Bulgarians Regret Giving Up Communism

BULGARIANS, who gave up communism in 1989, feel swindled by capitalism and remain one of the poorest European Union candidate countries, despite a marginal improvement in their average living standards.

 “Bulgarians remember a time not so long ago when they could rely on their health and education systems, and when their holidays were guaranteed,” said political analyst Kolio Kolev, of the Mediana Institute in Sofia. “Thirteen years after the fall of communism this is no longer the case, and Bulgarians have become angry, radical and unhappy with their lot,” he added.

In a recent study by the US Pew Research Center, less than eight per cent of Bulgarians said they were content with their lot - the lowest rate in continental Europe and equivalent to the rate in Tanzania, Africa’s most discontented country.

The study was based on 38,000 individual interviews taken in 44 countries across all five continents.

“The eight per cent who are satisfied correspond to the percentage of Bulgarians who are well-off,” said political analyst Miroslava Yanova.  “However, the causes of this general discontent are not only economic - Bulgarian society has become demoralised,” she said.

According to Jivko Georgiev of the Gallup institute, less than five per cent of Bulgarians have seen their standard of living improve since the fall of communism, while 68 per cent have dropped down the social scale.

Psychiatrist Ruslan Terziyski, quoted in the daily 24 Hours, has seen an “increase in aggression” in Bulgarian society. He blames a string of extraordinarily cruel murders “not so much on poverty, but on the murderers’ sudden loss of social status”.

According to the Bulgarian Statistical Institute, 40 per cent of the country’s population lives on a monthly income of less than 100 leva (49 euros). A recent report by German bank Deutschebank has forecast that in 2003 Bulgaria’s gross domestic product (GDP) will only reach 33 per cent of the EU average.

“Nearly 40 per cent of children born after 1989 have never been on holiday. One in five children have rotten teeth because his parents cannot afford to pay the dentist. The nation’s quality of life is collapsing,” said Kolev.

Ilia Iliev, an ethnological scientist at Sofia University, says that Bulgaria’s poverty-hit families have adopted “a new strategy”. People are depriving themselves to give their children a good education and a good standard of living so that they do not inherit their parents’ poverty.

“Bulgarians are not optimistic for their country, but they are optimistic for their children,” he said.

A recent report by UNICEF said that 33 per cent of Bulgarian children and adolescents want to live abroad, and that 78 per cent want a higher standard of living.

(Courtesy: Bulgaria Online December 21, 2002)