Fact Finding in Burgas, Bulgaria
Rubber Dragon made a trip to Bulgaria January 2011 for a fact finding mission to savour the atmosphere, explore business opportunities, check out cheap property and enjoy the sunshine.
Bourgas is a sea port on the Black Sea coast in eastern Bulgaria, the fourth largest city in Bulgaria, it's a good stop over point before heading out to visit coastal resorts such as Sunny Beach, Sozopol, Primorsko and Tsarevo.
The Atmosphere in Burgas
While the climate here is hot and Mediteranean, January isn't the best time to visit Burgas, the weather was generally cold, but still significantly better than in northern Europe. People were wrapped up warm and must have been sitting home for much of the time because the streets were fairly quiet outside of working hours. On Sunday afternoon when you'd expect families to be out walking and kids playing in the park, a large housing estate we visited was really dead, the streets empty.
Favourite places to eat, Happy Bar, Pizza kiosks, Jamies Sports Bar and Marakesh (where we had the healthy fruit breakfast pictured left). There are no Italian restaurants, except for a couple of expensive looking international food restaurants, and didn't see any Indian restaurants either!
Stayed at the Fotinov Hotel, located in the heart of the old town centre with comfortable rooms, friendly staff and family atmosphere.
The clubs don't have dance floors, instead people dance next to their tables in their groups. This seemed really quite strange and didn't encourage interaction between people. My favourite place was Roxy, close to the railway station, pumping good original dance music and the friendliest crowd.
Plenty of live Premiership football, it seems they cover all the games and even show highlights of big games from years gone by, all on free satelitte tv.
Lot of tom cats roaming the streets and seagulls in the sky. Out in the countryside we saw quite a lot of hawks.
Instead of central heating, most places have air conditioning units which include heating.
Cheap Property in Bulgaria
On my first walk around the town centre, one of things that stood out was the number of estate agents, seemingly addressing international clients with sunny beachside apartments!
We visited a number of bargain properties costing in the region of £10,000, small houses with large gardens, in need of attention, located in pretty villages around 30 minutes from the sea and Bourgas. The economic crisis has hit hard in Bulgaria and it seems that following the property boom a few years ago, the market is flushed of capital. Either way £10,000 doesn't seem like a great deal to invest, particularly when the properties we saw are close to the sea, located in beautiful countryside and with mediteranean climate. Contact us for more details on property opportunities or visit Century 21 who were the most helpful estate agent we were in touch with.
Business Opportunities and
the Website Design Market
If you are able to offer good quality service, Burgas offers opportunities where service quality is often below par. Market entry costs are low, there is plenty of vacant commercial property, a large work force available and Bulgaria has the lowest wages in the European Union.
We contacted a number of website design firms in Bourgas, there is certainly less competition here than in Swindon where we are based. The internet isn't deemed as such a crucial business tool as it is in the UK, prices for web services are low but we expect the market will will pick up over the next few years. We did find some high quality design firms with excellent rates.
Bulgaria Web Resources and Links
Bulgarian Classifieds, www.alo.bg and www.jobs.bg.
Popular Web Portal and Email Accounts, www.abv.bg.
Bourgas Photo Gallery
Even though Bourgas is an industrial port city it does have some lovely places, further down the coast we visited the beautiful small fishing village of Sozopol.
Visit our digital photo album for more photographs from Burgas in Bulgaria.
The pretty fishing village of Sozopol.
The pier in Burgas on the Black Sea coast.
The port is closed to tourists.
Most of Bourgas is run down communist era apartment blocks.
Wizz Air flight arriving from Luton
Visits our digital photo album for more pictures.
