There is this billboard, an advert stuck at many of the intersections of Sofia, advertising “the last beautiful place”, this being a housing development on the Black Sea coast.

The sign is clean, sleek, white with black printing and a swash of blue. Modern, affluent, as its target audience should also be.  I’m sure that the development is all of those things. Judging from the house plan drawn on the sign, some thought, at least, has been put into the architectural design – more thought, that is, than simply: “how quick can I get a quadruple return on investments?”

Below a street plan of the new community, it reads:

“The charm of old Town X, recreated on Cape Q, two km south of Town X in the direction of Dyuni. Now you can possess a part of that dreamed-of place when you become owner of an apartment or house in X-opolis.”

(Note that the housing development is not named “X”, nor is the cape named “Q”.)

And as sure as I am that the planned community is clean, sleek, modern and affluent, I am also certain that this site was one of the last beautiful places in Bulgaria. No, I lie. There are a number of remaining beautiful places –  for now. The irony is that a project would promote itself as being the final location of pristine beauty in the country. Of course that is not the intention, but such an interpretation is unavoidable.

The point is this: calling to halt construction at Irakli has just been declared a moot point because of legal confusion about dates of permission and non-permission. The market is over-saturated with new construction; the real estate bubble is due to burst soon (the recent-current US financial crisis anyone?). The new construction that there is is shoddy, done out of get-rich-quick greed and lack of forethought (not to mention the pollution and destruction that it causes at the time of realisation, and the again pollution, destruction and waste that it will cause in seven or 13 or 20 years when it all comes down).

And, who will there be to buy or rent or let this all (I’m not talking about X-opolis here, but in general as concerns Bulgaria) when all that is surrounding your new house or you holiday hotel room or villa is a sea of cement and a forest of SUVs?

It disturbs me greatly that people do not think through what they are doing or how it might affect their future and the future of others around them. As I said once to a boy in the park: “If you do not have a functioning society, it will be you who is out there trying to find places to dispose your rubbish, you who is growing and harvesting the cotton so you can eventually make your own clothing out of it.”

What about the places that do exist already? Take the former Chinese embassy. It stands, or tries to, illuminated at night. At night it is beautiful; during the day, its flaking plaster, rotting-out window frames, chipping cherubs and falling roof call out for help. There was ”activity” at the building back in late April. At first I had hopes that someone who could had decided to love the building, then, when nothing visibly changed, it was hard to not think of the “accidental” collapse of the historic building on Alabin Street back in September 2006.

Walking through Sofia, most of the beautiful buildings date back to the early 1900s to 1930s. Most of them also look like they have not been touched by caring hands since that time. These structures, yet technically safeguarded by a decree that inhibits the destroying of historic buildings, are left to fall, because once they do fall of their own failure to withstand any longer, it is permitted to bring in the wrecking ball and bulldozer and do away with... it.

This angers, disgusts and upsets me to a degree that can only be expressed through the clenching of fists and utter silence, lest I explode.

Bulgaria is the only country in the European Union that has no sort of subsidies or tax breaks for the renovation and restoration of historic buildings. Even the United States, as forward thinking as it is, realises the significance of such sites. People do not go to Paris or London or New York or Buenos Aires because the all buildings are new and modern.

The last beautiful place – I mourn for it.