Bulgaria's bleak post-coal future

The Bobov Dol Electricity Plant, which was burning coal from the nearby underground mines until recently, when the mines were closed. Currently some above-ground mining provides limited coal for the plant, but the plant is also starting to burn biomass, rubbish and other materials.

Minyor, one of several underground mines that closed this year, next to Bobov Dol town. Trucks and other equipment are being used to strip-mine the nearby hillside. There is an Italian textile factory now working on the same campus, along with a prison.

Violeta Dashkova with her son, Moni, 2, at the playground at Golemo Selo. "Every month, the boy is ill," she said. She suspects the exhaust from the power plant may have something to do with his frequent respiratory infections.

Children on the playground at Golemo Selo, where earlier this year, a thin layer of ash covered the town, raising health concerns among residents.

A shopkeeper and former miners, from left, (in orange) Aleksander Tonev, Yordan Yordanov and Rumen Hristov, nurse midday beers in front of the grocery store in Babino village, Bobov Dol. "There's no future in this village," says Yordanov, (center) who at 46 has retired from working in the underground mines.

Mayor Vasil Vasev, of Golemo Selo and Malo Selo, on a hill overlooking the Bobov Dol electrical power plant. "If it were up to me, I would close the electricity plant if they close the mines," he said. When the plant was working with good quality coal, things were okay, he explained, "but now they are burning bio-petrol, plastics and rubbish, it's damaging the municipality."

Stephan Davidov, who retired from mining in 2005 after working for 30 years as a manager in the mining company. "After the mines were privatized, productivity shrank," he explained. He said the mines used to employ 10,000 workers and this year, they closed the last and oldest mine, Babino, which was also the biggest in the Balkans. "Young people are fleeing the city," he added.

Georgi Terziiski clips grapes from the arbor at his home in Golemo Selo, Bulgaria. The Bobov Dol electrical power plant was constructed behind the family home when he was a child. "I suppose we got used to it, but we know the air could be polluted," he said.

Empty, abandoned apartment buildings in the town of Bobov Dol, where back in the 1970s, families had to double up while waiting for new apartments to be built. Nowadays, many people have left the town due to the closures of the nearby coal mines.

Necrologs, or death notices, posted near the church in Golemo Selo, where most of the population was employed in the mining sector, or at the local power plant.