BULGARIA'S KILLING BORDERS

Since the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, news of people killed at Bulgaria's border with Turkey has been a regular news feature. Sometimes the victims are Bulgarian border police, shot in skirmishes or killed in traffic accidents involving cars carrying illegal migrants. At other times it is the migrants who die, often in unclear circumstances. According to the authorities, their deaths are usually accidental. However, reports by local and international human rights NGOs, such as Mission Wings and Amnesty International Bulgaria, paint a bleaker picture. In December 2024, for example, three minors froze to death in the Strandzha mountains. Mission Wings claimed that the Bulgarian police were informed of three teenagers in distress, but failed to send help. By the time the search party arrived, it was too late. The Bulgarian police have denied the allegations.

The situation at the Bulgarian-Turkish border is not unique in Bulgaria's recent past. Under Communism, scores of people died on the borders of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. However, there are some crucial differences between then and now. Between 1944 and 1989, the main task of border patrols was to prevent people from leaving Communist Bulgaria and emigrating to the West via Greece, Turkey or Yugoslavia. The troops guarding the border would say nothing, neither would the government. The spare stories from the border that did appear in the media would sometimes cryptically praise the heroism of a unit of border guards who had repelled "violators". And that was it. And yet, everyone in Bulgaria knew you had to be really determined to flee to the West to try an illegal crossing.

A landscape of the past: After Bulgaria joined the EU, most of the old fences were torn down

Communist Bulgaria lived with the idea that it was under siege by enemies ready to attack. It protected its borders with constant vigilance and a system of border troops units, barbed-wire fences and special travel permits. Any attempt to cross the border from the outside (by diversanti, or insurrectionists) or from the inside (by predateli, or traitors) could end in death. The only border that was not extremely well protected was the one with Romania. Romania was not only a socialist state but also deep in the East bloc.

Under Communism, the borders with Turkey (259 km) and with Greece (493 km), which run through the difficult terrain of the Strandzha, the Sakar and the Rhodope mountains, were considered the most sensitive. The military doctrine of the time perceived Turkey as the "most probable enemy" in a potential war. In the event of war, the Bulgarian troops deployed in what became known as the Triangle of Death – a system of units and detachments in the Strandzha, were to die holding off the invading NATO forces until the arrival of the Soviets.

The Communist-era border protection system was a complicated and sometimes sophisticated affair. It involved a vast border area divided into several security zones. The so-called klyon, a high-security area and fence along the actual border, was patrolled by a network of detachments and border troops who lived in zastavi posts.

The monument of a guard, near Svilengrad, by the border with Turkey and Greece, commemorates a clash between Bulgarian border troops and "a group of three heavily armed deserters who were trying to leave Bulgaria," on 22 February 1972

The border fence and the soldiers who manned it worked with a sinister clockwork precision. The fence was divided into sections, and the soldiers at each post were responsible for only one section. They patrolled the cleared path beyond the fence at regular intervals, looking for signs of "trespassers." The fence had two types of wire – one was barbed and the other was electrified. Any contact with the latter, whether by a wild animal or a human, would send a signal to a border post, pinpointing exactly where the contact had been made. Any signal for a "trespasser" would trigger a massive manhunt with soldiers and dogs covering the widest possible area.

What made crossing the border even more difficult was one crucial detail. The barbed wire fence was only the beginning of a deadly buffer zone. The real border, marked by whitewashed concrete blocks, was one to three kilometres away. Refugees were unaware of this and thought that by climbing over the barbed-wire fence they had left Bulgaria and were free. This fatal mistake, combined with a terrain with which they were unfamiliar, made them an easy target for the border guards.

Propaganda photo advertises Bulgarian border troops' vigilance

There is no verifiable data on how many Bulgarians and people from other East bloc countries tried to escape illegally between 1944 and 1989. There is also no data on those who died trying, or what happened to their bodies. It is thought that 3,000-4,000 East Germans alone tried to escape through Bulgaria, and the number of victims in different sources fluctuates between 17 and 100. Their relatives in East Germany were often told that their sons and daughters had died in a road accident, for example. Few bodies were recovered by the families.

In the 2010s and 2020s, however, memories of the actual border guards who served at the borders of Communist Bulgaria began to emerge from an unlikely but informative source – the Internet. In comments under media publications or Facebook posts and even in a special forum that requires registration, they share, if not specific cases, then at least their view of what they did. As with any oral history, the picture painted by their memories is far from clear. Some still believe the propaganda that they protected Bulgaria's borders from the enemy. Others do not. Some boast of the rewards for captured – or killed – "trespassers" – from a 10-day furlough to a Soviet wristwatch to some extra cash. Others deny there were such rewards.

What exactly happened at the borders of Communist Bulgaria is likely to remain a mystery for the foreseeable future, as this culture of silence is reproduced in post-Communist Bulgaria as well.

A self-made patriotic mural at the Slivarovo border outpost. The inscription reads: "And we stride with hardships, as everyone else; and we make everyone else's mistakes. But if we make a mistake with the gun's sight, we will hurt no one lesser than Bulgaria." Now abandoned, the erstwhile barracks along the border with Turkey were among the most difficult locations for a Bulgaria draftee to be deployed in. The combat spirit was kept up with enhanced propagnanda. Conscripts were constantly reminded that the Border Troops were the only kind of troops in Bulgaria that had to "carry" combat service at the time of a peace