The union helps with pastors salaries because many congregations, whose members live in poverty, cannot afford to pay a full-time wage. The average Bulgarian earns close to 120 lev, the Bulgarian unit of currency, each month. Many of the elderly went without heat last winter because they couldn t afford it. Bulgaria traditionally has long summers and winters, separated by shorter springs and autumns. While the government does help with the cost of some medications, the chronically ill must often decide whether to eat or to buy medicine, Nikov said.
Unemployment remains high throughout the nation.
The mayor of Lom, for example, said his town of 38,000 people has a jobless rate of 28 percent, but that only includes the registered unemployed. The actual unemployment rate when you factor in the surrounding communities for which Lom is responsible and the Gypsies, who often don t register could easily exceed 70 percent. Many people had believed that after Communism fell, economic conditions would improve within two years, Nikov said. Ten years later, things are worse than they were before. Bulgaria now has to combat drug abuse, which was never an issue under Communist reign, he said.