Bulgaria’s nature was subject to constant greedy violation made by vacation property developers that had taken over all the country’s former paradises like the small skiing resort of Bansko, Reuters said in a comment on October 29.

While foreigners were buying cheap vacation property in Bulgaria’s mountain and seaside resorts, pushing up the price of agricultural land from 20 euro to 250 euro sq m for the past five years, this market boom came at a cost, Reuters said in the article dedicated to Bansko.

“The once idyllic little town with cobblestone streets and traditional architecture, which in the 1980s was popular among skiers and hikers from the former Soviet bloc, has changed beyond recognition,” Reuters said. It was now stuffed with concrete hotels, which were difficult to reach through the roads that were damaged, and also had insufficient infrastructure and growing pressure on its water resources.

Lots of old, noisy trucks carried concrete and bricks over unpaved roadways to Bansko’s “mushrooming” new districts. Dust and huge cranes spoiled the view to the Pirin Mountain.

The article pointed to the flourishing corruption among local and state authorities, which had allowed for the excessive construction to become a fact. The “tale of Bansko” was a copy of the property boom seen also in other mountain resorts, as well as in Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts, where corporate appetites were growing and laws, rules and environment protection were often compromised.

Real-estate developers were now turning their attention to Bulgaria’s protected nature areas. Several consecutive governments, which made tourism a priority, had promised to crack down on illegal building but little had been done inpractise, Reuters said.