The Depopulation Process in the Bulgarian Villages
“Smochevo is like a museum- I am walking down its streets and remember who used to live in each house. Now, everything is empty.” — Grudi Grudev
Shyly taking my camera out of its bag, I am walking the cobbled streets of Smochevo, a small village in Southwest Bulgaria. I am trying to capture a beautiful scene for my Photojournalism class. My project is on the depopulation of the Bulgarian villages. At first, I choose nonspeaking models that grab my attention- houses, vehicles, nature. I am green in this and hesitant about people- what if they reject me or, worse, tell me to stop wandering around with my camera. Eager to snap a shot of the mountainous view that is peeking through a steep street in front of me, I see an old man pushing his bicycle on the road. He has warm blue eyes and hands scattered with lines. “This would make for a good shot,” I am thinking to myself. While trying to figure out how to photograph him discretely, he actually approaches me and starts small talk. Opposite to my expectations, the people from Smochevo were naturally drawn to me. I was a young stranger and I had a camera, two curious enough reasons for them to initiate a conversation.
The man with the bicycle is then 84-years old Grudi Grudev. Dyado (grandpa) Grudi, as he preferred to call him, spent most of his life in Smochevo with his wife, who had passed away a few years before. His children live in Sofia and he has two granddaughters, one of which is a ballerina at a renowned university in the United States. Dyado Grudi became my tour guide while exploring Smochevo.
The first time we met, he had just finished reading a book about one of Bulgaria’s most famous poets- Peyo Yavorov, and his eyes sparkled while talking about it. Dyado Grudi was truly happy that he could share his thoughts on sublime topics with someone. He said he really needed a different type of interaction because all he talked about with his neighbors was related to trivial topics like the weather or the crops they have grown:
“Communication is a great treasure, which I really miss here.”
While taking a stroll on the streets of the village, dyado Grudi was pointing to the abandoned houses, telling me the stories of their former residents:
“Smochevo is like a museum- while walking, I remember who used to live in each house. Now, everything is empty.”
In 2016, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency announces that 566 villages out of all the 5009 in Bulgaria are either fully uninhabited or the number of their residents is a single-digit. Scenic regions with rich history have become ghost places. There were many reasons for this- industrialization, low birth rates, migration. Smochevo is no exception and between 2015 and 2019, its population declined by double. Currently, the village has around 130 permanent residents and none of them is under 70 years-old. According to the locals, during the 1940s, Smochevo was blooming and had around 1400 residents.
Having in mind the potential of many Bulgarian villages as tourist destinations and farmlands, the depopulation seems to be a serious problem for the country.
What is the function of the village in Bulgaria?
The Bulgarian villages are small settlements located in areas with fertile soil and water. Agriculture is the main occupation of the villagers. The communities are closed and have a self-sufficient economy (people can get by with the food they grow).
The Bulgarian word for ‘village’ (село) itself has a lot to say about the life of the villagers. From Proto-Slavic, село means “pasture, land, field”. The people from the field are tightly connected with farming unlike the people from the city who are craftsmen or later during Industrialization- factory workers. The villages are the agricultural centers of Bulgaria and what happens to the land directly affects its people’s life. While exploring Smochevo, I met with the oldest lady in the village, the 94-years old baba Vena, who was still taking care of her garden. Baba Vena was producing vegetables not only for herself but also for her children and neighbors.
What are the reasons behind depopulation?
During the Socialist Regime
How come such important settlements have become abandoned places? Actually, the situation in the past was very different but many political changes resulted in the process of depopulation. The first official census of the Bulgarians after the Unification shows that in 1887, 81.2% of the population were villagers. Cities weren’t an attractive option for the Bulgarians and this continued until the establishment of the socialist regime in 1944. Industrialization was one of the main reasons for this. Factory owners offered higher wages than what agriculture could and people started opting for a better standard of living. The decline accelerated in the following years and in 1985, only one-third of the Bulgarians resided villages. The main factor for this was the collectivization of land in the so-called Cooperative Farm (TKZS). This started happening in 1946 when almost all private owners forcefully passed their land to the socialist government. The strong connection between people and their land was lost. The conditions in the Cooperative Farm were poor and another big wave of villagers gave up on farming and moved to the big cities.
The Transition to Democracy
After the fall of socialism in 1989, the process of depopulation in the villages continued. If up to this moment internal migration (people moving to cities within Bulgaria) was the main engine, then, external migration (people moving outside Bulgaria) was what started contributing the most. Bulgarians were no longer locked in the boundaries of their country. In addition to the newly discovered freedom, another factor for emigration was the huge economic crisis during 1996/97. Inflation became so high that an average salary was enough only for basic groceries. More people who could afford setting off decided to search for their fortune in the richer parts of the world (Western Europe, the U.S., Australia). Many villages were left with a predominantly aging population.
A rational thing to ask is what happened to the lands that were once collectivized. Couldn’t have they become a magnet for people to go back to their roots? In a 2019 interview for Deutsche Welle, Klaus Roth, Professor of Ethnology and Culture Anthropology at the Munich University, explains that although the lands were redistributed back to their private owners (or more often- to the owners’ relatives), they were given back scattered. For example, if a person once had 200 acres of land in the same lot, after redistribution, they could get 100 acres in one end of their village, 50 acres in the other end, and 50 acres out of the village. This was mainly because of legal problems and corruption practices. Most of the time, the new owners had already settled in the cities and didn’t have the capacity or the technology to manage their heritage. Many people rented out or sold their land to wholesalers for nothing. This is why the process of land restitution (returning land or compensating victims who have lost land rights) did not lead to any positive changes in the depopulation trend.
Why is depopulation a bad thing at all?
One could say that the depopulation of the Bulgarian villages is something completely natural and the result of logical events throughout the years. Though this is partially true, the pace of this process in the country is too fast. It is not simply the loneliness in the villages or the fact that Bulgarians don’t have an idyllic rural life- the process also leads to socio-economic consequences. The potential that lies in many picturesque areas is wasted. According to a 2018 report of the European Agricultural Fund of Rural Development: Europe Investing in Rural Areas, the environment and the climate in Bulgaria rank third place among EU member states when it comes to rich biodiversity. The document reports that rural areas have great potential for the development of sustainable tourism if their natural and cultural heritage is preserved and displayed. About 40% of all municipalities in rural areas have relatively good tourism conditions for the development of cultural, adventurous, spa, nature, and rural tourism. Still, governments do a poor job of attracting investors in rural regions. Villages lack infrastructure and businesses to sustain tourists’ needs, so almost none of their potential is being used.
The solution to the depopulation process could come after a long period of good political decisions. Until then we can all help by fulfilling dyado Grudi’s wish, visiting our villages more often and talking about them:
“I really want our village to get more promotion. We have everything: clean air and water, beautiful nature… Everything that grows here is tastier. I wish that more foreigners and young people come and start reviving Smochevo.”
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Bozhana Marinova studies Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Bulgaria. She enjoys visiting the rural places of Bulgaria.
