Bulgaria - Articoli

Bulgaria, amid presidential elections and the referendum

03/11/2016 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

On November 6, Bulgarians vote for the Head of State but also to answer three questions in a referendum proposed by a television showman


Bulgaria: Dinko, the shameful "super-hero"

02/03/2016 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

One of the main TV stations in Bulgaria, bTV, glorifies a man who hunts migrants and wants them dead. This is the story


Elderly Bulgarians: the lost generation

15/02/2016 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

Bulgaria is the EU country with the highest rate of elderly people at risk of poverty, isolation and social exclusion. Our report


Slow Food Bulgaria: the “kiselo mlyako” of the Strandzha

14/12/2015 -  Francesco Martino Malko Tarnovo

In the Strandzha mountains, on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, proud, obstinate producers carry on making “kiselo mlyako” (sour milk), a thousand-year-old tradition


A Balkan Odyssey

27/10/2015 -  Andrea Oskari Rossini

The flow of migrants and refugees along the Balkan trail is turning into a humanitarian crisis, with no recognition of the needs of vulnerable categories. Reports of violence by the Bulgarian police


Bulgaria: the trafficking networks

15/10/2015 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

The government in Sofia has recently strengthened the laws against people-trafficking, in an attempt to strike the local criminal organizations who are finding in the migrants a new source of income


Rural Bulgaria: between abandonment and redemption

02/03/2015 -  Francesco Martino Gorna Bela Rechka

Northwestern Bulgaria: the poorest region in the EU, hit by the fierce depopulation of rural areas. Yet, despite the difficulties of the present, some do resist – and start back, in small steps - from the treasures of a centenary cultural and culinary tradition


Green energy in Bulgaria: an uneasy success

13/02/2015 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

Bulgaria is among the few European countries that have announced the achievement of the objectives of the "Europe 2020" strategy on renewable energy. At the same time, the sector is said to be in crisis and unsustainable. Our report


Media concentration and media ownership in Bulgaria

17/10/2014 -  Svetla Dimitrova Sofia

Media concentration and lack of ownership transparency are a major obstacle to media pluralism and freedom in Bulgaria. According to media law expert Nelly Ognyanova, neither of these obstacles can be removed without political will. Interview


The once beautiful, blue Danube

05/09/2014 -  Francesco Martino

The mysterious sturgeon, an indicator of the river's health, is at risk. Bulgaria, Romania and the WWF strive to protect it


Bulgaria, towards new early elections

22/07/2014 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

Dysfunctional politics, institutional crisis, banking fever. This is the image of Bulgaria after last May's European vote. Our report


Bulgaria, the Decline in Media Freedom

10/06/2014 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

In Bulgaria, freedom of the press and expression has dramatically declined in recent years. Among the principle causes are media concentration, self-censorship and pressure on journalists. We spoke about this with Professor Orlin Spasov


Bulgaria, The European Elections Will Be Revelatory

10/03/2014 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

The upcoming European elections (May 25, 2014) in Bulgaria will take place in the wake of a period of significant social and political tension. For this reason, many observers believe that they will offer a meaningful referendum on the current, and controversial, center-left government


Eugenia Maximova: Balkan kitchens and other visions

23/01/2014 -  Marjola Rukaj

Eugenia Maximova has entered hundreds of houses in the Balkans, asking only one thing: show me the kitchen


Bulgaria: the arrival of Syrian refugees

16/09/2013 -  Francesco Martino Svilengrad

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have crossed the Bulgarian border fleeing the war. About 500 have been placed in the transit center of Pastrogor, near the border with Greece and Turkey. Our report


Bulgarian mass media's uncomfortable relationship with power

19/12/2011 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

As a litmus test, the recent election campaign in Bulgaria brought to light the problematic relationship between media and power in the country. The Bulgarian information system shows serious and structural problems: lack of transparency on properties, centralisation of newspapers, economic and political pressure on journalists. In recent years the situation has been getting worse


Schengen, prisoners of a fragile Europe

12/05/2011 -  Francesco Martino

Although Bulgaria and Romania have met the technical requirements, Bucharest and Sofia will indefinitely remain outside of the Schengen area. A long list of unresolved issues with the two Balkan countries provides substantial reasons for exclusion, but the main problem seems to lie in the increasing fragility of the European political project


