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Bulgarians battle to keep warm - Coggle Diagram
Bulgarians battle to keep warm
Society
"The bosses have resisted our pleas for electric heaters so we just sit there and freeze all day, hardly able to concentrate," she says.
Many workers were forced to freeze at their work places for days which must have affected their mood and productivity. It might have even left some of them traumatized.
"Concern even spread to the prisons and their inmates, who "unlike pupils can't be sent home," said justice minister Meglena Tacheva."
Since the prisoners weren't kept warm, they were probably very angry at the government, so they might have taken it out on the guards. Consequently, both the guards and the prisoners were miserable during the crisis.
"With temperatures outside plummeting to -16C, and thousands of apartments heat-less, the Ivanovs have spent the past few days trying to keep their daughter Anjela warm."
Many people struggled because of the cold temperatures, and no one helped or compensated them. Some people with health conditions or ones who were unable to pay their electricity bills probably suffered from long-term complications or even died if they couldn't seek medical help.
Politics
"In the 20 years since the end of communism, the Bulgarian government has done almost nothing to change this state of affairs, indeed it has only deepened Bulgaria's dependence on Russia," he said, highlighting a controversial gas contract signed between Russia and Bulgaria two years ago."
The crisis Bulgaria went through was primarily because of Russia, but the government won't end its relations with her because of politics. Bulgaria will continue to be dependent on Russia, meaning that the same problem can occur again, and it still won't significantly impact Russia.
"In the meantime, the country is left to rue its position as the most vulnerable EU state to the habitual rows between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies and payments."
Bulgaria is suffering because of Russia and Ukraine's political relations. The funds she is going to receive depend entirely on the EU.
Economics
"We've sold 240 electrical heaters in two days," said Alexandra Nikolova, sales assistant in an electrical shop."
On the other hand, the stores that were selling heaters made big profits during the crisis, meaning that the owners benefited from the situation. Unfortunately, the money they made still weren't enough to compensate for the losses of other businesses.
Irina Bankova "runs a small bakery production line in eastern Sofia which has seen a slump in trade this week". She says that she probably won't be compensated and that if this continues, she will "be forced to lay some of her work force off."
Most owners of small businesses and the workers they had hired were very negatively impacted by the crisis. They were forced to pay higher bills and furthermore, some of them were fired, so their income rapidly decreased.
"Glass, steel, beer and metal producers were forced to shut down, as experts estimated the loss to industry to be around 500m Bulgarian Lev (£227m) a day."
Since so many factories and producers shut down, Bulgaria lost a lot of money from them not producing materials and goods. However, the economy also declined because after the crisis passed, some of those producers needed funds to start working again while others probably went bankrupt.
Environment
"Taxis which run on methane gas, were largely off the roads."
On the contrary, if many taxis running on methane gas were off the roads, they didn't emit methane gas. Therefore, this slightly decreased pollution and global warming.
"The air was thick with a mix of tar and burning rubber, as some plants switched from gas to heating oil."
Air pollution must have significantly increased during this period. Since global warming is tightly linked to pollution, it became worse, too.