Real Estates Bulgaria
There is one undoubted gem in Bulgaria
that’s utterly lost on the me-too developers
busy despoiling the Black Sea
coast or scarring mountains with ever
more ski resorts, let alone the young
men in cheap suits talking nonsense at
British property shows. It’s Bulgaria’s breathtakingly
beautiful, unspoilt and empty countryside.
Curiously enough, this was the feature of the country
highlighted on Channel 4’s A Place In The Sun
back in 2003, to which is attributed the beginning of
the British obsession with acquiring property in
Bulgaria.
Much of the programme concentrated on Veliko
Tarnovo, the ancient capital before the Ottoman
conquest, and the surrounding countryside of limestone
cliffs, forests and fast-flowing rivers.
With echoes of Burgundy – the local wines are
highly esteemed, too – the landscape contains
enticing clues to Bulgaria’s turbulent history, from
the beautiful monastery complex at Dryanovo –
scene of one of the worst Bulgarian massacres by
the Turks in the 1870s that so upset Gladstone (the
only Briton immortalised in street names in the
country) – to the grim concrete holiday dacha of
Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s Communist ruler.
Two former UK town planners, Stephane Lambert,
40, and Andy Anderson, 41, helped the programmemakers,
having gone to Bulgaria in 1998 to work on
the EU-funded Beautiful Bulgaria project. After
restoring historic buildings in Veliko Tarnovo, they
stayed on, married Bulgarians, and set up one of the
first international estate agencies, real estates bulgaria.
Named after the surrounding mountains,
the agency started as a kitchentable
business selling country village
houses to like-minded Bulgarophiles –
retired teachers, dreamers, slackers,
the divorced. Anyone, in short, who
wanted a flavour of living in Tuscany
or Provence for a fraction of the price.
Seven properties were sold in 2001, 20
in 2002, and 200 in 2005 and this year.
These pioneers, who now have several
offices and 30 staff, have been joined
by others. Today, there are 20 estate
agencies in Veliko Tarnovo and,
according to Julian Georgiev, a former
parliamentary deputy and local government
minister, there are 6,000 British
homeowners living in villages within a
100 km radius of the old capital.
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