Turks and Bulgarians take place of local fishermen who seek better paid work overseas

With increasingly more fishermen from Romania's eastern Dobrogea giving up their traditional activity and leaving abroad, an association in the village of Sinoe - Constanta County is hiring workforce from Bulgaria and Turkey; this situation is caused both by the low income from fishing and the lack of continuity in this activity.

57-year-old Valeri Zuda is one of the few lucky fishermen of Jurilovca - Tulcea County, because he lives on his pension after decades of work on offshore oil rigs.

"Surviving as a small commercial fisherman is impossible, especially during this period. You set off to the lake once a week, catch 20-30 kilograms, but fish sells for petty money and one cannot make enough. One could just prepare it at home for one's own use, but the money from fishing is not enough to pay your bills," Zuda told AGERPRES.

He adds that in Jurilovca the number of fishermen has fallen to 15 percent compared to a few decades ago, after people went to work abroad.

"The fishermen have left because one cannot make ends meet. Now they live in foreign countries like Scotland or Ireland, and so the traditions and absolutely everything is going lost. The fishermen will disappear. If no action is taken, the last ones left will move out too and fishing rooms will no longer be heard of," Valeri Zuda says.

In the nearby village of Sinoe, the 'Grindul Lupilor' association has only 30 fishermen working of the nearly 200 from 10 years ago, and the association's president Eugen Dragoi says that this is the effect of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Administration's decision to no longer issue permits for trading companies, so that there is a long activity break every year.

"Without these permits we can no longer use the manpower from December until April-May, when fishing at sea begins. So we had to lay people off. Some of the men we kept and gave them work to the extent available. The fired fishermen have gone to other countries for work," said the president of the 'Grindul Lupilor' association.

Eugen Dragoi explains that in the absence of Romanian workers, the association's seven vessels are manned with fishermen from Bulgaria and Turkey.

"We have three Bulgarians who instruct Romanian fishermen, because our people have moved to better paid activities. Now it's the Bulgarians and Turks who do the sea fishing in Romania, because we cannot guarantee employment continuity for our men. The number of Romanian fishermen is going down every year while that of foreign fishermen is rising," Dragoi said.

According to him, Romania currently has 27 fishing vessels in the Black Sea.