Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country • Hacker News Board

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#61

Post by StavrosK » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:28 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #53

StavrosK wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the new Greek government manages to compete with this, so the next post will advertise Greece in this way. Most of your list applies here as well, except we have amazing food and beaches.

Seconding this. I was recently for 2 weeks in Santorini, which is considered pretty expensive compared to the rest of Greece, and everything was actually very affordable (esp. if you learn to keep your distance from the more tourist-infested areas). The whole time during my stay I kept thinking how nice it would be to work from there. Clear blue sky, beaches and fresh grilled fish. Wow.

Yeah, spending four months working from the beach is basically why I haven't left already. There are some amazing places in a one-hour radius.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#62

Post by dmurray » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #50

cpursley wrote: post #25

A side effect of a stagnant economy and population shrinkage is that Bulgarian property is really cheap. You can purchase a modern flat starting around $15,000 (or rent for really cheap) in a ski community with a very strong remote worker presence (Bansko). If you do this right, you can also become a resident and benefit from a flat 10% income tax which is lowest in the EU. No affiliation; I just find this type of ar…

And assuming the EU's freedom of movement holds eventually people and business will realize this and move there. Then they'll do what everyone else does shoot themselves in the foot by making everything expensive. Eventually the new growth will happen elsewhere and the cycle will repeat.

That would be absolutely fine for Bulgaria. They're rightly more worried about not being able to take part in the boom part of a cycle at all.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#63

Post by saiya-jin » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

eanthy wrote: post #38

_hao wrote: post #12

As a Bulgarian living and working in London for more than a year now, I have no intention of going back. The IT sector in the country is booming and the money you can make relative to the cost of living is insane - you can live like a king. To me that is not enough. Money are not enough to make me go back, even though I miss my friends and family. One of the biggest problems for me is that the country is stuck in thi…

How does the politics and whatever people are saying affect your day to day life though? If you can make 10k a month there and buy a flat for 15k, in a few years you don't even need to work anymore. Why would you not even consider living there? Maybe as the old saying: familiarity breeds contempt

That's a thing with corrupt, mafia-ridden places - high income will get noticed, unless you try to hide it continuously, effectively and consistently. Then why to have it in the first place. This is not some anonymous 10-million mega city, but place where people know people and foreigners stick out.

Politics being corrupt means that anytime you want law to protect you, there would be a hand expecting bribe. Also, usually medical care in such places tends to be subpar. Etc etc etc.

It might be a good investment, unless taxation on owned property is/will become bad. Unless you speak well local language, dealing with many things related to ownership will be a pain.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#64

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

mihaifm wrote: post #27

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #5

Since a lot of the emigration is to other EU countries it can be comparatively easily reversed. It’s harder for Serbia, Bosnia etc.

It's pretty much irreversible. Most of the emigration comes from Eastern European countries which hardly get any imigrants of their own. Very few people who leave choose to return. Within a generation (two at most) they fully integrate into the foreign culture, so that population is lost.

People said the same about Poland.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#65

Post by algo_trader » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:31 PM UTC

_hao wrote: post #18

moltar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the tech salaries like in Bulgaria?

If you have 5 years of experience as a Senior Back-end engineer you can get something between 2000€-4000€ net (after taxes) in the Bulgarian currency lev - BGN. The Lev is pegged to the Euro at 1.95BGN for 1€. In the capital where the tech jobs are located with that kind of salary you can afford anything you want.

Can u mention the best/walkable/sociable neighbourhoods for a visiting developer in Sophia and/or Bansko?

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#66

Post by algo_trader » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

mdw wrote: post #30

I’ve been living in Bulgaria for the past 4 months, bootstrapping my startup. I can say Bulgaria is a great place to come due to its affordable cost of living, comparable to Thailand/Bali, but easy access to European cities, for me it was the best choice. The community of digital workers in Bansko, Bulgaria is really growing.

Can u mention the best/walkable/sociable neighbourhoods for a visiting developer in Sophia and/or Bansko?

thanks

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#67

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

_hao wrote: post #12

As a Bulgarian living and working in London for more than a year now, I have no intention of going back. The IT sector in the country is booming and the money you can make relative to the cost of living is insane - you can live like a king. To me that is not enough. Money are not enough to make me go back, even though I miss my friends and family. One of the biggest problems for me is that the country is stuck in thi…

[deleted]

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#68

Post by kungito » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #50

cpursley wrote: post #25

A side effect of a stagnant economy and population shrinkage is that Bulgarian property is really cheap. You can purchase a modern flat starting around $15,000 (or rent for really cheap) in a ski community with a very strong remote worker presence (Bansko). If you do this right, you can also become a resident and benefit from a flat 10% income tax which is lowest in the EU. No affiliation; I just find this type of ar…

And assuming the EU's freedom of movement holds eventually people and business will realize this and move there. Then they'll do what everyone else does shoot themselves in the foot by making everything expensive. Eventually the new growth will happen elsewhere and the cycle will repeat.

I wouldn't call this a cycle as much as consolidation. People are moving away from certain areas because their culture requires things which do not exist there anymore and other people with different culture then go there for other reasons. These new people cause some local things to start adapting to the new culture growing in that area.

I guess we are talking about farming families moving to Germany and cities looking for jobs because big industry doesn't exist in the villages anymore and they aren't the business type which can adapt to modern farming and way of doing business. Then there's highly educated people who wish to move away from the city and start doing remote work from some nice countryside or business people from the city who want to start a modern farming or tourism industry somewhere. I wouldn't say this is a cycle because this is one cultural transformation which has been going on in transitioning countries for the past 2-3 decades and not something which is happening every 10 years causing people to move back.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#69

Post by eru » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #4

ovi256 wrote: post #2

Its neighbour to the north, Romania, may be in a similar situation, for the same reasons. It lost 6 million people since 1990, with several million each living in Spain and Italy.

Am Romanian, I entered the comment section to say the same thing. More than half my friends and work acquaintances from the last 10-15 years have moved abroad.

East Germany is pretty much the same. Only that it doesn't show up on country-wide stats because most people just go to West Germany.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#70

Post by kungito » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

tbojanin wrote: post #19

moltar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the tech salaries like in Bulgaria?

My cousin is in his 20's, roughly makes 10,000/ month (~ $5600 USD). That salary is absolutely amazing. The article states the minimum monthly salary is $320 ( which a large amount of people make, given that Bulgaria lacks a middle class). The reason he stays in Bulgaria is because of that, he wanted to come join me in the US, but he didn't want to emigrate. edit: mrtksn's comment hits the nail on top of the head.

I keep hearing about these famous salaries in Croatia as well but my impression is that most people get a starting monthly net salary of 1000€ after masters in CS or SDE. Then there's some people who interned during college which get salaries from 1200-2000€ after college depending on how much networking they did. Then there's like 1% of developers/scientists who make 2-5k€ by being able to somehow market them to some external big corps as specialists or consultants but most people including me do not know how to do this. Is your cousin doing remote work for some fancy company or is that by being a full time in a local company?