POLINA SLAVCHEVA and BORYANA DZHAMBAZOVA look at the practice of 'treasure hunting' - the illegal appropriation of artefacts of cultural and historical significance for sale on the black market, and the legal status of private collections in Bulgaria. The directors of The National Museum of History and The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate, speak out on issues of funding for the cultural sphere in Bulgaria.

Much of Bulgaria's cultural heritage is being quickly eaten away by treasure hunters, drawn to this shady means of subsistence by lack of better income sources. More than
200 000 treasure hunters "work" on about 1000 archeological sites in Bulgaria. Few monuments and archeological sites have been left untouched by them. The media usually describes them as the dark cogs of a well-oiled mechanism that links them to dealers, cultural artefact smugglers and collectors. Different public opinions abound about the integrity of the latter. Changes in the law for cultural monuments over the past six years, however, show politicians to be increasingly willing to legalise their possessions. The recent theft of artefacts from the Veliko Turnovo Museum of History, which were said to have been worth 14 million euro, fanned the flames of arguments about the protection of Bulgaria's cultural heritage.

Boyan Radev, Vassil "The Skull" Bozhkov, and Dimitar Ivanov have long been known for their private collections. Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev has ordered an investigation into the collections of the latter two, and a law on the possible legalisation of private collections is currently being worked on by the Ministry of Culture. Cultural Minister Stefan Danailov said that public opinion would shape its content.

Public opinion, it seems, concurs with the findings of the Italian Balkan research centre report about Bulgarian private collectors. The report said that collectors were post-1990 parvenus who pay treasure hunters and use art to launder money. The name "parvenu" rarely comes with positive connotations, so the stone-throwing on collectors has begun, at least in public media forums.

A law on patrons of the arts, passed last year, provides for tax, interest, customs and other reliefs and promised to include patrons' names on the Culture Ministry's web page. The law also lauded a new plan to raise money for culture by state lottery. Culture budgets have been meagre since the fall of communism. Critics immediately called the law another stimulus for shady businessmen. At the same time, however, the state desperately needs help to protect its cultural heritage. Two tombs near the village of Muglizh and five Thracian tombs in the Valley of the Kings, near Kazanluk, were despoiled by treasure hunters because the Ministry of Culture delayed considerably or gave no money at all for their protection. These are just two examples.

Archeologists are usually second to arrive at a cultural site already despoiled by treasure hunters; they are a bit like actors in a cheap Hollywood drama in which the police arrive at the end when the hero has already saved the heroine. If we assume, that is, that the hero continues to care for her afterwards, and that is rarely the case. Artefacts are often damaged by improper handling because the majority of treasure hunters are uneducated people, says Smilian Todorov, a cultural anthropologist at the Southwestern University in Blagoevgrad. Moreover, treasure hunters work year-round, while archeologists work seasonally and depend largely on state grants. "I've seen sites of 40 sq m covered in holes from 20cm to 8m in diameter; there are usually about six, eight or 10 people who `work' on a spot. (The treasure hunters) leave things that can be of real use to science, but nothing else." A usual scenario would then bring the spoils to dealers who sell the artefact with a 2000 per cent gain, as an expert at the National Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments told Sega newspaper in 2005.

Todorov, however, says he has given up separating people into hunters, collectors and archeologists. After all, he says "treasure hunters and collectors ... give life to a dead culture, a dead thing." An example: Radev, who has about 3000 paintings, exhibited some of them in the Sofia City Art Gallery in 2003, and Ivanov has shown his artefacts at the National Archeological Museum, to which he also pays rent.  Bozhkov, the third big collector name, openly says that he buys from people who buy from treasure hunters and that he is proud to save Bulgaria's cultural heritage. However, he is spoken of as one of Bulgaria's richest citizens and is castigated as an alleged untouchable criminal. The Italian research itself hints at a businessman with a sinister nickname that even police are scared of.

However, "the plot, as you see, is not so simple," Todorov says. There are no good guys and bad guys here. For example, treasure hunters who do the "black work" rarely encroach on an archeologist's work while excavations run, he says. "Sometimes when they despoil a grave they fetch holy water and sprinkle it," Todorov says.

Most treasure hunters seem driven by lack of a better means of subsistence, as shown in a Rousse newspaper report about a treasure hunter. The man testified that he stole artefacts because both he and his wife were unemployed and had to support a baby.

It would seem the lack of reliable state policy is to blame for treasure hunting. Todorov says the opposite is true: "If there was no state policy, there wouldn't be treasure hunters. If there was state interest, hunting would decrease; because it cannot disappear. There are a group of people who earn from this. Collectors are simply part of them."

Another problem is that "an artefact needs space to breathe, and in our city reality there is no way this can happen." He makes reference to the remnants of the ancient Serdika fortress in Sofia in the passageway below the Cabinet building which, like much of Bulgaria's cultural heritage, is squeezed amid city buildings and hidden in passageways that people maybe notice, maybe not, while speeding past.