According to demographic data of the National Statistical Institute from the end of the past year, in 23 per cent of villages in Bulgaria the number of local residents varies between 1 and 49. The district of Veliko Tarnovo is second in the country after Gabrovo in terms of high number of depopulated villages. In 58 villages in the area, no human speech can be heard.

"For the first time, I make a reportage without seeing the people I'm talking about. Just because I can't get to the villages as public transport to them is stopped," says BNR correspondent in the region Zdravka Maslyankova. In an attempt to check how people in the region live in extraordinary circumstances, the journalist turns out to be the only interviewer with whom the only resident of the Balkan village of Goranovtsi - 73-year-old Tsana Tsyatkova has talked to on the phone in recent days. The elderly woman has been living alone for years, sometimes seeing her nephew. Now he is not with her because of the coronavirus pandemic and travel restrictions, but also because of economic reasons. The elderly woman receives a pension of 118 Bulgarian levs (about 60 euros) a month, which is enough for almost nothing, but in the place where she lives there are no shops.

"How am I doing these days? It is very hard. It is the loneliness,” the elderly woman says. “My blood sugar is high and I don't know what I'm going to do. How am I living? I grow my food in the yard. I have beans, potatoes, garlic, onion, tomatoes. "

Goranovtsi is one of 16 high mountain small villages that are part of the mayoralty of Raykovtsi, says mayor representative Petyo Koev.

"Ten of these villages are now deserted. Currently in this state of emergency people are at home. I buy them the medicines they need. I go to the doctor and bring them three-month supplies of needed medicines. One can say we are managing well. In general, people living in the Balkan Mountain are tough people. Those who live in the neighborhoods know that there is no luxury here. We keep in touch and help each other as we are used to.”

Iliya Radev, mayor representative in Uglevtsi, explains that his main activity lately has been making address registrations so that the relatives of elderly people can easily go back to the village and visit them, because a checkpoint at Veliko Tarnovo must be passed.

"There are 39 people on the voting list. We have also registered 82 people with current address - relatives, sons, daughters, etc. We have bread delivered 4 times a week. We have no problems and we have not left anyone stay hungry or without care," Mr. Radev says.

Publisher Ivan Gaberov is one of the citizens who spends the period of the state of emergency in self isolation in the small Veliko Tarnovo village of Emen near the picturesque Emen Canyon. Instead of books, he has devoted himself to gardening and says that in the past two weeks he had not had the chance of talking face to face to anyone.

"Living in the countryside in isolation is wonderful, but being forced to be isolated is not the best thing that can happen to you because we are not usually involved in rural life, we are urban people who use the countryside for a better existence and it is uncomfortable. I miss the freedom to decide whether to stay or go somewhere, I miss the contact with my family," Mr. Gaberov says.

Editor: Elena Karkalanova /report by Zdravka Maslyankova, BNR - Veliko Tarnovo/

English: Alexander Markov