Bulgaria - The social impact of seasonal migration

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because seasonal migrants from Momchilgrad were the first to start working in Western
Europe, in The Netherlands and Belgium, using the long-established international
networks of ethnic Turks in the west. Longer seasonal work abroad and better payment
than in Greece, for example, have made the municipality of Momchilgrad richer than
that of Kirkovo (interview No. 25).
4.1.2. Cultural impact of seasonal migration – does western culture change the
Bulgarian milieu?
In Kirkovo municipality, there are only 1-2 examples of seasonal migrants who had
started their own business. The mayor explains some of the difficulties in this respect:
"Now, with the future opening of the border checkpoint at Makaza (on the Bulgarian-
Greek border), there come people with savings, asking me what they could do with them.
They want to build gas stations and restaurants along the road to Makaza. Yet the land
around Makaza is chiefly state or municipal property, while private land has already
become too expensive, around 1 500 BGN/dka. They have no clear idea what their
business should be, and with the lack of cheap land, they cannot buy anything. Then they
decide to buy apartments in the city. First, they bought flats in Kurdzhali and Momchilgrad,
now they already buy in Plovdiv, with dollars or euro. Such people do not want to start
work for 200-300 BGN/month anymore. At the moment, there are unemployed
construction workers in the municipality, but the Turkish firm building the road to Makaza
cannot find enough construction workers, because seasonal workers are already used to
European salaries" (interview No. 25).
One of the reasons for the absence of remittances-fuelled entrepreneurship in the
ethnically mixed regions of South-eastern Bulgaria might be the fact that seasonal
migrants, especially irregular ones, are not able to gain sufficient know-how from their
staying abroad. In spite of being in The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, etc., they fail to
communicate with their western colleagues or employers. Not knowing the local
language, they cannot relate meaningfully to the foreign milieu and later transfer the
accumulated knowledge to the Bulgarian soil. Motivated to save as much as they could,
seasonal workers drastically curtail their social and cultural activities and live in
isolation on the margins of host societies. Kept in the networks of ethnic Turks and
Kurds, some of them seem to inhabit parallel worlds with little connection to western
attitudes and way of life. Upon returning to Bulgaria, they often loose all the
acquaintances they had made abroad, even the Bulgarian ones, as well as novel
practices such as communicating through mobile phones or using bank cards (interview
No. 25).
Therefore seasonal work abroad and the particular environment in which it happens seem
to generate further migrations. Its effects on local mobility are two-fold. First, internal
migration of Bulgarian Turks from villages to the towns and further to the bigger cities
has intensified in South-eastern Bulgaria. It was propelled by the savings of seasonal
workers who initially spent their money on building houses in their own villages, then
bought property in the regional town of Kurdzhali, and, last, in Plovdiv, which is the
second biggest city in Bulgaria. Then, after having frozen the remittances into immobile
property or in bank accounts, seasonal labourers remain again unemployed, neither
starting small businesses nor willing to begin work at a lower wage than their
"European" salaries. This pushes them into a new circle of temporary migration and
seasonal employment abroad.