably in a peaceful rural environment is also a big attraction of Romania, and I moved out to the country myself a few years ago. In addition to cheap property in villages, there is often gigabit internet as well, which makes these places even more appealing for knowledge workers and people who consume a lot of content. The shopping in rural areas, and the availability of "hipster foodstuffs" there, also seems much better than in a lot of Bulgaria.
I wandering doest it counted here? Can be decline numbers much bigger if count all people from Russia and Ukraine who made their new passports this way.
I'm surpised it costs so much thought, I guess demand is high.
The article itself says it ties with Lithuania, but the UN source itself says it is behind Lithuania:
Corruption is mentioned in the comments here but I'm disappointed it wasn't mentioned in the article.
First one is that up until 1989, Bulgaria was largely an agriculture state with the soviet union being the only market. A heavily controlled market at that. Some might argue that Bulgaria used to produce computers but it was mostly a small assembly line using Intel chips, so no, not really. Mind you the math education was on a good level, hence the reason why so many people can easily jump into cs. But families like most rural countries tended to be large. I happen to have a family tree dating back to the late 17-th century and most of the people back then had 8+ children. Needless to say, that isn't the case anymore. Looking at people around me, I can only think of one or two examples that have more than 1 child. Combine that with the other factors in the articles and you start seeing the bigger picture.
Now, on immigration: I was a child in the early 90's when the first real information from the west started coming in. And as people tend to do, we only saw what we wanted to see. I grew up daydreaming about the day I'd move west where everything is bread and butter. And I did as early as I could: I was ~16 at the time. I was pretty disappointed in a lot of aspects: life abroad was not as advertised. It turned out to be complicated and rough. Yes, roads were better, streats were cleaner and people had a tendency to try to maintain the environment around them. Something which has started to happen here noticably. But there I was faced with entirely new problems which I would have never imagined could exist in the real world.
As I went through university, some other rough moments hit me hard and at the end I was so fed up, I wanted to move away from there. As I was talking to old friends, I figured that as a software engineer with a university degree, moving back to Bulgaria might be a possible option. Back then getting a work permit was still difficult as a new EU member state so I decided to skip the hassle and move back and give it a shot. Bottom line is it turned out to be a a great solution.
Like most market economies these days, young people and by extension working people gravitate towards the big cities. And naturally the smaller cities are dying out.
Because life is incredibly cheap compared to most of Europe, your odds of making a decent life are much greater - the bar can be set much lower. To give you an idea - my monthly paycheck at my first job was just over 700 euros(underpaid even for a developer with little to no experience). I had rent, bills, transportation and food to take care of and even with that, I was still able to save up around 250/month. Something unthinkable for most European capitals on such a tight budget. Now, many years later, things look really well for me.
Ocassionally you do hear someone on the streets saying something along the lines of "See this points at something, this would never happen in any other country". Since what I've said here has been a subject of discussion with many friends, we usually look at each other, roll our eyes and walk away. Which brings me to the final point:
The article doesn't cover the large amount of people returning home after spending years abroad either. And looking at many of my friends, the number is pretty high: a good 60-70% at a glance. Far not only software engineers(who on average make a few times the national average).
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people still live with the illusion that in countries such as France, Germany, Italy and so on, everyone has a 1000 square meter mansion with 2 hellicopters and a collection of one-off hypercars. Which is not to say that my life abroad was a bad experience - on the contrary. If anything, it made me a lot more resiliant and capable of handling difficult situations. As a matter of fact I'd encourage young people to pack a bag and move abroad for a year while you are still 19(referring to the intro of the first book of the Dark Tower series titled "What it's like to be 19").
where did you get this nonsense?
FYI, you've got 6 (SIX!) nuclear reactors build during those times
0 since 1990
Your argument is anecdotal.
that is not the point. Point is, it was contributing for years with good paying jobs, well-educated folks etc. Since 1990 - nothing.
> few people were allowed to pursue the more prestigious careers
Like gasp nuclear engineer? Yeah...
> On top of that you couldn't pack your bag and move to a bigger city without a permission of the authorities.
Really? It was that bad in Bulgaria? Definitely not like that in Soviet Russia
> As a result of all that and the appropriate weather conditions, agriculture was a safe bet for just about everyone.
