Sofia      It’s not an insult to say that Bulgaria is a smaller and poorer country than Romania.  It’s just the truth.  In talking to various organizations and activists, they have also emphasized to us the difficult and challenging social infrastructure for citizens as well as immigrants.

We had hoped to meet David Bisset from Equilibrium, one of the best known and largest nonprofit social services organizations in Ruse, where they were headquartered.  We were traveling in a tourist van, which we had commandeered to stop for 90-minutes in Ruse so we could visit with David and his operation.  We heard in the morning, before we left from Bucharest, that it wasn’t to be.  He was called to the Black Sea border between Romania and Bulgaria where a pregnant woman from Denmark had come down sick at the crossing.  He was called by the Danish consulate to see if he could sort the situation out.  Border authorities, he explained to us later by Zoom, feared she might have some communicable diseases, so were exercising special caution, which made some sense.

The story also told us something about David and his wife who migrated from Scotland decades ago and have become key communicators to private and public authorities about the social service needs in the country.  They have organized children’s clinics, day care facilities, early education and more.  David shared with us that Equilibrium is now involved in every government consultation that deals with social services, giving them a good deal of both influence and responsibility.

Lots of European and Scandinavians are now coming to Romania and Bulgaria, attracted by the relatively cheaper prices to enjoy some of the amenities of travel, beaches, and more.  Albania has also become a tourist destination, even for Americans in recent years, which surprised me having been there for work some years before the pandemic.  The Danish family was presumably on vacation, when they ran into this problem, but others find the border crossing less friendly and more foreboding, as we found in talking to Avo Levon of Migrant Solidarity Bulgaria.  Avo told us about the actions that he and other progressive activists have organized to support immigrants who have been seized at the border and are held in detention.

Unlike in the United States, they are able to visit the detention centers once or twice a week and spend 20 to 30 minutes each with detainees, that is if they can get to the center which is far outside of Sofia.  The conditions, like in the US, are harsh and miserable, but families are not separated.  Immigrants come in waves from different countries.  Like in many western countries, immigration is a hot button issue for the far right, although in Bulgaria it is still relatively small in comparison.  One detainee is from Saudi Arabia and has been stuck for several years without a legitimate visa at this point, or a country willing to accept his return.  Others are now coming from Morocco along with Turkish Kurds.  Many of them are simply taking an easter route through Bulgaria to richer western EU countries, but detention is detention, and solidarity is important.

We’re learning that whether immigration or social services, these are areas where activists and volunteers are filling the gaps, and where the state is eschewing responsibility.  Some create nonprofits or ad hoc organizations like the Migrant Solidarity Bulgaria to do the best they can, but they are stretched thin across huge gaps.