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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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For Sale: VillagesWith houses, gated communities, vacation clubs and other stuff flooding the real estate market in the former communist countries it's time to put the labels 'For Sale' on entire villages. The reason to sell these entire former living communities is clear, many of these villages are empty, their centuries-old 'infrastructures' are decaying; without fresh investments only the maps would soon tell us that there was a vibrant social life in many of them. With the remaining population moving definitively to the larger cities, whole regions in what used to be the communist bloc from the former Iron Curtain up to the Far East are left to slow death.
Demographic U-turnWith very few exceptions the pre-communist world in Central and Eastern Europe, and in what used to be the Soviet Union was a rural one. Only a half a century ago between 50 and 90 percent of the population were predominantly poor peasants, laboring land with very primitive, almost archaic tools. They produced not so much food to feed constantly growing urban population, as was the case in the West. The only thing these peasants produced in large numbers was children, enough and, just in case, a bit more than the number needed to help the parents to labor the land. In less than 2 generations the communism eliminated completely this demographic 'problem' in many countries. Peasants en mass were moved toward industry and urban services. Only bare minimum of people was left to produce food. Those who were left behind either stopped making children, or saw their children leaving for the cities.
Current situationSmall and overcrowded islands of civilization in the middle of nowhere, this is what many foreign observers see and report when they leave their cozy hotel rooms and decide to travel by land. The picture doesn't change dramatically when the travelers go from west to east. The 'islands' just become less and less frequent, the spaces in between larger and larger. Thousands of villages in Central and Eastern Europe are either abandoned or are demographically left without future; the youngest women remaining there are far above childbearing age. In Russia with its harsher climate the situation is worse, the completely abandoned villages and villages left without future are tens of thousands. Siberia is especially hit hard. The only rural communities that escaped this deadly trend are in the poorest post-communist countries with totally crumbling or inexistent industries. The population there is either traditionally attached to the land or it's forced economically back to the land in order to survive.
What can be done?Let's face the reality; in most cases unfortunately nothing can be done to stop this hemorrhage. People will inevitably die, what they have done will gradually disappear, the nature will turn the cultivated lands into grassy plains or forests, only people adventurous enough to go the roads leading to nowhere will someday find traces of past civilizations. But not all abandoned villages are completely doomed. Peasant civilizations knew where to organize settlements. It wasn't only a place to work that they were looking for, but also a place to live and to enjoy life. Some rural communities in Eastern Europe existed for thousands of years in one particular location, much longer than many modern urban 'islands of civilization' will ever last.Putting tags 'For Sale' is one possible solution for making these villages live again. People moving there will be different and their way of life won't look like the way it used to be. Tourism instead of agriculture will almost certainly be the driving force for these new settlements. Foreigners will hardly fill enough space. No matter how high is the tide of future Western baby-boom retirees moving eastward they won't be able to engulf the living habitat that was once left empty by hundreds of millions. It will ultimately be the local population, the generations following those who left the land that may decide to occupy their former living space.
 An abandoned house in an abandoned village somewhere in Siberia --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Russia.
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