Quote: (11-23-2018 05:03 PM)scipiu Wrote:
Quote: (11-20-2018 05:15 PM)MikeS Wrote:
Quote: (11-19-2018 09:46 AM)scipiu Wrote:
Bulgaria has several mountain ranges, a riviera and decent cities. The girls are fit and good looking. Irrc they actually need new people since the population size shrank by 2 million since the 1990s. Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in Europe though, and there are a lot of gypsies.
You don't have to interact with gypsies unless you choose to - here in Sofia they are just background noise in most of the city aside from certain ghetto neighbourhoods where many of them live (I'm barely even sure which neighbourhoods actually, even after living here for five years).
And like everywhere else they are also extremely easy to distinguish from the regular Bulgarians.
I like Sofia, it's run down - although in the center they've made lots of improvements in just the years I've been here with redone walking street, restored parks etc., and there are a ton of nice restaurants and cafés - but nice and green in the summer.
The two major seaside cities are also nice in the summer, as is the second largest city Plovdiv, which has a beautiful old town, a nice center and some beautiful, large hills.
Smaller provincial towns and cities range from pretty nice places to visit in the summer - I've been to a number for spa trips or hiking bases - to some of the ugliest stereotypes from the communism era.
There's no shortage on beautiful and varied nature here, from mountain ranges to plains and lakes to seaside resorts (from the overcrowded and touristy hosts to young drunk Scandinavians, Germans and Brits, to smaller villages turned seasonal resorts).
This is the poorest country in the EU, although sometimes you wouldn't think so from all the malls in Sofia (they've built three or four new ones just while I've lived here) and the not insignificant number of Porsches, large Audis, BMWs and Mercedes and the occasional Ferrari or Lamborghini you see on the streets (nearly all acquired through smaller or greater involvement in crime, according to every normal local I have talked to about it - I used to think they were exaggerating and some just plain envious but I'm not so sure anymore. Lots of organized crime and corruption here. Perfectly safe city for daily life though).
Tourism to the capital has been going up the last couple of years in the summers, although I still don't think it's a particularly popular expat country.
English level is generally below average to fluent for locals under around 40 - and some older speak English as well - although it can still be a little unpredictable. In the medical clinic I go to some of the young (around 30) doctors speak worse English than the girls at the front desk and the administration. And sometimes you will run into young people who either can't or don't feel they can speak English (and I'm primarily talking about shop assistants here, not girls on the street who might be trying to find a simple way to say "not interested").
Good post. Sofia and Plovdiv are very nice indeed. I liked Plovdiv better because it's more authentic, but obviously Sofia offers more things to do.
Since you are based there I would like to know your take on the long term economic and political prospects of the country. The EU has invested loads of money and many western European companies outsourced towards Bulgaria. So they got that going for them. What's a bit bothersome though, are the very low birth rates among actual Bulgarians (gypsies have lots of children on the other hand...) and the fact that a lot of young potential keeps migrating westwards (but maybe the opportunity lays in the latter).
As Western European cities will become unliveable in the next 10-20 years I predict a white flight towards countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Bulgaria might be one of those.
I don't have a local income and don't expect I ever will, so I have not paid a great deal of attention to those prospects here. But it is my impression that there's not much progress there, even with additional investment from the EU and foreign investors (the latter I seem to remember reading, not actually showing quite as much interest as they were hyped up to a few years ago).
As you said people are fleeing the country - and internally towards Sofia and the other big cities - at what I believe is one of the highest rates in Europe. Practically every local I've had conversations with here has mentioned one or several friends or family members living in Canada, Germany, Scandinavia etc. - although I have also heard recently that some among the younger generation are interested in coming back and help "rebuild" after being out for a number of years.
Low birthrates as you mention (I'll ignore the gypsies, in daily life they are a minority society of their own that should not be conflated with the actual Bulgarians), and for all those dreaming of coming to EE for traditional values, well, they are still here to a larger degree than in Western Europe, but the divorce rate here is nonetheless similar.
Politically it's corrupt, but that's about as far as I'll go commenting on that, I only pay vague attention when there's an election, or protests asking for the government to resign (as I believe there is currently, spurred by dissatisfaction about fuel prices, but I'm sure there's more to it that I just haven't read in the headlines).
And some potentially vital things can just kind of suck when you live in a poor country. I've had to pay for some not entirely cheap healthcare matters out of my own pocket in modern private hospitals or clinics, as one referral to a public hospital a while ago was just about as much as I would like to experience first hand of that worn down system. My health insurance situation is a bit complicated, but it's definitely something I'll be taking a close look at updating.
I know from locals that some other types of institutions - schools for instance - might also struggle to live up to our Western expectations in some regards, sometimes even the private and more modern institutions are not managed as well as they ought to be, perhaps because of lack of financial or other motivational incentives for the owners and employees.
And general bureaucracy... well, that tends to suck everywhere, but probably somewhat worse in places like this.
There were really only a few main deciding factors for me to move here - low costs of living (if you're not on a local average income), beautiful and varied nature, warm summers and acceptably nice local coastal resorts.
Those are still the main factors keeping me here. Although I have certainly also made a few nice friends, had a few good relationships and generally grown to like the place.