Rivers of Sofia 2026: A conversation about returning - Deal or no deal?
Rivers of Sofia 2026 · The Quiet Stage, South Park, 29 August
It was one of those Saturday afternoons in South Park when nobody really wants to go home. Twenty-five people gathered in a circle: some still living abroad, some who had already moved back, and some who had never left at all.
For the first time, we shared data from our study The State of Returning to Bulgaria — 2,286 responses from nearly 50 countries. We didn’t put it on slides. We played it: fourteen questions, three teams, one prize.
It turns out people get fiercely competitive in quiz competitions. There was debate within the teams, groaning at the wrong answers, and several very sincere cries of no way.
The biggest no way was this: 88% of people who have moved back to Bulgaria have run into real difficulties here. And still, the most common score they give their decision to return is 10 out of 10.
The second came a little later: only 31.6% of those planning to return want to live in Sofia. Almost half would prefer a regional city. That surprised quite a few people in the circle.
The conversation
Then we sat down together, handed out sheets of paper, and asked one question:
“What would you say to someone moving back to Bulgaria tomorrow?”
The conversation that followed was about what makes it worth it here — and how to better support the people who come back.
Everyone gave a version of the same answer: community. People to sit with who understand what you’re going through.
The study says exactly this: 60.7% of returnees name personal contact with others who have walked the same path as the thing they missed most. But reading it in a table is one thing. Hearing it out loud, from twenty-five people one after another, in a park, is something else entirely.
The picnic
The event itself ended. The conversation didn’t.
We pulled out blankets, sat on the grass and carried on for hours — no microphone, no questions. Some people met each other there. Others stayed on for the evening concerts. The sun was going down, the festival hummed around us, and nobody was in a hurry to be anywhere.
What’s next
Over the coming months we’ll be sharing more from the study — online and in person.
Thank you to Rivers of Sofia for three years running. And to everyone who came.
The State of Returning to Bulgaria was conducted between April 2025 and February 2026 through an online survey. It gathered 2,286 fully completed responses from nearly 50 countries — 1,810 from Bulgarians living abroad and 476 from people who have already returned. The analysis was prepared by an independent sociological agency "NASOKA".
