Not on Holiday: Brits in Bulgaria
Audrey Cameron Zaharieva, originally from Edinburgh, tends to her Bulgarian partner’s flock of sheep
In one of the EU’s poorest member states, a group of British immigrants have built fulfilling lives WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JODI HILTON
In Bulgaria, the British are known mostly for their tourism. Taking advantage of cheap flights from London, Glasgow, and Manchester, they spend their holidays careening down the slopes of Bansko’s ski resort, or enjoying a lazy, boozy week at Sunny Beach on the Black Sea. But, in the quieter parts of Bulgaria, thousands of British citizens who call themselves “immigrants, not expats” have chosen to make the country their primary home. ON THE FLIP SIDE, 84,000 Bulgarians were living in the UK in 2019, according to statistics from British consular officials in Bulgaria; with many thousands more working temporarily or seasonally in industries such as horticulture and seafood processing. Together, these Bulgarians sent back €101.6 million in remittances in 2018, and €25 million more in the first quarter of 2019, according to Bulgaria’s finance ministry. This out-migration – which has increased significantly since Bulgarians gained full EU-wide freedom of work rights in 2014 – is contributing to rapid population decline in Bulgaria itself. Today, Bulgaria has the fastest shrinking population of any nation in the world. Its current population of seven million people (already a million less than London alone) is expected to drop to less than five million by 2075. The worst-hit regions are the rural areas, where many village houses have been abandoned for want of a buyer, as their owners either migrate to other European countries, or die from old age, with no new residents in sight. Enter some of the bravest of the British: the sort of enterprising do-it-yourself types who can take in the sight of an old, run-down mud-brick house, and imagine turning it into a beautifully restored rural home – the start a new life for themselves in a sunny climate with an abundance of nature. At last count, nearly 9,500 Brits have officially made the move to Bulgaria, where their hard-earned savings go a lot further than in the UK. Another estimated 2,000-6,000 live in Bulgaria part-time, and are thus not registered as permanent residents. The majority of these long-term and permanent residents have settled in central Bulgaria near Veliko Tarnovo, a Bulgarian National Revival-era city with medieval churches and a
fortress, which is currently awaiting UNESCO World Heritage status. Others have settled in or near smaller towns across the country, such as in the south-east near the border with Turkey, or in the far-north near the Danube. Still others, mainly working professionals, live in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, or in the country’s second city, Plovdiv. Finally, a number of British pensioners have chosen to live in the beach communities on the Black Sea coast. Paul Clark, a consular official at the British Embassy in Bulgaria, has observed that many of his fellow citizens have found innovative ways to make a living. Some work remotely for international companies, run small businesses catering to the needs of holidaymakers, or make money through e-commerce activities, such as online trading. Bulgaria has extremely fast internet, Clark explained. Others, Clark told me, are self-sufficient types who have “finished their full-time career and have come out to live in self-funded retirement”. In some cases, this has included adopting a subsistence-based lifestyle, growing their own fruits and vegetables – a practice not dissimmilar to “homesteading” in the American West . But with Brexit looming, many of Bulgaria’s enterprising British residents have become increasingly concerned about their long-term prospects in the country; particularly in relation to the economic consequences of a scenario in which the UK ends up leaving the EU without a robust free trade agreement.
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An old military plane displayed near the center of Mihaltsi, a village popular with British people who have relocated to Bulgaria
Paul Hawtin, co-owner of Bulgarian Overseas Property, is more aware than most of what has been at stake. Paul’s business involves purchasing old village houses, which he then restores and puts up for sale – often to fellow Brits. When I spoke to him on the phone, he told me that he generally sells between twenty and forty houses a year – a figure that still hasn’t been enough to meet demand. For a £500 deposit, he explained, you can move into one of his renovated houses, and then pay off the debt at a rate of £200 per month – with the total cost being no more than £10,000 to £15,000. Thus, for the price of a second-hand car in the UK, you can buy a home in Bulgaria. “Over here you can live like a king for very little,” he told me. “It’s silly money, really.” But a “no deal” Brexit could change all that. If the UK failed to secure a free trade agreement with the EU, Paul has calculated that the value of the pound will drop significantly; and demand for his services would drop with it. “Everything 60 . Point.51
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
is going to get more expensive,” he predicts. However, some British citizens living in Bulgaria – as well as those planning to move there – have already taken a financial hit. One of those feeling the pinch is Dennis Picton, who has bought a “do’er upper” retirement home in central Bulgaria, but had yet to move there from the UK, when we connected on Facebook in early summer. Five years earlier, every pound that Dennis might wish to invest in his dream retirement home could have been exchanged for three Bulgarian Leva. But since the Brexit referendum of June 2016, he has seen the exchangeable value of his savings drop significantly – to just 2.2 Leva per pound as of September 2019 . For Dennis, the financials, and the uncertainty of whether he will be able to remain in Bulgaria long-term, have put a dampener on his plans. “I have bought a house in Plakovo near Veliko Tarnovo,” he wrote, on Facebook Messenger, from his home in the UK.
