Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 6

Where the plain touches the Black Sea, varieties of tropical or subtropical vegetation appear. Vegetation is dense along the Kamchiya River and on the banks of a few of the smaller streams as they approach the sea. Reeds, lianas, exotic flowers, and huge old trees that grow nowhere else in the country flourish in this region.

In the southern Rodopi, where a few of the river valleys--those of the Struma, Mesta, and Maritsa, for example--open to the south, the vegetation is typically Mediterranean. Natural species include the Mediterranean scrubby underbrush, maquis, and an a.s.sortment of flowering plants and shrubs. Vineyards and subtropical fruit grow well in these valleys. Such areas produce the country's peaches, figs, and peanuts.

Mountainous regions feature Alpine meadows and pastures above the tree line, where the terrain permits, and conifer forests immediately below the tree line. Deciduous trees are native to all of the uplands of the country with tolerable elevations. Beech predominates at intermediate elevations, particularly on northern slopes, and oak, on the lower foothills. There are dense elm, oak, and ash forests at lower elevations in the Kamchiya River valley where it descends from the eastern part of the Stara Planina. Scrub and brush prevail at all upland elevations where terrain and soil conditions are poor or where the original forest has been removed and has not been replaced.

The Stara Planina has gra.s.sy meadowland and pastures on rounded summits and higher slopes. In the springtime these higher lands may also be brilliant with wild flowers and flowering shrubs. Cherry laurel, for example, grows wild over wide areas. The meadows usually give way to beech and to other mixed deciduous forests at lower elevations. Mixed forests may contain varieties of oak, chestnut, hornbeam, elm, and ash.

The most valuable forests are in the Rodopi, although many of them are interspersed among inaccessible craggy hills. A majority of the country's conifers, both the natural forest and those that have been planted in preference to the slower growing deciduous, are in the higher Rodopi, including the Rila and the Pirin. The most common of the conifers are pine and fir. At elevations beneath those dominated by the conifers, the mixture of broad-leaved deciduous trees is similar to that of the Stara Planina. Of the forest area, only about one-half has tall timber. Scrub on the remainder, however, serves to stabilize the soil of the forest lands against erosion and to slow the runoff of water. The rare and exotic edelweiss can be found on the higher slopes of the Pirin.

Wildlife

The clearing of forestland and the increase in human population have driven most of the larger wildlife from their natural habitats, except in the higher and more rugged terrain. Of the larger species, some bears, wild boars, wild goats, wolves, elk, and several species of deer continue to exist naturally. Foxes, wildcats, polecats, squirrels and other rodents, and hare--better able to adjust to existing conditions--are also surviving.

Quail, turtledoves, wild fowl, and other game birds are hunted in restricted seasons. Hunting seasons are also provided for some of the deer species; the seasons usually last between two and four months, depending upon the need to protect the animal, between the months of August and February. There are bounties on wolves and foxes. Wildcats, falcons, and hawks are also considered harmful and may be killed at any time. The polecat--in Europe the _Mustela putorius_, a fetid-smelling member of the weasel and otter family--is a bloodthirsty, insatiable hunter that terrorizes poultry. It also may be exterminated.

The many caves in limestone-dominated regions have given rise to various types of blind fauna. The largest of them are crabs, but most are insects, including mosquitoes, b.u.t.terflies, spiders, locusts, and common flies. Although they are blind, exposure to light is usually fatal to such species.

Rivers contain several kinds of freshwater fish, the most plentiful of which are sturgeon, whitefish, and European carp. Mackerel account for the largest percentage of fish taken from the Black Sea. There are no sharks or other dangerous fish in these waters, but a rare Black Sea seal breeds along the rocky coast north of Varna.

Mineral Resources

The country's mountains contain a variety of metallic and nonmetallic minerals. A few are of good quality, but most of these occur in very small quant.i.ties. Iron and coal, which are basic to a metallurgical industry, are mined, but neither of them is of the proper variety or quality nor are they available in adequate quant.i.ties to be used economically.

Largest deposits of iron ore occur in the far western Stara Planina and the Strandzha mountain range. There are smaller deposits in the vicinity of Burgas, along the Black Sea coast, and near Sofia to the north and west of the city. Estimated reserves total in excess of 10 million tons.

Coal has been located in some twenty small deposits. There is an anthracite basin in the Stara Planina twenty miles north of Sofia and another in the extreme northwest end of the range. Bituminous coal occurs in a larger basin in the central Stara Planina, but brown coals and lignite are much more abundant.

Copper, lead, and zinc are mined in quant.i.ties that exceed domestic requirements. Bulgaria ranks high in the production of them among the eastern and southeastern European countries and exports small amounts of them. Among the other metallic ores, Bulgaria has three of the more important alloying metals--manganese, molybdenum, and chromium--but the manganese is of poor quality. Uranium has been discovered in several deposits near Sofia and is being extracted from one or more of them.

Gold occurs in a number of locations but in small quant.i.ties.