Yeah, except those nuclear engineers
I bet they were dreaming at the reactor controls about moving to be a swine herders
Providing say 1000 good paying jobs... In the same way Chernobyl did, and look at how well that ended. Since 1990 - a large number of mid sized software companies have shown up, each of which has employed more than that.
> Like gasp nuclear engineer? Yeah...
Let me think of how many nuclear engineers there are among me, my family or anyone I've ever known... Hmmm... It appears none.
> Really? It was that bad in Bulgaria? Definitely not like that in Soviet Russia
Well there were always gulags.
> Yeah, except those nuclear engineers > I bet they were dreaming at the reactor controls about moving to be a swine herders
Yes, out of 8M population that's 0.0125%, 99% of which were closely related to the communist party. Great job, we created a prosperous c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ communism.
per reactor, and those jobs are basically for 50-60 years. And each job creates 3-4 jobs in surrounding area - teachers, salesmen, construction, ...
> Let me think of how many nuclear engineers there are among me, my family or anyone I've ever known... Hmmm... It appears none.
and how many, say, swine herders are among your family or people you know? Thousands?
> Yes, out of 8M population that's 0.0125%, 99% of which were closely related to the communist party.
number should be higher, but, again, this is not the point. People RIGHT NOW (communism is gone for 30 years already) are leaving Bulgaria in droves - no jobs, no future
https://books.google.bg/books?id=Bg3aBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=P...
I think you're mistaken about software salaries. In the US, even for entry level positions, you can save up several thousand dollars a month, living just fine.
I was HEAVILY underpaid out of college (due to growing up in a shitty part of the states and consequently going to a shitty university). I graduated in a decent amount of debt, too. Even still, I was able to pay of $15k worth of debt, and save another $10k on just a $70K salary -- in Boston in 2010 (which at the time was just as expensive as NYC or SF).
At the time, that was double what my parents made put together, so it seemed unbelievable to me. I knew people at the company were making double and triple that, but for some reason I thought that I'd never make that. How could I? My parents were making 1/10th of that...
I'm now saving close to $200k a year at Google. My friend just got a job in SF. He's got 0 experience -- just graduated from a coding bootcamp. He got multiple offers for ~$150k. Almost everyone in his class got similar jobs. Even as expensive as SF is, he's going to have a nice apartment, be able to eat out at restaurants and go on vacations, and still save thousands a month.
I know salaries are really shitty in Europe compared to the US -- which is sad, because even here inequality is absurd.
Starting out, it's easy to think you're wage won't grow, so it's tempting to think you need to live more affordably. Or else how else would your life be sustainable?
When I first started working, I was always thinking about leaving the city and going back to my shitty part of the States and working remote jobs for peanuts. In hind-sight, that would've been a terrible decision.
I'm doing better than most people I know, sure... But virtually every person I worked with at my first job is now making $200k+ somewhere. Same thing with my second job. At Google most people are making $300k+.
I would've never dreamed making this type of money. Part of the problem -- for me at least -- is that if you grow up somewhere pretty poor, it's easy to think you're "lucky" even when you're underpaid. I never negotiated for higher salaries when I started. I always thought I was getting paid so much it was absurd.
But then I started looking around at what other people were getting paid, and realized if I have the same skills, I should get paid just as much, too.
Now I can literally buy my mom's house with 8 months of savings. I'm planning to retire both of my parents a few years early. If I wanted to go back to my hometown now, I could join them in retirement in another 3 years or so.
But I won't. I like my job. It's easy to find a good job now. Where I grew up is fine, but it's filled with people with no hope -- because that town has nothing to offer anymore. It's sad, but it's true.
Starting out, it's really tough. Looking back on it now, I was basically living in poverty in college and almost certifiably my first year in Boston. As an anecdote, I literally didn't have heat because in Boston a lot of houses are heated with oil, and oil was almost $150 a barrel at the time. Heating the apartment was like $1k a month. I couldn't afford it. So in the Winter, which is long in Boston, I literally was in my sleeping bag any time I was home...
What a shitty life! It felt like things wound never get better. I told myself, I can't deal with this shit. Working my ass off and living in a Goddamned sleeping bag! I never thought I'd get promoted -- there wasn't much growth at the company so not any opportunity. House prices would never go down (it was 2011, so they were already half off compared to 2008, and still way out of my range). So I'd never be able to have a home, I thought.