An open market in Pavlikeni, Bulgaria, in the region of Veliko Tarnovo, an area where many British people have decided to reside
“It needs £50k spending on it to make it comfortable, but that’s not going to happen until after Brexit when I am sure I can stay in Bulgaria.” Instead, he said, “I am thinking of renting a house till the Brexit situation is sorted.” Paul Clark, the consular official, has been well aware of the uncertainty felt by his fellow citizens in Bulgaria – or those planning on making the move. As a consequence, he recently held a series of town hall-style meetings across the country to listen to the concerns of British citizens worried about the potential effect of Brexit upon their lives and livelihoods. Many of these concerns, he said, are being smoothed out through reciprocal agreements between the UK and the EU, or its individual member states. The goal, Clark told me when I meet him at his office at the British Embassy in Sofia, has been “to try to make whatever form this transition takes place [whether deal or no deal] as smooth as possible for UK nationals”. The UK has launched an EU Settlement
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
Scheme that will allow EU nationals (and also Swiss and EEA nationals) to apply for settled or non-settled status in the UK after June 2021. This would allow those currently residing in the UK to continue working and living in Britain, to use the NHS, and to enrol their children in school without paying additional fees. “We are seeking similar offers in regards to citizens’ rights for UK nationals currently residing in the EU, including Bulgaria,” Clark explained in a follow-up email. Intrigued by the stories of these intrepid Brits and their desire to forge a different kind of life for themselves in Bulgaria’s increasingly depopulated countryside, I decided to pay a visit to some of these “immigrants” to find out more about their motivations and plans for the future. I rented a car and drove from my home in Sofia to the region around Veliko Tarnovo, where several enterprising immigrants welcomed me into their homes and communities.
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‘One day’
JASMYN FLEETWOOD, a thirty-nine-year-old former Royal Navy reservist from Northern Ireland, first came to Bulgaria after her life took a dramatic turn for the worse. Jasmyn was working in maritime trade operations, and had just received word that she had been selected for her dream assignment in hydrography and meteorology, when she suddenly fell very ill. Bedridden, and with horrendous chest pain, she found that some days she couldn’t even lift her head. Diagnosed with a severe form of costochondritis, an inflammation of the area where the ribs join the cartilage that is attached to the sternum, she was given a stark prognosis by her treatment team. “My doctor instructed me to say goodbye to my family and get my affairs in order,” she recalls. Before she fell ill, Jasmyn and her husband Piete, a fifty-seven-year-old former paratrooper, had always dreamed of living abroad. Piete, who is originally from South Africa, had served for thirty years in the British Army, rising to the rank of warrant officer, and was thus eligible for a military pension. That would help, financially, if they moved abroad – one day. But Jasmyn’s illness made them realize they might not have a “one day” left. After months of chiropractic and holistic therapy, including traction, manipulation and strengthening exercises, Jasmyn’s condition gradually improved. When she was finally well enough to walk, Jasmyn, her husband, and her fourteen-year-old-son Matthew, took off for a two-week trip around Europe. During their trip, they met many Bulgarians who encouraged them to think about making Bulgaria their next destination. Taking up this suggestion, Jasmyn and her son spent the following Easter in Bulgaria. “We fell in love with it,” she recalls. Upon her return to Belfast, Jasmyn spent months pouring over websites featuring Bulgarian country houses, while weighing the pros and cons of turning that “one day” move into 62 . Point.51
a reality. She believed that her family’s savings could go much further in Bulgaria than in the UK, using the money they received from Piete’s Army pension and the insurance payments she had begun to receive since becoming ill. Deliberation led to decision and, in 2015, she purchased a village house in the agricultural region between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube River. Soon, they began to settle into their new life in Bulgaria, while Matthew attended a private academy in Veliko Tarnovo. Four years later, in June of 2019, I join Jasmyn, Piete, and Matthew in the centre of Veliko Tarnovo, as part of the ritual “farewell to the graduating class ceremony” that takes place every year. Dressed in a dapper looking suit, Matthew joins his fancily-dressed classmates in parading down a red carpet that has been unfurled along the length of Veliko Tarnovo’s main street, while Jasmyn and Piete watch – and cheer – from amongst the crowd of proud parents, friends, and family members. Over the last four years, Matthew has become a fluent Bulgarian speaker and has excelled in high school. “He treats Bulgaria, like he’s never lived anywhere else,” Jasmyn explains. With graduation behind him, Matthew is considering his next move. One option is to study archaeology at Southampton University, back in the UK. This programme has a distinctly Bulgarian connection: Southampton have partnered with Bulgarian archaeologists to map ancient Ottoman and Byzantine shipwrecks lying on the floor of the Black Sea.