Of the fuels, coal is by far the most abundant and most important to the economy. The search for oil and natural gas resources was intensive in the early post-World War II years, and what were hoped to be valuable fields were discovered in the early 1960s. Production, however, reached a peak in the latter part of that decade. If it becomes economic to exploit them, there are oil-bearing shales west of Sofia and in the northwestern region of the country. The extent of these shales appears to be limited, but their potential is believed to be considerably greater than that of the oil-bearing formations where the crude product is extracted by pumping.

Other minerals extracted include salt, kaolin, chalk, talc, asbestos, gypsum, mica, fluorite, quartzite, antimony, lime, sandstone, slate, and pyrites. The pyrites are plentiful and produce exportable quant.i.ties of sulfur and sulfur products. Fuel resources tend to be concentrated in basins and on lower lands; most other resources, both metal and nonmetal, are more frequently found in the Rodopi, the western Stara Planina, and in the other western highlands.

Mineral waters are locally considered to be an important resource. The country boasts some 500 mineral springs, about one-half of which are warm or hot. Their mineral content varies, as does the concentration of the chemicals. The stronger of those considered medicinal are used for drinking only. The milder are used for drinking and bathing. Sofia has active hot springs that have been in use and have attracted people to the area for centuries. Its first settlement was built around such a spring.

BOUNDARIES AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS

Boundaries

Bulgaria has had nearly a century of modern independence, during which its borders have invariably been imposed upon it by others. This has been the case partly because the Balkan Peninsula was for many years a p.a.w.n in the balance-of-power politics of the more powerful European nations and also because Bulgaria has been on the losing side in three of its four major wars. It even fared badly at the peace table after the only war in which it emerged victorious (see ch. 2).

In spite of these circ.u.mstances, the country has boundaries that have many natural physical characteristics and that have imposed no serious economic hardship on any significant group of people. They also contain a large percentage of the Bulgarian people, although numerous population resettlement movements have contributed to this end. None of its borders are officially disputed.

The total boundary of Bulgaria is about 1,415 miles long. Rivers account for about 425 miles of it, the Black Sea coast for 248 miles, and a great portion of the remainder adheres to ridges in high terrain.

The western and northern boundaries are shared with Yugoslavia and Romania, respectively, and the Black Sea coastline const.i.tutes the entire eastern border. The southern boundary is shared with Greece and Turkey.

Nationalists have territorial ambitions stemming from the size of the Middle Ages Bulgarian empire that encompa.s.sed about one-half of the Balkan Peninsula but, in the local political climate that has existed since World War II, such ambitions are not seriously considered.

The post-World War I boundaries were established in rough detail by the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and a.s.sociated powers and Bulgaria, signed in 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine. They were demarcated by international commissions between 1919 and 1922, formalized by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, and reconfirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1947.

During World War II, again as an ally of Germany, Bulgaria briefly reacquired the coveted portions of Macedonia and Thrace, but the interwar boundaries were restored without much deliberation in 1947 with the agreement of the Soviet Union as well as all of the other major victorious allies. Small deviations from the borders established in the early 1920s have been made for local reasons, but none of them have been of national significance.

The 335-mile border with Yugoslavia was drawn in an attempt to follow the high ridges separating the watersheds of the Morava and Vardar river valleys in Yugoslavia from those of the Iskur and Struma valleys in Bulgaria. The border starts in the north at the junction of the Timok River and the Danube, but it follows the river for only about ten miles.

Leaving the Timok (with a few exceptions when it must cross river valleys), it remains on high ground until it reaches the tripoint with Greece. Although nationalist Bulgarians continue to feel that Bulgaria's share of Macedonia--which it shares with both Yugoslavia and Greece--is less than just, there are no overt official disputes of the boundary.

The border with Greece is 307 miles long--all but forty-nine miles of which are overland. The major portion of it follows higher elevations and ridges in the Rodopi. East of the Struma and Mesta river valleys, insofar as it is feasible, the border is at the dividing line between the Maritsa River basin and those of the streams that flow southward to the Aegean Sea.

Following an official visit by the Greek foreign minister to Sofia in 1946, the Bulgarian premier stated that "all territorial claims [between Greece and Bulgaria] are excluded forever." This statement indicates that boundary frictions that had persisted for many years were officially eliminated at that time, and as of 1973 the border was not disputed.

The Turkish border is 149 miles long. It follows small rivers and streams for more than 40 percent of its length, but neither they nor the overland sections const.i.tute physical boundaries or barriers of any consequence.

The Romanian border follows the Danube River for about 290 miles from the northwestern corner of the country to the city of Silistra and then cuts to the east-southeast for about eighty-five miles across the old province of Dobrudzha. The Danube, with steep bluffs on the Bulgarian side and a wide area of swamps and marshes along much of the Romanian, is one of the better natural river boundaries in Europe. Most of the river islands that might be expected to bridge the gap between the countries are damp and covered with marsh vegetation. They are subject to regular inundation by floodwaters and, therefore, are uninhabited.

The line across Dobrudzha is arbitrary and has been redrawn on several occasions. The population of the area that has changed hands is mixed, but most of those who have strong national preferences have been resettled in the country of their choice.