At least for me, everyone I knew who stuck with it, it paid off really well.
Despite working at Google, I'm not particularly smart either. It's just how it is, if you can stick with it.
In the end, it's a rat race, and I can see why people get out of it. My story isn't to shame you, but I think you can make a lot more money even in Bulgaria, and if you can, you deserve it.
For many in my generation (90s), the dream of leaving the country has been propagandized by parents who were never able to leave themselves due to the Iron Curtain. Many would attest getting the Serbian radio close to the border in a desperate attempt to hear something "western". As much as the nation longs for the old-times, it longs for the West. And the split is maybe about 50/50. However few would leave for the East and many, many would flood the gates once we entered EU 12 years ago.
12 years ago is when late 80s and 90s children were graduating. We didn't have much idea exactly what is bad with the country, as no teenager knows too much. But we all saw the opportunity and we've all heard the stories of the successful uncle who managed to "fix their life" abroad. So we flocked. Cheap flights accelerated the process, free education in some countries like Scotland and the Netherlands. So the "brain-drain" was accelerated. If people could leave before with hard-obtained visas or illegaly, now it was easy and free for all.
Yet, 12 years later we are still the poorest country in EU with the poorest overall north-western region which was once one of the most prosperous regions back when aggriculture was the main sector. Turism and services instead is now the main sector and sure, there are some companies that are succesful, the low salaries compared to what you can make abroad is worth a bit of home-sickness endurance. It's hard to get out of it with the open borders - it's a feedback loop as more "brain drain" happens, less innovation and money can come towards the country and corruption proliferates.
Emigration Police (The Brain Drain) - Foil Arms and Hog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZcAH4vyCZE
Funnily enough, a lot of Croats are actually emigrating to Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians_in_Poland
In January 2016 the Embassy of Ukraine in Warsaw informed that the number of Ukrainian residents in Poland was half a million, and probably around one million in total. Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland, Andrii Deshchytsia, noted that Ukrainian professionals enjoy good reputation in Poland and in spite of their growing numbers Polish-Ukrainian relations remain very good.[13]
According to the NBP, 1.2 million Ukrainian citizens worked legally in Poland in 2016.[14] 1.7 million short-term work registrations were issued to them in 2017 (an eightfold increase compared to 2013).[4] Ukrainian workers stay in Poland on average 3-4 months.[15]
The number of permanent residence permits increased from 5,375 in 2010 to 33,624 (14 September 2018), while the number of temporary residence permits increased from 7,415 to 132,099 over the same time period.[3]
About 102,000 Ukrainian citizens received Karta Polaka,[16] of whom some 15,500 obtained permanent residence permits in the period from 2014 to March 2018.[17]
I admire the more optimistic Bulgarians here but the article and most of them in this thread fail to mention the elephant in the room:
Corruption.
My mother regularly shops fruits and vegetables from the local market. Booths and stalls get closed all the time and there are scarcely any such sellers anymore -- and that's juuuust outside the so-called "wide center" area; there's plenty of shoppers around and the demand is always extremely high.
Reason? People from all sort of municipalities come around and demand all sorts of fines for alleged violations and they never explain which exactly; if you fail to pay, cops who just happen to be friends with those people will come along and will forcefully evict you as a seller from that market. When some of these people got to the police station to complain and demand actual reasons for their eviction, they literally got laughed out of the station with the threat of physical violence if they return. When they went to a local municipality, they were made to wait several months and by that time of course the fruits/veggies season was long over and those people lost a lot of money. And most could not recover to restart their business.
TL;DR: small racketeering, multiplied by hundreds. A lot of small businesses outside of IT die from a hundred racketeer paper cuts.
Things are still very much communist/socialist reality known from the Soviet times around here. "Knowing people" is still one of the biggest assets.
As a guy living in Bulgaria since birth I can see the tides turning VERY SLOWLY, but I fear that unless some real pressure can be applied to the politicians and various other gatekeepers, then nothing will really improve like ever.
To clarify: I don't disagree with the most of the optimistic takes in this thread; things really are improving and Bulgaria is an amazing destination in many regards. But do take everything with a bag of salt; there are unseen forces lurking underneath that don't give a crap about your well-being and will actively work to ruin it if they notice you.