Jasmyn Fleetwood with a traditional headdress she wears when with the local folk dancing troupe; her son, Matthew Fleetwood thanks one of his teachers during his high school graduation
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Jasmyn Fleetwood practices folk dancing and singing with the local folk dancing troupe, most of whom are retired women who have begun to teach some of the British immigrants in the area
As for Piete and Jasmyn, they too are keeping busy. Piete has taken a job as an English teacher, while Jasmyn is busy renovating their Butovo house, planting the garden, and hobnobbing with the locals – specifically a group of ladies she calls “The Babas”. These babas – an affectionate Bulgarian term for grandmother – have welcomed her into their pensioners’ club despite her young age. A retired teacher who is nicknamed “Baba Jordanka”, has taken Jasmyn under her wing. “It’s because of her that I can speak Bulgarian,” she says. Early on, Jasmyn joined the babas’ traditional singing and dancing group, and was eventually gifted with some extraordinary antique outfits which are worn during performances. One baba loaned her a hand-sewn outfit of exquisite craftsmanship. “When I brought it back to her, I had a little hole in the lace fixed,” Jasmyn re64 . Point.51
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
calls, “but she insisted I keep it. It was the most amazing gift.” These days, Jasmyn organises dance lessons in Butovo’s cultural hall. On a Wednesday in early summer, I accompany her to the weekly event, where thirteen babas have gathered, each carrying a home-made dish or dessert. After decorating the party table with fresh roses, they present me with a bouquet and a loaf of round, home-made bread called pitka. When the lessons commence, Bulgarian women lead the foreigners in various horo – traditional circular dances – to recorded folk tunes. Then it is the turn of the students to do a bit of teaching. Two of the women, who are originally from Scotland, lead their Bulgarian companions in a Scottish reel, twirling their partners, each little mistake inciting bouts of laughter.
A charity sale at Resen Lodge, a British-owned holiday complex in Resen, Bulgaria, where British expats gather
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
Charity begins at home AT A MONTHLY charity fundraiser at the British owned Resen Lodge, a group of locally-based Brits are busy selling homemade pastries, vintage clothing, British sweets, and handicrafts. Most of the buyers are also British; many of whom have come to catch up with friends dispersed around the countryside, or to enjoy a hearty English breakfast of bacon, sausages, eggs – and, of course, tea with milk – at the tables set up next to the outdoor pool. At the charity event, I meet Pam Penkeyman-Smith, who is part of Charity Support Bulgaria, one of the fundraiser’s beneficiaries. She tells me her plans to deliver an EKG monitor to a local hospital that same afternoon. “When I
came here ten years ago, I felt like I’d stepped back into the Middle Ages,” she tells me. “Wages were so low and there were [only] two kinds [of people], the very poor and the very rich – and nothing in between.” Pam’s efforts to bring medical equipment to cash-strapped Bulgarian hospitals have included providing surgical supplies, as well as specialised wheelchairs for the disabled. “I’ve always been working in charity,” she says, “[so] when I saw some of the poverty here, I thought I’d do something.”
