The pipeline city of Burgas and its Greek links
The word Burgas (the ancient Greek Pyrgos) is today associated in most people’s minds with the natural gas pipeline from Russia through to Alexandroupolis. Few remember that this corner of the Black Sea was the birthplace of the late Greek poet Costas Varnalis, that it gave refuge to the defeated in the Greek civil war, and betrayed yet others who had lived there for centuries. «Pyrgos (Burgas is what the Turks and Bulgarians called it) was a young town – nearly all its houses and public buildings were new – with a proper town plan, drains and order throughout,» wrote Varnalis in the early 20th century about his hometown. He preferred to remember it as he knew it as a child, before its Greeks began to be persecuted. At that time, huge Greek flags flew from the cargo ships that entered its port. «As a child, I thought that the size of the flag showed the greatness of the nation,» he wrote later. Varnalis almost missed out on a scholarship to study in Athens because he insisted that he was born in «Pyrgos, Bulgaria» instead of Pyrgos, Eastern Romylia» as his chauvinist professors would have it. That «new» town is now the fourth-largest city in Bulgaria, its largest port and perhaps the largest energy hub in the Balkans. Visitors from Greece who have read Varnalis’s literary memoirs are certain to wonder where they are when they catch sight of the petroleum refineries, railway lines, casino and large hotels. «Do you known that the hotel where you are staying belongs to one of the biggest mobsters in Bulgaria?» our taxi driver asked us. We didn’t know, but we could have guessed by the impressive glass structure with a view of the harbor. This is certainly not Varnalis’s Burgas, where «cunning Greek and Jewish merchants make money out of the simple peasants of Bulgaria.» Now it is a different economic elite that controls the town. In the intervening century, Burgas has been through two World Wars, a Communist regime, shock therapy from international economic organizations and an eventual victory by market forces and organized crime. From being an industrial center it became a center for sex tourism and is now attracting foreign tourists and investments. Paradoxically, it has been successful. Hundreds of British tourists land here every year for their summer holidays, some to buy land a few kilometers north of the town. Adding to the mix in the near future will be a few dozen US military personnel. The Pentagon, having decided some years ago to redistribute some of its forces in Central and Eastern Europe, is particularly interested in this region which has been surveyed by a number of US generals. With a Russian gas pipeline and an American base within a stone’s throw of Burgas, it might be in for its own little cold war, and it wouldn’t be for the first time. History Several times in its history it has had to strike a balance between the demands of the «Great Powers.» The first to realize the town’s strategic significance were colonists from ancient Apollonia (now Sozopol) who set up watchtowers and military camps in the area. These later expanded to form the ancient town of Pyrgos, an outpost of Apollonia against the Thracian colony of Mesimvria (now Nesebar). The town retained its strategic importance during the Roman Empire, and during the Middle Ages a fortress was built there as a military observation point. Only after Bulgaria joined the Eastern bloc did the town begin to resemble an industrial center. The port was vastly enlarged and refineries began to spring up right next to the center of town. At night the atmosphere was stifling and the beaches polluted. The town appeared to be condemned, but did not succumb to its fate. In contrast to other Bulgarian towns that experienced «Socialist urbanization,» it managed to retain certain architectural elements from the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as elegant two-story homes and the old Greek marketplace. As a result, there is a cultural mosaic of the city’s best and worst elements, including the neon-lit casino and two concert halls where hundreds of people enjoy classical music every day. The ultramodern Technology University is just a few blocks from an ugly high-rise that once housed the «Hall of the People.» During the evening it is only a few minutes’ walk from the Greek market to more chic districts of bars and nightclubs. «What is at risk [from the pipeline],» said Natasa Tantinova, head of the local journalists’ union, «is not the city’s identity but the surrounding environment.» She agrees with the politicians in Sofia who say that at the political and economic level Bulgaria needs a project that will create jobs and allow it to achieve a balance between the US, the European Union and Russia. Along with nearly everyone else in the town, however, she believes that there are huge environmental risks but almost no offset benefits, and locals have not been properly informed about the project. In contrast, Manuk Manukian, of the environmental organization Burgas Ecoglasnost, claimed that local biotopes will be destroyed since no environmental survey has been carried out for the pipeline. «We know we can’t stop it and so we are asking for safety guarantees,» he said. This article appeared in the June 24 issue of Kathimerini’s Sunday supplement, K.