Hopefully this adds some nuance and balance to a lot of comments suffering from a bit too wide-eyed optimism for my taste.
Which means, these motherlands are left with only old people. It's a gigantic demographic disaster.
Is it possible that a valid terminal state is a country being merged into another? I wonder if we're just assuming that shrinking country == bad by default.
It all starts in 1989, communist Bulgaria decides that it no longer wants its Turkish minority and a large number of people are deported or "let go" to Turkey. BBC has a short documntary on it[0]. Houses and lands are abandoned and only those who are too weak to immigrate remain. Congratulations, now you have ghost-city like places with old people and farmlands and there's nobody to take care of.
A year later the People's Republic of Bulgaria collapses and gives birth to the Republic of Bulgaria. Half of the Turks return to their birthplace but now people have strong connections to Turkey now, which would lead to constant immigration through the years when the Bulgarian economy is in trouble.
From the '90s to the 2000s the country goes through a transformation where the old infrastructure doesn't make economic sense anymore and the corruption is so rampant that they say that in other countries there's mafia too but in Bulgaria, the mafia has a country. In these years being a doctor, an Engineer or any other white-collar professional means that you have two choices: immigrate to a place where you can work with dignity or starve in Bulgaria because it looks like this capitalism thingy is only good for the corrupt people.
People who have the means to go abroad just go, the rest witness the collapse of the country and year after year re-assurance how little value their education and career has as these thugs drive Mercedes but they cannot meet the ends. Sell everything, corrupt everything to survive as apparently it has a little value.
In the 2000s, things begin to improve as the newer generations begin to get how capitalism work. Still, everything is bad but some things are getting better. Especially the cities are doing fine.
In 2007 Bulgaria joins the EU. It means that the cost of going abroad to work falls dramatically. Many people already had some friend or relative, they follow their steps. The wage differences between Bulgaria and let's say Germany or the UK are enormous, opportunities infinite. If you are a skilled person and speak a language you find a nice job and immigrate. If you are not very skilled you find a hard job that pays vastly better than anything in Bulgaria and you regularly travel to EU countries to do that job.
If you are a student, you can go to study in any EU country. If you prefer to stay, the school will arrange the school dates to accommodate summer jobs in the EU so that you can work in the EU for a few months and make very decent money.
Now Bulgaria is much better than it was before but some places still look like Half-Life 2, especially in places that are dominated by seniors.
Everyone has a friend or family abroad and if there's an opportunity they have the means to leave.
I guess at some point this will stabilize and remaining in Bulgaria will be a better option than moving to Sweden or Germany because if you manage to look beyond the ruins of the communist era, Bulgaria is a very beautiful country with a really nice climate and lots of things to offer. It's not a dead place and I don't think that the projections of ever shrinking population will hold.
[0]: BBC Documentrary on the Turks emmigrating from Bulgaria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y1b-asR3yI
Out of curiosity, when did you leave and for where? Hope it worked out great for you.
Later my parents moved to Turkey again due to the economic situation while our relatives took care of me and y brother(At that time it was not possible to immigrate to Turkey legally, so they went to work there). So in 1999 through very illegal ways they managed take us to Turkey and we couldn't go back to Bulgaria for many years until we sort out our legal situation in Turkey. Even though my parents are skilled (Electrical Engineer with a masters degree and a nurse) they had to work undocumented, effectively ruining their careers.
Overall it turned out fine I guess. Could have been worse or better, each situation comes with it's benefits in the long run. I am not big fan of borders, so mildly annoyed from the recent trends of love towards borders.
Fun fact: Half-Life 2's art director is Bulgarian.
First and foremost, as the BBC "article" states, Latvia and Lithuania are potentially worse than Bulgaria. Not that being second to last in terms of population growth is anything to brag about but this is yet another example of BBC "journalism" that serves primarily a propaganda purpose. Why single out Bulgaria when it seems the same problem plagues many former Eastern Block countries?? Furthermore, if you look at the stats on Wikipedia, the last reliable data available for Bulgaria was from 2015. Based on that data there were 10+ other countries worse than Bulgaria in terms of population decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...