Behind the wall

06/04/2011 -  Francesco Martino

In the Balkans the era of bloody conflicts is over. But instead of proceeding along the difficult path of dialogue, many are scrambling to raise walls to keep the "other" at a safe distance. And even the European Union doesn't seem immune from such temptations. A comment


Islam in Bulgaria, competing generations

05/01/2011 -  Tanya Mangalakova Sofia

For the last 13 years, Bulgaria's Islamic community has been split by competing leaderships. However, the fight for control of the General Council of the Muftis – the representative body of Islam in Bulgaria – is not only a clash between factions but also between old and new generations


Mussa Khan. A tale of rivers and borders

14/01/2011 -  Paolo Martino Edirne

Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece. Three separate nations united by the Evros-Meriç-Maritsa, today the last door for the muhajirins attempting to land in Europe. Maybe Mussa Khan has already passed here, but more and more of his traveling companions are losing their lives in the dark meanders of the river


Bulgaria: Euro-Nomads

19/08/2010 -  Tanya Mangalakova Sofia

They make the most of electronic communication and low-cost flights. They live inbetween the “here” of their country of origin, and the “there” of the one they have chosen to work in. They use multiple identities. They are the “Euro-nomads”, a group on the constant rise, even in Bulgaria


Bulgarian cinema: Mission London

12/05/2010 -  Tanya Mangalakova Sofia

For the Western viewer, a well-acted comedy; for the Bulgarian audience, crazy laughs as well as disillusionment for the broken dreams of transition and an elite that turned out to be dishonest and useless. Now in cinemas, Mission London, from Alek Popov's best-seller


A bridge apart?

23/02/2010 -  Nikolai Yotov Bucharest

Despite their joint access to the EU in 2007, Bulgarians and Romanians continue to live with outdated stereotypes. Political, economic, social, informational exchange between Bucharest and Sofia remains not simply unsatisfactory, but practically absent


Sacked

09/02/2010 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

The debacle of Bulgarian European Commissioner Rumyana Zheleva was the first blow to Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's government. Although it is still too early to assess the consequences of Zheleva’s defeat at the national and international levels, the governing party's criteria for choosing its highest-ranking officials should be called into question


Amos Oz: the art of compromise

26/01/2010 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

Amos Oz is one of the best-known names in world literature. An Israeli novelist, essayist, and political activist, Oz is a fervent supporter of the need to reach compromise in order to overcome conflicts. Our correspondent met him in Sofia


Like a house of cards: Zhelyu Zhelev and the Bulgarian 1989

10/11/2009 -  Tanya MangalakovaFrancesco Martino Sofia

On November 10th, 1989, Bulgaria sees the end of Zhivkov and the single party. The events of that year, the ethnic question, and the attempts at lustration in an interview with Zhelyu Zhelev, philosopher and dissident in the years of the regime and first democratically elected president after the fall of the Berlin Wall.


The "big excursion" of Bulgarian Turks

04/11/2009 -  Francesco Martino Edirne

In Bulgaria, a few months after the fall of the Wall in 1989, the Communist regime triggered the exodus towards Turkey of 360,000 Bulgarian citizens of Turkish ethnicity. The mass exodus, gone down in history as the "big excursion", has left deep scars on the people who lived it. Our reportage


Brother Boyko

10/07/2009 -  Francesco Martino Sofia

Boyko Borisov, leader of the rightwing and winner of the recent national elections will be the next Bulgarian prime minister. But where does he come from and who is Borisov, known by everybody as "Brother Boyko"? The story of his rise to political power


Far away, so close?

13/03/2009 -  Risto Karajkov Skopje

Just before the start of the electoral campaign, Macedonian prime minister Gruevski announced a massive plan to invest in infrastructures. Little resources, though, seems to have been allocated to revive the "European Corridor 8", meant to link the Adriatic to the Black Sea


Konstantina's tenacity

06/03/2009 -  Gilda Lyghounis

She came to Greece seven years ago as a migrant. Ever since, she has been fighting for the rights of the "modern slaves", the cleaners. Until a dramatic attempt to silence her forever. This is the story of Konstantina Kuneva, the symbol of 8 March in Greece