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Garden dreams GRAHAM BECKETT and his husband David Morgan, both in their forties, renovated a house in the village of Hotnitsa, and built a garden centre on the property as well. The pair came to Bulgaria from Oxford fourteen years ago, and consider it their best move to date. Their business, Morgan’s Plants, produces and sells conifers, herbaceous perennials, and flowering plants. Morgan’s Plants is a unique concept in the region as many Bulgarians are used to planting only fruits, vegetables, and flowers in their gardens. Decorative plants are normally reserved for indoor use. On the far side of the couple’s property, three greenhouses are filled with rows of hanging flower baskets and potted plants. In between rows of seedlings is a strawberry plant which has just born fruit. I’m delighted when Graham offers me some of the sweetest berries I have ever tasted. In a barn off to the side of the large yard lives Toggles, an impressively large Billy goat who enjoys being nuzzled, and three female companions – Lilly, Myrtle, and Suzy. Nearby, a separate area houses chickens and peacocks, while dogs roam freely through the rows of fruit trees and pools of water lilies. Graham worked in construction back in the UK, while David was a horticulturalist. It was their dream to open a plant shop, they explain, but the financial barriers of doing so in Oxford would have been immense. “I wouldn’t be able to do this in the UK,” David says. The cost of land would have put him millions into debt. Chris Walsh, who is Irish, and his Scottish wife, Julya, are among the steady stream of friends and regular customers who stop by during my visit. While enjoying fresh Moroccan mint tea, Chris, a sixty-seven-year-old retired mechanical engineer, talks about the construction projects he has undertaken since moving to Bulgaria in 2006. Julya, who is sixty-five, was among Britain’s “fifties women” – those who were born in the 1950s, and have found themselves caught up in changes to the retirement age. She had planned to retire from her job as an office manager at six66 . Point.51
ty, but the government kept moving the goalposts in a bid to reduce spiralling pension costs from an ageing population. First, they raised the retirement age for women to sixty-two-and-a-half, then sixty-three. Finally, Julya was able to draw her pension at sixty-four. (The retirement age for British men has been sixty-five since 1940, and is now sixty-five for women; it is set to increase to sixty-seven for all UK citizens by 2028.) “I had two options,” Julya explains, “to stop work and not be able to live properly, or to push on and ahead.” But when she reached sixty-one, she had had enough. She and Chris walked away from their jobs in the UK, she explains, and set themselves up in Bulgaria where they have finally retired – though are certainly not resting. At their home in the village of Dobromirka, Chris has rebuilt the roof, walls, and floors, installed a new kitchen, and renovated the bathrooms. Outside, they have planted a garden and built a terrace where they enjoy summer evenings, looking out beyond the lawn towards the neighbouring house, owned by Julya’s sister. While Chris works on the house, Julya, who has worked as a Methodist preacher since 2008, keeps up with current events and pens her weekly sermons. On a Sunday, I travel with Julya to nearby Sevlievo, where we are welcomed by Margarita Todorova, the local pastor, into the cozy walk-up building that serves as the city’s only Methodist church. Inside, Julya delivers her sermon to the congregation in English, with Margarita providing a Bulgarian translation. The service is followed by Bible study. After that, Julya sets up her computer in the chapel area to deliver a similar sermon back in Scotland via Skype, something she does around eight times each year. Julya is also a passionate scuba diver who has travelled to many exotic places for dives – something she can afford more easily, now that they live in Bulgaria. “In the UK, we would [always] worry about capital expenditures,” she says. “Expensive holidays to the Maldives would not be happening.”
