Over the past week I’ve been wandering through several of the nearby villages. While they are peaceful and full of character, it’s hard not to feel a little sad seeing the condition of many houses, the roads, and the signs of poverty.
It wasn’t always like this.
During the communist era, large state farms planted orchards across the Thracian Valley—almonds, peaches and apricots stretching for kilometres. But after the system collapsed in the early 1990s, the land was returned to thousands of individual owners. The big farms were broken into small parcels, and many people had already moved to cities like Plovdiv or abroad for work.
With fewer people left to farm the land, many orchards were simply abandoned. Over time the trees kept growing, slowly becoming semi-wild.
Another reason is simple economics. Large producers in places like California in the United States and Spain dominate the almond market, making it difficult for small Bulgarian farms to compete. Many farmers switched to crops that are more profitable today, like grains, vineyards or lavender.
So now, as you wander through these villages, you often see almond trees blooming away—little reminders of a very different farming past.
