A mother and son lived under the open sky for 22 days on Ruski Blvd.: Our apartment burned down (photos)

• My heart breaks when I look at them, says former municipal councilor Stoyanka Bagryanova
• We offered the woman to send her to a nursing home, but she doesn’t want to be without her son, explained a social worker

When it rains, they hide under the bus stop opposite the Commercial High School in Plovdiv and wait for the rain to stop. Otherwise, they live and spend the night on a bench in the middle alley of Ruski Blvd.

72-year-old Maria Nacheva and her son Zlatan Petkov (37) have been living under the open sky for 22 days. For them, this is their “home” after their own apartment at 23 Sokol St. burned down. They lived in the shelter on “Radko Dimitriev” street, but from there they were told that they could not stay for more than 6 months and they went out into the street.

“I’ve been seeing them regularly for two weeks. They wrap themselves in blankets and spend the night. It’s cold tonight. My heart breaks. These are living people,” Stoyanka Bagryanova, a former municipal councilor, called “24 Chasa”. She asks how life is on the street.

Maria and Zlatan visited the social service on Ruski Blvd. According to their account, they were told that they had no right to be temporarily accommodated since they owned a home.

“And it is uninhabitable,” adds Zlatan. He says that his brother set fire to the apartment and everything burned down.

“It’s quite cold in the evening, we wrap ourselves in blankets and wait for dusk,” say the poor. There were good people who left them food. All their “belongings” are in boxes and suitcases piled next to them on the bench.

“Colleagues have visited them 5-6 times. One brother is still in a shelter. They left because they cannot stay permanently. We have advised the woman that we can place her in a home for the elderly, but she does not want without our son. And we cannot send him to such an institution, because he does not meet the conditions”, Veselin Boteva, the head of the social directorate in the Plovdiv municipality, explained to “24 Chasa”. According to her, the man was recommended to be certified by TELK in order to use a permanent service. So far he has refused.

“There are other people whose homes have burned down. Isn’t it better for the woman to go temporarily to the home for the elderly, and the son to another institution, and in the meantime they can repair their apartment and come back,” asks Boteva.

“We have told them that if they show interest, they can go to the social service on Ruski Blvd. and submit their documents,” she added.