Racism in Bulgaria?

[browncurls]

Hi all,
I REALLY hate asking this question but feel that it's one I should ask before I fall in love with the idea of buying a house in Bulgaria.
My partner and I have a small amount of money and had been looking at Bulgarian property with a view of having it as a holiday home to start with then moving full time once our son has flown the nest to possibly start a business or just grow old doing nothing.
However, I am mixed race and my friend raised a question which I myself had not thought of and that was whether there was much racism in Bulgaria? Would I be welcomed if I moved there?
I started searching the internet and found the horror stories of skinheads and the violence against Romas and Nigerian immigrants and it made me think that the whole idea was out of the window. I equally found posts where people of all cultures have travelled without any problems. Thank you
p.s. I confess that I have not even visited Bulgaria yet

[Dave]

Hi, browncurls, and welcome.

I'm glad you're asking the difficult but important questions before you fall in love with the idea of buying your house - even though it's horrible that you should have to ask about racism. Believe it or not, some people go a significant way down the track towards buying property abroad (including handing over money) before they've even visited the country they're planning to move to.

I'm not qualified to answer your question directly - I've never been to Bulgaria either, only overflown it en route further south and east. The impression I've had from the posts on this forum has been that there is some racism (where isn't there?), but not to the horrendous extent portrayed in the more sensationalist media.

But that's just my impression and, as I say, I've never been there. Probably the only reliable way of finding out is to visit for yourself - though I can see you'd want some more reliable information before doing that. Hopefully someone currently there will be along soon and can give an on-the-spot view.

Best of luck with your research, anyway.