A joint resolution adopted between Bulgaria and Romania in April 1971 allowed somewhat easier transit of their border. A pa.s.sport was still required, but residents of the twelve-mile-wide zone on each side of the border became able to make one crossing each month without a visa. Each visit was limited to six days, and the destination and residence to be visited were subject to the approval of local police. The agreement made no changes in custom regulations and was not, therefore, intended to change trade relations between the countries.

Political Subdivisions

The country is subdivided into twenty-eight _okruzi_ (sing., _okrug_), which are usually translated as districts, and has some 200 towns and cities and approximately 5,500 villages or settlements. The cities and larger towns are subdivided into _rayoni_ (sing., _rayon_), and the smaller villages are grouped together into _obshtini_ (sing., _obshtina_). The _rayoni_ and _obshtini_ are the urban boroughs and village communes that are the smallest units of local government, that is, those that have people's councils (see fig. 3).

The twenty-eight _okruzi_ include one for the city of Sofia and its immediate vicinity as well as one for a larger Sofia district. Each _okrug_ is named for the city that is its administrative center. They have areas ranging from 794 to 2,916 square miles and populations of about 130,000 to about 650,000.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Figure 3. Political Subdivisions of Bulgaria, 1973_]

The number of _okruzi_ has been changed only at times of major governmental reorganization, the most recent of which was in 1959. The _obshtini_, on the other hand, are in a state of relatively constant change. Cities grow, towns become cities, new enterprises are set up and attract population, and other factors affect the need for local administration. Since the reorganization of 1959, when the _obshtini_ were reduced by nearly one-half--from about 1,950 to just over 1,000--their number has tended to grow again. By the late 1960s there were about 1,150 of them.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

The Bulgarians, who were mounted archers from the steppes of central Asia, rode into the area between the Danube River and the Stara Planina in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. They interbred with the Slavs and adopted a Slavic language and many Slavic customs, but they retained enough individuality to remain readily identifiable. In spite of horrifying defeats and treatment at the hands of Byzantines and Ottomans, they were in the land to stay and never relinquished their t.i.tle to a share of the peninsula.

For several centuries before their independence from the Turks, the people preferred to live in the hills, motivated by the sheer necessity of having to escape the notice of their oppressive occupiers. They returned to the fertile plains and valleys in large numbers only after independence in 1878. Since 1945 there has been a major movement of people to the cities as the country has become industrialized, and there has been a lesser movement of the rural population resulting from the collectivization of agricultural lands.

Each major movement has brought about some improvement over the conditions of the period that preceded it. Settlement in the back hills was particularly necessary during the last years of Turkish control, when the Ottoman Empire was in decline and its local controls and taxation became increasingly oppressive. To avoid attracting attention to themselves, the people settled into small hamlets and built their homes as bare and unattractive as possible.

With independence life on the plains was safer and easier. For a time there was plenty of good land available but, as the population grew, inevitably the land became occupied, and the size of individual landholdings decreased. Between the turn of the century and the mid-1980s, for example, the average landholding decreased from 18.2 to 12.2 acres, a size that was agriculturally uneconomic and that overpopulated the rural areas. People remained poor and, although it was no longer necessary to keep them plain, peasant homes amounted to little more than small, bare, essential shelter.

Under the communist government, the first near-complete collectivization program served to increase the size of farmland units in collective and state farms to an average of about 10,000 acres each. In 1970, with an average of less than 1,100 fully employed farmers at each of the larger units, the ratio of farmers to acres of arable land had fallen sharply.

In 1973 the agricultural lands were again recombined, this time into about 170 units called agroindustrial complexes. The rural population is still, however, for the most part cl.u.s.tered in unplanned, nucleated villages or hamlets. Long, single-street villages are rare. Many villages are situated in valleys for shelter from cold winter winds. A gradual movement to housing at the agroindustrial centers will undoubtedly take place, but there was no indication in 1973 that the movement would be a rapid one or that the government intended to make it a matter of urgent priority.

Post-World War II emphasis on educational and cultural pursuits and rural development has made more community life and more amenities available to the rural areas. Dwelling s.p.a.ce remains meager, with only a little more than 500 feet of floors.p.a.ce per dwelling. By 1970 central water supplies were available to over 90 percent of the population, but fewer than one half of the dwellings had individual service. Nearly all dwellings have electricity.

Bulgaria has been primarily agricultural and has been overrun, pillaged, and occupied by so many conquerors that its cities have suffered, and their inhabitants have had less opportunity than have those in most European countries to develop a culture. There are relatively few cities with noteworthy a.s.sociations with the country's past. There are, however, a few notable exceptions, and some of their histories antedate the introduction of the Bulgar people into the region. There are others that, if not altogether new, have had rapid and well-planned growth during the country's recent history. Modern city growth has been accompanied by the construction of large numbers of apartment houses, many of them built as rapidly as possible to recover s.p.a.ce destroyed during World War II and to accommodate the heavy influx of people to urban areas.