Why Yanko swears and Kiro threatens, or how the people of Varna protested against the “improvement” of the city

July 2, 2023 “The playground will be cut in half and moved. They will cut down the pines next to it and make a fitness area. They dug up the foundations of the tree next to the site and it will fall. Maybe they will come tomorrow. We are ready…”

July 3, 2023 “They came. They walked around the field quite a bit and surveyed the situation. It’s like they agreed with us. They were soft. They sensed that there would be fighting and aggression. Our Yanko appeared – shouting, swearing. And Kiro threatened them…”

The situation is not the beginning of a thriller, but messages between neighbors in the Levski district of Varna. The occasion to exchange such information has started the repair of the inter-block space. The “comers” who “soften” are from the municipal administration in Varna and from the contractor company of the site.

The renovation season in Varna occurs once every 4 years. Before the election, millions are poured into the improvement of inter-block spaces, sidewalks, playgrounds, playgrounds. The money for the mass improvement cannot be provided only from own funds, so the local treasury resorts to loans, which also burdens the investment with interest. Of course, no one asks the residents of Varna, neither how and where to invest their money, nor how the garden and gazebo in front of their block should look. The municipality decides based on unclear criteria which inter-block spaces it will renovate, entrusts one company with the design and another with the implementation. For years, these are the same companies, and the scheme is also unchanged. Therefore, after the inter-neighbor announcement on July 2 and the excavator stopped with a live chain that undermined the foundations of a tree, the repair work in the 23rd microdistrict was stopped. In the square between “Studentska”, “Nedelcho Kaikov” and “Vasil Petleshkov” streets, for a month and a half, deep ditches and trenches have been gaping next to the playground fence, from which cables protrude, dilapidated tiles are piled up, and the sidewalks on the north side at block 14 at 14 “Studentska” Str

like after a bombing

It is not clear why the local government imagined that the people living in the neighborhood would be happy about a renovated, but reduced from 330 to 250 square meters sports field. That they will welcome a children’s playground covered with soft flooring, but reduced by 40%. That they will welcome fitness equipment and new lighting, at the expense of less tree vegetation.

“A smaller playground means fewer people”, “We don’t want to remove trees”, “Can’t you make a non-standard playground at the insistence of the citizens of Varna?”, “We prefer that nothing be done on the playground, that it remains in its current form”, “A few benches you can put in”…

The captured remarks are those of the residents of Studentska Street during an impromptu meeting at the beginning of July with the director of the Engineering Infrastructure and Improvement Directorate Petar Garbuzov, representatives of the Primorski district and Inzhstroyengineering – the contractor company.

People’s fears

are provoked by the reduction of the children’s playground in order to free up private property earmarked for development. This is happening even though back in 2014, the Expert Council on Territorial Planning decided that it should receive an allotment for landscaping. For nearly 10 years, the decision has not been implemented by the city administration, which has not changed.

Dissatisfaction with the repairs also arose in the area of “Summer Cinema Trakia”. In the Ecovarna editorial office, we received a report about tree trunks buried with concrete mixtures on Strahil Voivoda Street in its section with the intersection with Slivnitsa Blvd. The contractor of the object “Inter-duplex space within the area of the square “Otets Paisiy” street, “Oborishte” street, “Slivnitsa” blvd., “Vladislav Varnenchik” blvd. is again “Inzhstroyengineering”. The amount of the repair amounts to BGN 1.428 million excluding VAT, secured through a bank loan. The municipality is categorical that there are no violations” in the process of the construction and installation works, which are still ongoing. The inspection was carried out by experts from the Engineering Infrastructure and Public Works Directorate – the same one that promised the people of Studentska Street to revise the repair plan according to their requirements, but there has been no development or work on the site for more than a month. In one case

we have concreted trees

and in the other – undermined.

“The specialists of the municipality of Varna have hardly heard of the concept of “Placemaking”. According to her, the creation of a public place should be a joint process between citizens, experts and managers, through which we can maximize the benefit of public spaces”, comments Iliyan Iliev from the Public Center for Environment and Sustainable Development. If this concept had been implemented before the design of the improvement sites, conflicts with citizens would have been avoided or at least minimized, Iliev is emphatic. Especially since the repairs, even if they were pre-election ones, are paid for out of the citizens’ pockets. The debts of the Municipality of Varna at the end of last year exceeded BGN 135 million. The amount represents more than 1/5 of the budget of the seaside city. 12.6 million was withdrawn this year only to complete the improvement of inter-block spaces in the district “Kaisieva gradina”.

The application