I have complained about my consumer habits elsewhere, but nontheless I today had the pleasure to go shopping for a suitcase. For years I was pleased with my black back pack. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis, maybe something else - I had decided that now was the right time to buy one. In the end I settled for a suitcase that seemed reliable, was fashionable green and was made in Bulgaria.
By Frizabela [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
People in Bulgaria have often advised me to buy Bulgarian products, absolutely not Turkish or Chinese. I have often followed their advice to show my good manners, but I regarded their opinion as just another national prejudice on the balkans. Of course Bulgarians will think that Bulgarian T-shirts or suitcases are better than Turkish ones, just like Serbs will think that their goods are the best. So will Romanians and Turks.
There is no denial that people in the Balkans host strong and largely irrelevant prejudices agaist each other. But when I talk to Bulgarians about this issue, most people have a list of personal examples where Bulgarian goods were in deed much better produced than Turkish or Chinese ones.
So I have I. I have bought a number of clothes, bags and similar things produced in Bulgaria, often at a much better quality than the price first indicated. As a rule of thumb it is actually a good advice to buy Bulgarian stuff in Bulgaria. You know what you get, and it is usually a good product at a good price. This can not be said about everything that is sold in Bulgaria.
But how can this be? If one compares China and Bulgaria, one could easily get away with cultural differences, but I do not believe in that. But what cultural differences could explain the differences in quality between Turkish and Bulgarian goods, sold in Bulgaria?
After all, Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire almost 500 years. After the world wars, when Bulgaria was directing its production to Soviet tastes and needs, and profoundly ignored the quality of its industry output, Turkey struggled vehemently to adapt European culture and values.
Mayde the simple truth is that the best Turkish goods are unlikely to end up in stores in Bulgaria. Those that go for export probably go to markets with wealthier customers. The same goes for China. A lot of high quality products are manufactured in China, but what is sold on Bulgarian markets is generally crap.
Bulgarian manufacturers probably have some difficulties to reach out to markets abroad. And with the die hard competition from very cheap chinese and turkish products, they have a chance to nice themselves as high quality providers. Which is why much of the best Bulgaria has to offer is sold here. Tashev, for example, is a great market for bags and outdoor gear, but I have never seen the brand abroad.
Still, that hardly explains half the question. How can Bulgarian producers meet a higher standard than (some) Turkish ones? Turkey is currently one of the world's most dynamic countries, and it's economic statistics look every bit as good as the Bulgarian one's. Shouldn't he country produce better stuff?
Maybe Turkish industry can, but simpy won't, because it doesn't pay off. Whereas Bulgaria is just another East European country, Turkey and China have become the sweatshops of the West. Go into any clothes store in Sweden and you will find hundreds of garments made in Turkey, plenty made in China, but hardly any made in Bulgaria.
What Turkey and China have that Bulgaria is not is a globalized industry with big producing units. Which generates cheap products and economic development at the expense of quality.
What Bulgarian producers do have at the moment is small producing units with reputations - any Bulgarian into mountaneering knows what Tashev is and where its factory is located, just like the vendor who sold my suitcase knew which factory it was made in. Only if the consumers know this, can a free market reward high quality producers.
There are probably many people in Bulgaria who would like to see its industry move towards larger profits and larger producing units. That would be risky. It is so much easier to make things right on a small scale. And the fact that the producers are more or less known by the consumers is probably the only reason that many, like me, feel a confidence in Bulgarian products
P.s. Small is beautiful, not only when it comes to the garment industry. We live in a time were food production is taken over by agribusinesses, with horrible consequenses for everyone involved. That the landscape gets dominated by west european agribusinesses is probably an imminent danger in Bulgaria, with so fertile lands, innefficient agriculture and economically weak landholders.
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