Standart: South Stream pays 13,000 Bulgarians for crossing their territory

13,000 owners of private properties through which the South Stream pipeline will pass from Varna to the border with Serbia, will be compensated, Gastec BG director Valentin Stanchev stated.

The compensation will be once-of-a-time, and will also include losses from crop profits for the affected farmers. The majority of the properties through which the pipeline will pass are agricultural lands. These will have to set apart a runway with a width of 66 meters, on which the owners will not be able to extensively grow crops. In the forests, the runway will be 52 meters wide.

The land in these areas will not be purchased - it will remain in the hands of their owners. They, however, will not be allowed to build or extensively produce on the sections above the pipeline. Trees and vines but can be replaced with crops fields such as wheat, Stanchev explained.  MORE