Graham Beckett with his pet goats; David Morgan, co-owner of Morgan's Plants in Hotnitsa
Photos: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
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Audrey Cameron Zahrieva does healing work on her neighbor, 91-year-old Maria Bencheva, who is recovering from a stroke
Curing the pain
Julya Walsh delivers a Sermon at the Methodist Church in Sevlievo; Chris Walsh (right) joking around with his friend and workman Roberto Dimitro, a Bulgarian tiler, roofer, and cement worker 68 . Point.51
Photos: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
IN A SMALL WOODEN HOUSE in the village of Mihaltsi, an elegant ninety-one-year-old woman is recovering from a stroke. Audrey Cameron Zaharieva, originally from Edinburgh and thirty years her junior, massages her patient’s back and then strategically places her hands on her face, cupping her eye sockets as part of a healing technique called Bowen Therapy. “It works over the fascia and stimulates the primitive brain to send signals to the body to start healing,” she explained. Audrey started her working life as a successful career woman specialising in sales, marketing, and development for a number of big-name corporations, including Boeing and IBM. But, in 1990, during a ski holiday in Bulgaria, she had a serious accident on the slopes, ripping cartilage in both knees. Her charming instructor, a Bulgarian nicknamed Gosho, dragged her down the mountain on a sled jury-rigged from a sun lounger, and then drove her to hospital in the back of a Lada
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
The incident ended in a love-affair. After taking some months to reflect, Audrey made the decision to abandon her life and career in the UK, and return to Bulgaria. “I decided to ... get off the hamster wheel”, she explains. She was twenty-nine. When she arrived, Audrey and Gosho lived together in his family’s socialist-era apartment in Sofia, and eventually married. Their three children were all born in Sofia, and the couple later purchased an old farm house close to a village near Pavlikeni, which they renovated. Gosho, who Audrey calls her soulmate, died in 2009. Over the past decade, Audrey has slowly rebuilt her life. In addition to becoming a Bowen Therapist, she started dating Ivan, a local bar-owner and sheep herder. Between keeping up with her household chores (she runs a small tourist complex), seeing her patients, and helping with the sheep, she is fully immersed in Bulgarian life.
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Sam Mayfield in the attic of The Peach House, a dilapidated 19th century house she and her husband recently bought in the village of Musina
Photo: Jodi Hilton for Point.51
Animal lovers
RICHARD AND SAM MAYFIELD are experienced immigrants. Before moving to Bulgaria, they lived in Spain, where they still run a rock climbing adventure company (Richard is an expert rock climber and mountaineer). They are also animal lovers, who kept and rode horses in Spain, but after too many burning Spanish summers – and with the cost of keeping their beloved horses becoming more and more expensive – the couple were looking for a change of home. But rural Bulgaria hadn’t exactly been on their radar. “We didn’t even know where Bulgaria was. I’d never even heard of the country,” Sam laughs as she explains how her friend had Googled “horse+Europe+cheap” before herself investing in a house in Bulgaria. On the friend’s advice, Sam and Richard came over for two weeks, bought a run-down farmhouse “in a terrible state” for £1800, and began a new adventure. That was four years ago. Along the way, Sam founded Paws and Hooves Bulgaria, a charity which takes in stray animals, including horses, but mostly dogs and puppies. Sam says there are a lot of stray dogs that aren’t taken care of or are abandoned, and demonstrates by showing me photos of a litter of six puppies which were left by the side of the road. Since the charity began operating, they have been run off their feet – in their first three months alone, Sam and her team of mostly British volunteers rehomed eighty dogs. In conjunction with a German agency, Paws and Hooves helps find families who want to adopt dogs from Bulgaria. These days Sam can be seen working at the charity shop, rescuing and caring for animals, or engaged in various DIY tasks around the house. To keep on top of her appointments, she darts from one village to the next in a dusty righthand-drive SUV accompanied by her foster dog, Kaya. A friendly, pure-bred Husky, Kaya loves to sit up front and lean out of the left-hand window to take in the wind – much to the surprise 72 . Point.51
of locals who are used to seeing the driver on the left. Richard and Sam have renovated the farmhouse into a comfortable two-storey home, keeping in place the original wood beams and maintaining the historic feel. It’s decorated with an eclectic mix of furnishings, most of which are refurbished second hand. They have cleaned out the old stone barn and built a fenced area for their four rescue horses, who alternate between being kept near the house and in the bigger meadow behind the new house they have purchased, just down the road. Another fenced area accommodates eleven or more wiggly foster puppies (depending on the day), which they care for along with their own four dogs. They’ve recently taken on a new project, rehabilitating an elegant one-hundred-year-old village house, which they purchased for £4,000. Despite their success, moving to a country with a difficult language, while taking on numerous projects, hasn’t always been easy. “You’ve got to be a little bit brave,” Sam says. Since reporting this story, Sam and Richard have decided to sell their two Bulgarian houses, packing up two of their horses, one cat, and eight dogs, and returning to run their rock-climbing outfit in Spain. Over Facebook messenger, Sam explained that maintaining the business from a distance was too difficult. She wrote that she will miss the peaceful life in the village, the amazing friends they have made, and the way she was accepted by Bulgarians.
Richard and Sam Mayfield at home with some of their dogs; Sam, who helps to run Paws and Hooves BG, an animal rescue charity, visits her horses, some of which are rescues
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