FINN » 17/10/2008, 13:25
Сравнивайте. Это в NYT:
SOFIA, Bulgaria — Politics is played to the death in Bulgaria, where the lives of politicians can be as cheap as spent bullets and murky business groups wage a murderous struggle for their cut of everything from real estate deals to millions in European aid.
Nikolay Doychinov for The International Herald Tribune
Newly politicized business networks with practices under scrutiny have made their mark on clubs like Sin City in Sofia, Bulgaria.
During a furious political season last year, the home of the chairwoman of a municipal electoral committee was set on fire, and the garages of mayors were firebombed. The mayor of a resort town in central Bulgaria was shot and killed with seven bullets, as was the wealthy City Council chairman in the outwardly idyllic Black Sea port of Nesebur.
“Other countries have the mafia,” said Atanas Atanasov, a member of Parliament and a former counterintelligence chief who is a magnet for leaked documents exposing corruption. “In Bulgaria, the mafia has the country.”
By almost any measure, Bulgaria is the most corrupt country in the 27-member European Union. Since it joined last year, it has emerged as a cautionary tale for Western nations confronting the stark reality and heavy costs of drawing fragile post-Communist nations into their orbit, away from Russia’s influence.
European Union membership has done little to tame the criminal networks in Bulgaria. It has arguably only made those networks richer, raising worries that if the union cannot tamp down criminal activity in a member like Bulgaria it may have little sway over other fragile nations that want to join.
The United States helped Bulgaria into NATO, has rotated troops through for joint exercises since 2004 and has tried to encourage commerce, education and democracy. It has just announced that it will invest more than $90 million in facilities and equipment for joint use in military exercises.
The European Union, eager to improve the lives of the 7.5 million Bulgarians, has promised 11 billion euros, or nearly $15 billion, in aid.
Far from halting crime and violence, the money effectively spread the corruption. Once Bulgaria’s shady businessmen realized how much European Union money was at stake, said many of Sofia’s advocates for reform, they moved from buying off politicians to being directly involved in politics themselves.
And so European officials froze almost $670 million in financing this summer and may halt the flow of billions more, alarmed at freewheeling white-collar criminals with links to the very highest reaches of power.
The nation’s homegrown mobs of men in black — the “mutri,” or mugs — control construction projects in city halls. And questionable business networks have moved from declining black markets for smuggled cigarettes and alcohol to legal investments in booming real estate. They have made their mark on the capital’s atmosphere: men nicknamed “thick necks” for their muscular appearance linger in neon-lighted nightclubs like Sin City and Lipstick, or keep watch over Mercedes jeeps and Audis outside. Sofia guidebooks offer tips: Avoid restaurants that draw businessmen with four or more bodyguards.