Bulgaria has been the Empire three times.
First time it happened in 681 when Bulgar tribes moved across the Danube and settled in the Balkanregion after making a treaty with Byzantines. In 1018Emperor Basil II defeated Bulgarian army at Klyuch, suppressed revolts and subjugated most of the Bulgarian population by that effectively destroying the Bulgarian Empire number one.
After 167 years of being in thrall to Constantinople, Bulgaria, led by the Asen dynasty, had revolted and the Empire number two lasted from 1185 to 1396. Then Battle of Nicopolis happened and Ottomanstook over Bulgaria for the next almost five hundredyears, until the Army of Russian Czar Alexander II(supported by Bulgarian volunteers) defeated Turks and forced them to sign the Treaty of San Stefano on 3 March 1878.
Such an historical roller coaster is easy to handle for no country. After the Russo-Turkish war, when Bulgaria obtained its statehood for the third time in a less than a thousand years, Tsar Boris III tried to build the Empire number three. However, it proved to be impossible because of the grown up competitions from the part of Austria-Hungary, Montenegro, Greece, Serbia and Romania (to name just a few). As a result, from 1912 to 1918 Bulgaria fought three consecutive wars — two Balkans and WWI.
Those conflicts gave rise to strong nationalistic and military political factions inside Bulgaria and under their influence czar Boris made a pact with the Third Reich trying to leverage Nazi’s growing military strength against neighbors. It came out sideways for Bulgaria and, after left-wing uprising of 9 September 1944 had overthrew the monarchy, Bulgaria fall into the Soviet sphere of influence.
Stalinist ‘kadry’ occupied leading positions in Bulgarian government and purged all oppositions inside the country. In 1949, according to some historian, they, finally, dealt with the Head of the Communist Party of Bulgaria Georgi Dimitrovhimself. For more than 40 years Bulgaria lived under the Sickle and Hammer Symbol then.
Marxists-Leninist Bulgaria, shielded from the competition of IBM and Microsoft by the Warsaw pact, managed to became the “silicon valley of the Communist East”. Many computers (including home PCs) sold in USSR were manufactured in Bulgaria. On top of that, Bulgarian developed agricultural sector provided the Eastern block (notably, the largest of USSR republic — RSFSR — Russian Soviet Federal Socialist State) with canned fruits and vegetableswhich were highly regarded by the striving population there.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union Bulgaria find itself in a very tight spot. Standards of living for the majority population dropped dramatically and haven’t significantly improved since then.
There are many reasons behind that. One is that Bulgaria with its highly educated population used to be the center of science and technology during the Soviet times. In a period of 1990th many qualified specialists with engineering degrees left Bulgaria for the West draining the country of the brainpower. Since then Bulgaria hasn’t had enough time and resources to gain back its competitive edge. Time of hardships and neglects destroyed its educational system and took away its markets.
The popularity of the Communists party in Bulgaria, after the period of decline at in 1991–1995, grow rapidly and they returned to power in 1995 Elections. In 1997 Democrats defeated them again and led the government until 2001 when Simeon II — the heir of Bulgarian czar — became a Prime Minister. After his defeat on 2005 elections Bulgaria has been governed by various coalitions of pro-western and nationalist forces opposed by socialist and lefties parties.
Bulgaria has an unitary parliamentary system of government without Presidential post. According to the results of October 2014 elections, 240-members National Assembly is currently divided between pro-government (mostly center and right-wing parties, led by GERB) and opposition (socialists and leftist parties, led by BSP-Left Bulgaria) blocks. The split is 118 members on the right against 110 members on the left.
Bulgaria is the country with the proud history of the Empire and the uncertain future of the underdeveloped European State.
Hi-tech startups founders in Bulgaria would benefit from low costs of running a business but, at the same time, would be constrained by a relatively small consumer market (of 7 million people, from which almost 1.5 million lives in Sofia) and by startup infrastructure overall deficiency.
Although Bulgaria startup ecosystem presents a variety of profit opportunities for hi-tech entrepreneurs in many traditional fields (such as e-commerce, media, entertainment, e-ducation) it also somehow reduces chances for the long-term success by providing only a limited access to seed and VC financing.
Would this situation last for a prolonged period of time or this is only a temporary disregard from part of VC firms, it’s hard to tell. With so many talented Bulgarians IT specialist leaving their home country in a search of a better life opportunities in neighboring central European capitals, the local pool of talents experiences constant drainage and the country’s educational standards is downgrading.
Business Notes for Startups Founders:
- political climate: moderately friendly;
- economic climate: moderately friendly;
- regions to focus: locally, EU;
- industries to focus: e-commerce, entertainment, education, agriculture, tourism, manufacturing
- major limitations: low personal income (one fourth of that of EU), old telecommunication infrastructure (which was inherited from the Soviet times), relatively small size of the internal market, growing unemployment;
- opportunities: low-cost of living and running business, low taxes, closeness to the European market, relatively high Internet penetration rate (around 60%).