If you look at the actual UN report the BBC cough..shitpost...cough references you will see that, again, it does NOT single out Bulgaria as the "winner" in this category but mentions it along other countries with largely the same problems. Many of those countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc have been praised relentlessly by UK media as a model of embracing capitalism after socialism's collapse. Yet they seem to also be in pretty dire states, not unlike Bulgaria. Actually, one of the countries mentioned in the report on par with Bulgaria is Andorra - a rich tax haven, hardly on anybody's list as a country to bitch about in any capacity, including population.
https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig...
"...The largest relative reductions in population size over that period, with losses of around 20 per cent or more, are expected in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the Wallis and Futuna Islands."
"...As a proportion of the total population, the largest projected declines are for Lithuania and Bulgaria, where the projected population in 2050 will be 23 per cent smaller than in 2019, followed by Latvia (22 per cent), the Wallis and Futuna Islands (20 per cent), and Ukraine (20 per cent)."
"...Another eight countries or areas also experienced population decrease of more than five per cent since 2010: Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Wallis and Futuna Islands."
And last but not least, the BBC shitpost itself states that Bulgaria does not keep stats on emigration, which (again as the article states) is the biggest factor in these "terrifying stats" on population shrinkage.
"...Low birth rates are the biggest factor for such steep decline. But what sets Bulgaria apart from other declining European countries is its massive outbound migration. The government does not keep reliable statistics but some economists, including Cvetan Davidkov, estimate that at least 60,000 Bulgarians leave each year.
So...the famous BBC decided to do a "sky is falling" article based on the unofficial estimates of one economist!? How convenient!
Anyways, unfortunately I will have to call malice on this one instead of stupidity, even though BBC has lately been the source of some really stupid crap. If you do a quick search on the negative press concerning Bulgaria you will find out that the vast majority of it comes from the UK. In fact, I challenge Bulgarians reading this and living in the UK to find me a single positive article on Bulgaria published in the British press in the last 15 years. Nothing but shitposting about Bulgaria while at the same time heaping praise on the "Baltic wonders" such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and even Ukraine. Well, as both Wikipedia and the UN report make it quite clear, those "wonderful" countries have very little to brag about when it comes to either economy or population. If life is so great in the Baltics, why is everybody there leaving too, on par with Bulgarian emigration rates??
I will also have to disagree strongly with other people saying mrtksn's comments are spot on. The reality is much simpler. Bulgaria, together with the rest of the Eastern Block, was unlucky enough to move towards a capitalist economy and Western "values" at a time when these ideas were already in decline in the West itself. So, by the time the country had changed sufficiently to embrace a capitalist economy and lifestyle...there was nothing left to embrace. The Western world is crumbling too, but of course, it will oppress and abuse small countries like Bulgaria long before it admits its own shortcomings. Basically, Bulgaria spent the 90s battling mafia and corruption and that was the true "transition" period, akin to the American "Frontier" times. When the (illegal) redistribution of wealth was more or less complete, and the country was deemed sufficiently "civilized" to join institutions such as the EU, Bulgaria realized that the West had nothing to offer except predatory practices that destroy the standard of living in Bulgaria. Those "rich" Western countries are themselves collapsing, and UK is one of the worst in that respect. You need to look no further than the Brexit fiasco to see how desperate things in the UK are. The sad reality is that the last 19 years (since year 2000) have been lost time for the West and as such the situation in "newcomer" capitalist countries like Bulgaria would be proportionally worse. As a result, even the characteristics of the Bulgarian emigration have changed dramatically. In the 1990s, people leaving Bulgaria (like myself) were mostly intent on leaving for good. Having lived through 2 massive recessions and seeing that the shitshow in the West is rapidly catching up with the Bulgarian one, many of those "permanent" emigrants migrated back to Bulgaria. This reverse emigration was especially evident after the 2008 recession when about 40% of the young Bulgarians who left their country in the 1990s to go to school/work in US an Western Europe came back to Bulgaria and settled there. WHERE IS THE BBC ARTICLE ON THAT PHENOMENON?? This reverse emigration continues to this day and in fact the little data that is available on the subject suggests that it is primarily talented/educated/wealthy Bulgarians that are coming back while the new emigrants to the West are mostly blue collar workers. Moreover, even those new blue collar emigrants are not emigrating permanently. The attitude towards immigrants and hence the employment/financial opportunities for them have drastically soured in the West over the last 10 years. So, when these new emigrants go to another country they quickly realize that life in the new country won't be much easier or significantly better renumerated compared to Bulgaria. So, most of them stick around for a year or two and then they come back.
