Doing Business in Bulgaria over the Past 30 Years

by Dr. Barbara Page-Roberts

Dr. Barbara Page-Roberts is International Marketing Consultant who has been connected to Bulgaria for many years.

“I have spent the most of the past 30 years in Bulgaria, and I consider it to be a privilege that I live here permanently for the past ten.” – Dr. Barbara Page Roberts

On the face of it Sofia does not look so different from when I first came here to explore business potential in May 1984.

Of course there are huge differences – not least the shopping – Food Supermarkets, Stationery Stores and DIY superstores that we could only dream about – in those days if we didn’t bring it with us we did without! Restaurants too – they were of course all state-owned and had a quirky little knack of flashing lights on and off at around 10 pm to let guests know it was time to leave. But they all had dance floors and live music! And so we danced often with complete strangers…

Between 1985 and 1987 I set up and ran the medical equipment trading arm of Overseas Marketing Corporation, representing in Bulgaria blue chip British companies. We also specialised in medical technology transfers, setting up an Autoflow Spectacle Lens factory at Optico Electron in Strelcha, as well as a frames factory, both completed in 1987. Later came the Bebo Baby Feeding Bottle factory in Etropole with Medbio, much of the production of which we arranged to be exported back to UK, thereby creating a stream of the much needed hard currency. Exhibitions were an essential part of our lives back then. We worked hard and played hard, signed a lot of business and had a lot of fun.

Some of my most affectionate memories of the late 1980s are the Garden Parties for the Queen’s Official Birthday, given by Ambassador John Fawcett, who knew how to get the right mix of Diplomats, and Bulgarian and British business people, and even to throw in a splendid brass band on the steps of the Residence.

And then the communist system collapsed… By this time I was running my own company, PR Trading and I remember well that in late October 1989 we had a group of engineers from Bulgaria training at one of our client facilities in UK. As I collected them early one morning they were avidly reading the British newspapers about the demonstrations in Berlin (that led to the Fall of the Wall), and they said “It’ll never happen in Bulgaria” – and indeed I don’t think even then anyone thought it would – and then it did.

During this time we were completing our third technology transfer deal – to make razor blades and disposable razors at VMZ Sopot – which finally got completed after much difficulty due to the collapsing central buying and sudden lack of funds in Bulgaria, with much of the business falling into deep depression. We survived thanks to the medical equipment business.

Around this time – 1992-1993 – we were looking for the safest way to guarantee business for the long term, which was obviously to set up a long term private business in Bulgaria. Staying with the medical roots I decided we would get into the newly private pharmaceutical distribution business, much aided by the fact that many of the suppliers were British or American and rightly or wrongly they felt safer dealing with a Bulgarian company that was owned by a British person. In this business we thrived.

Not that there were not plenty of failed attempts in other businesses – this was a crazy “Wild West” kind of business atmosphere… everything was for sale (or barter) including the notoriously non-existent red mercury, vast quantities of cotton wool, even Mig jets – all to be avoided although we did burn our fingers with a genuine attempt at supplying flowers to Covent Garden, only to find that our second order was due to be delivered on March 8th (International Women’s Day – not a big deal in those days outside Eastern Europe) and regardless of agreements, only flowers that could not be sold on the local market were available to fulfill export orders! Needless to say a few only bunches were sent and we never even bothered collecting them at Heathrow, and never again got into the perishable goods business.

With Bulgaria already in my blood, it somehow came as no surprise when my son, Rob, announced he was marrying Bulgarian rock-star Milena at Chelsea Town Hall on February 14th 1995.

Fast forward to 2006 – I was no longer in the pharmaceutical business but consulting under my relatively new company Tectrice Consult, and while looking at a potential tourism project in Sadovets, northern Bulgaria, we came across an amazing and as yet unknown memorial to ten “general labourers” who perished from there on the Titanic in April 1912. Apparently while some good Bulgarian labourers were busy building the British Ambassador’s Residence in Sofia, some 33 of their more adventurous countrymen met a sad end, travelling steerage to a better life, on the infamous British Vessel.

Incidental to pursuing this same project we came across our first ripe sloes with their rich blue “bloom” (“trunki”) growing copiously in the local hedgerows and seemingly uninteresting to both the local Roma and the local Bulgarians. From that day on, every mid September the sloe harvest takes place resulting in delicious sloe gin given as gifts to all our Bulgarian friends at Christmas. And so popular it has become that many Bulgarians are now taking up the tradition of picking sloes and making sloe gin for Christmas – a small gift from us to them.

I have spent the most of the past 30 years in Bulgaria, and I consider it to be a privilege that I live here permanently for the past ten.

From the first day when I appointed my right hand girl/ “gopher” Maria Stoeva, I have been blessed to work with young, ambitious Bulgarians, who have embraced the chance to learn and to improve themselves, and almost all of whom continue to live and succeed in Bulgaria. Almost all our ventures have involved training of Bulgarian staff and clients, and they have responded well to this.

Our latest endeavour, undertaken with love of Bulgaria and not profit motive at heart, is The Best of Bulgaria tablet and smart phone apps.

May the great relationship between our countries prosper!