The crazy things social media platforms will throw up on your feed…
Yesterday for me it was Rural Bulgarian Living, a FB group dedicated to ‘the lowdown’ on living in Bulgaria’s depopulated villages.
While many Bulgarians post ads in Bulgarian selling their run-down properties or offering services (legitimate and illegitimate) such as maintenance, transport and conveyancing, the group’s primary language is English, so it solely pitches itself at ‘expats’. And the prices for the properties and services certainly cater for this market – way above what any Bulgarian would pay.
What I find curious, and this is my Balkan village mindset coming through, is who in their right mind would want to live in a village like this? I mean, there are good reasons why they are abandoned – that should be a sign.
But one group of people did stick out in the comments – doomsdayers! And not grounded climate-change types but the extreme right-wingers who claim Europe is ‘on its final legs’ due to ‘uncontrolled migration’ etc. and that in their view, the only way to survive the impending apocalypse is to buy some property in the middle-of-nowhere-evo Bulgaria, live off the grid and be self-sufficient. However, it appears that many who share this dream have never lived in a rural setting before, so more fantasy than practical or attainable.
To give you an idea of what properties are for sale, here’s one in an abandoned village not far from where my auntie lives. Unless you have a thing for undulating fields with a giant thermoelectrical plant in the distance and one of Europe’s largest lignite mines in the vicinity, it’s in one of Bulgaria’s less picturesque parts, far from any of the beaches or mountains usually featured in Bulgarian tourist ads. And the asking price for this fixer-upper?
5500 euros!
This is where that classic Australian saying comes into play – Tell ‘em he’s dreaming!
By the way, my auntie did ask me if I knew of any gullible and naive foreigners that would be interested in buying her house. It pretty much looks like the place in the picture above. Any takers?
.%20A%20day%20of%20campaigning%20%E2%99%80%20%E2%80%A6%20or%20a%20day%20to%20buy%20flowers%20%F0%9F%92%90.jpg)