In summary, IMHO most UK media (including BBC), is on a crusade against European former communist countries but is particularly biased and vicious towards Bulgaria. This has been going on since the times of Churchill who is famous for repeatedly stating that he will "uproot that thorny bush" (referring to Bulgaria) that is interfering with UK imperial foreign policy. While Bulgaria is clearly not in a good spot population-wise, it is not much different from most other former Eastern Block members. The problems Bulgaria faces have a lot more to do with the decline of capitalism (late stage capitalism anyone?) and Western democracies in general, than some kind of inherent problems with the country as BBC and other UK media have been consistently insinuating over the last 100+ years. Bulgaria was simply kind of "late to the show". So, the combination of a transition period and crumbling Western world left the country stuck between a rock and a hard place. However, despite all the lies and propaganda in UK media, the country is probably experiencing reverse, quality, emigration by having many of the Western-educated Bulgarians who left for good come back home. In addition, many of the blue collar workers who leave the country are only doing so temporarily. Upon realizing the harsh conditions in the countries they try to emigrate to, most of them come back within 2-3 years.
There is simply no true journalist any more. It's mostly clikbait shitposting even by "respected" outposts such as BBC or The Economist. The closest you will come to real journalism these days is ProPublica but even they have been succumbing to Mammon lately.
What comes out of many Western media outlets these days is simply a version of "Look, over there - these other countries have it worse than us!" It's nothing but a diversion tactic to shift attention from how rapidly deteriorating quality of life has been in the West over the last 20 years. Just my 2c.
The culture is toxic. Especially if you are a student in your 20s. Violence is not uncommon and people generally look at you in a dominant way, even if you're not frail. I am not part of the minority but I believe if you were an evident homosexual it would be easy to get beat up/bullied.
Envy, especially prevalent outside the "big" Sofia, is everywhere. From my experience, people are very materialistic in Bulgaria - perhaps it is the lack that causes them to be such.
Small, close-minded people are very prevalent too. It is very hard to find open-minded people who believe in possibilities. Lots of pessimism.
Quality of life is bad - there is no Amazon where you can "just" order what you want, copies of services like UberEats/Deliveroo are awful and do not offer high-quality food. In fact, the food is generally of low quality here in Bulgaria - a ton of cheap bad-quality imports. Finding quality food means going to local farmer's markets and special shops which is very time consuming. No Uber/Lyft but an awful Taxi system where I can swear every driver is a horrendous human being. I always cringe and try to keep my mouth shut as to not engage in a conversation when I am riding in a Bulgarian taxi.
I recently traveled from Madrid to Sofia on a road trip and I immediately noticed the horrendous customer service in Bulgaria compared to all the other countries I passed. Many people are miserable and cannot break a smile even if you made them. Not to say they're not justified but from my point of view I would rather not be surrounded by it.
Nobody in the comments mentioned how incredibly dirty Bulgaria, and especially Sofia, are. In the winter the snow never gets cleaned and walking places becomes very difficult - a real drag. Roads are horrendous and full of mud, dirty snow, etc. The air pollution in Sofia is one of the worst in Europe - I've lived there for two years and depending on the region, you can be forced to have your windows at home closed during the winter in order to avoid your house smelling like dirt.
And as somebody else had said, as a native, it is incredibly easy to get dragged back into the negatives of the country. I almost feel as if this place has been ruined for me permanently because I disliked living there for so long during my childhood. Bulgaria is not all bad, obviously, every place has some good and some bad. Perhaps it is not a bad place to try out as a foreigner - other foreigners seem to like it and there are constantly news in the Bulgarian media of how "X" Australian family moved to live in a small rural village and are enjoying life to the fullest.
One thing that stands out to me in Bulgaria is the quality of women. This may be because of my nationality, but I find most Bulgarian women very attractive. Further, a lot of them have been taught the right beliefs and are not after money/attention but are rather looking for a stable decent man to fall in love with.
That being said, I don't think I can ever come back and live a full life here. Perhaps I can hang out in some mountain village when I want a break from society, or rent a summer flat on the beach when I want to have some fun, but I never see myself living the normal life of working a satisfying 9-5 in this country - the environment is just not conducive to that.