Bulgaria

As someone who have lived there for twenty-odd years I can go on writing about it till doomsday. However, a lot of the stuff will probably be out of date and no longer applicable. Hence, I will limit myself to stuff from our last few visits.

Seaside Resorts

They are not worth visiting. It is overdeveloped and throughly damaged by several generations of rogue development. The original plans for most resorts have long been violated. For example, Sunny Beach was designed to be a set of small pretty hotels tucked in a wonderful mediteranean pine forest. It was meticulously planned and you could see only the trees and not the other hotels while looking through the windows. The trees have now been chopped off and it is a dusty and disgusting urban sprawl. Long live free capitalism at its best.

The sea has been overfished beyond its capability to selfrepair. While all Black Sea countries have been active parties to the "hoover the last fish remaining" spree, the greatest damage was done by Turkey and sponsored by NATO. Up to the 1950-es the Black Sea was a seasonal home to large migratory populations of tuna, pelamida and other mediteranean fish stocks. That is no more after NATO sponsored Turkey to install the anti-submarine system in the Bosphorus. NATO never cared to notice that the Turks installed nets with under 15cm mesh. Anti-submarine mesh? Yeah, some other time. As these migratory populations are key to the well-being of the Black Sea and Mediteranean ecosystems it is crucial that this idiocy is fixed and the cross-Bosphorus netting and fishing prohibited once and for all. In fact Turkey should not be admitted to the EU unless it signs to this as a part of the common fisheries policy.

The lack of fish in the sea has in turn caused a complete food chain collapse which leads to repeated toxic algal blooms every summer. These feed on the sewerage overfills from the resorts which are dumped directly into sea to produce a wonderful soup which tourists gladly dip themselves into. Fortunately, seaside is not all Bulgaria has to offer. It also has wonderful mountains.

Mountain Spa Resourts

As the Bulgarian seaside has become unusable, chillin' by a mineral water pool in the mountains with a drink in hand inbetween mountain treks is becoming an increasingly tempting proposition.

• Chiflik
• Velingrad?
• Minor pseudo spa resorts - Strelcha?, etc

Mountain Trekking

I am a great fan of a good trek. In days past I used to criss-cross Rila alone for fun. Unfortunately, this is rather difficult with a baby or toddler in tow so this activity is on hold for the time being.

Here are some pictures of what you can see and what you can enjoy in the parts of Bulgaria that are not yet destroyed by booming real estate fraud and pomakistanic attitude to the environment:

• Rila

Observation of Endemic Corruption

Cough, Cough. That is also a fun activity which you can have in Bulgaria. Just look around, observe and note. West meets East. After watching for a while the idea of Turkey joining the EU as well as the French ideas of "Mediterranean Union" start looking very err... questionable.

• Beautiful Bulgaria the Pomakistan Way

Please direct any flames and questions to the actual authors of the articles and webmasters of relevant websites. Any flames directed to the webmaster will be ignored. I am just linking to them.

-- AntonIvanov? - 19 Nov 2008