By Bill Taylor
The Star
"Bulgaria ? Why would you go there?" Ask the European families lured by a plentiful supply of cheap housing
This is the sign of a country for sale. Its residential property, anyway.
Everywhere you go, you see ads in English offering houses and apartments, existing and as-yet-unbuilt, for sale or rent at, by Toronto standards, bargain-basement prices. Less than $70,000 could put you in the market for a decent house on the outskirts of the capital, Sofia, or an apartment downtown. In a village "within easy driving distance" of the city, 70 grand might buy you two or even three places, though you might want to spend some of the money on a chauffeur.
The roads aren't great and driving standards aren't high. The day I left Veliko Tarnovo, my cab driver announced his arrival by running into the back of the taxi ahead of him, which was bringing the hotel manager to work. (Her only comment: "That woke me up in a hurry.") My driver blamed the other guy for not realizing he was being tailgated.
Property prices are usually quoted first in euros, then British pounds, then Bulgarian leva. Domestic buyers are not the prime target. The country, part of the European Union since last January, is hungry for foreign investment. When it was admitted to the EU after seven years' negotiation, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev exulted, "This is the genuine and final fall of the Berlin Wall for Bulgaria."
Google Bulgaria and real estate, and you'll come up with more than two million entries. www.Bulgarianproperties.com boasted recently, "We have 24,234 properties for sale and rent." Century 21, Re/Max and other international real-estate agencies have offices in most cities, including Veliko Tarnovo.
Tarnovo (sometimes transliterated from the Cyrillic alphabet as Turnovo), in central northern Bulgaria, is ancient and stunningly beautiful. Clinging to the sides of a gorge carved out by the Yantra River, it was founded by the Thracians, obliterated by the Macedonians, rebuilt by the Romans, and taken over by the Turks. It became the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the late 12th century.
There's considerable construction going on. For the most part, it seems well thought out. New buildings are done in the style of existing places, so nothing sticks out like an architectural sore thumb. Central in the city, of course, is the Soviet brutalist-style Grand Hotel Tarnovo. Somehow, it serves mainly to make the surrounding banks of houses rising into the hills even more charming. It might even be worth preserving as a relic of a bygone age.
Bulgaria is all but off the North American map. I grew tired of people, including the airline clerk who booked my flights, saying, "Bulgaria? Why would you go there?" And then, as often as not, "I'm not even sure where it is."
It's a small country, with about 8 million people, bordered by Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey; well positioned to be an east-west crossroads. Sofia airport has a spiffy new international terminal, with coffee shops charging international prices. What you pay for two espressos and two mediocre croissants would buy you lunch downtown. There are also signs posted for domestic departures, though the country has few other airports. You have to admire optimism.
And it appears to be paying off. Arrivals at Sofia airport reportedly are up 24 per cent over 2006, and property prices have risen 27 per cent. There have been newspaper stories of English families moving to Bulgaria because it offers a better environment in which to raise a child. It's becoming popular as a retirement home, too. A European pension goes a lot farther here.
I met an Irish couple in Arizona last year who had just bought an apartment on the coast, partly for vacations, partly as a rental investment property and, ultimately, perhaps as a place to live. Their home country, they said, had become too expensive.
Ireland's entry into the EU brought investment into infrastructure and opened the doors to Europe's lucrative markets. The cub of the Celtic Tiger was born.
The road and rail infrastructure here desperately needs infusions of cash, but it's not too hard to see the same thing happening - Bulgarians riding the Balkan Tiger. Or perhaps a different wild cat. Lev is an old Bulgarian word for lion.
It's fascinating to watch the transition beginning. Sofia has streetcars with curtains on the windshield to keep out the sun, and city buses often have plastic flowers on the dashboard or even plastic ivy "growing" up the windshield frame. People take plastic bottles to buy wine from barrels in a market, and impoverished pensioners sit at street corners with a bathroom scale and a box for donations. It's better than begging.
At the same time, high-end fashion stores abound. Wages aren't high and it's easy to see a pair of designer boots eating up a whole week's pay. But that doesn't seem uncommon. Bulgarians, like Torontonians, are great patio-sitters. The people at the sidewalk cafГ©s are every bit as modish as their Canadian counterparts.
Educational standards are high. The country has a 98-per-cent literacy rate, and English is widely spoken, which makes Bulgarian and the Cyrillic alphabet less daunting for visitors.
I didn't get as far as the Black Sea resorts, hugely popular with Europeans (both visitors and settlers) and thus a magnet for speculators. Could the coast become another Queen's Quay, colonized by highrise apartments?
Or worse, like chunks of the Spanish shoreline, nicknamed the Costa Plenty or Costa del Crime and home to superannuated British malfeasants living on their ill-gotten gains, with pubs offering English beer, "tea like Mum makes," Coronation Street on TV, and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding - a Sunday dinner every day.
Those of us who have been beguiled by Bulgaria can only hope not. The Balkan Lion, open for business, may feel differently.
And, looking at the transformation money can bring, who could blame it?
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