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Petar comes from Bulgaria ; he was born in 1956 at Malo Kounare (Plovdiv region) and came in Greece for the first time in 1998. At the time of the interview his worked as a 'Carpenter'.
Interview date: 15/09/2005
Researcher who did the interview: Alexandra Siotou
Subfield of the interview: Historical culture
In Bulgaria Petar´s father owned an ironmonger´s shop where his mother also worked. His father was a communist. Petar himself thinks positively of the communist period which he contrasts to the present situation in Bulgaria. For four years he studied in a carpenters´ school. For 14 years he worked as a carpenter in a factory in his village. He got married when he was 19 years old and had two children, but in 1992 he divorced. During the communist period he worked in Bulgaria, in Russia, in Hungary and in Yugoslavia. When he returned to Bulgaria he opened up a cafe and also worked as an ice-cream seller and importer. However, he had some money problems and so he decided to migrate to Greece. After trying four times to cross the border, he finally managed to enter Greece illegally in 1998. First he came to Volos where his girlfriend was living, and then he moved to the nearby village of Gatzea where he worked for a carpenter. Since 2000 he has a legal residence and work permit, and lives with his son in Volos. He works as a carpenter; he prefers to be a freelancer instead of being employed as a day laborer. He wants to return to Bulgaria but he first wants to save enough money in order to provide for his son´s future. However, if he finds a woman in Greece to whom to get married he plans to remain in Greece, since marriage is the most important thing for him.
