Sixteen-year-old Valentin grows up alone on the streets of Sofia's "Hristo Botev" neighborhood, where carrying a knife is a matter of survival. His mother washes dishes in a restaurant, and he wanders around the city, stealing cables and owing money to loan sharks. Stoyan Georgiev's report for bTV reveals the truth behind the series of knife attacks between children in the capital.
The week began with the brutal beating of prosecutor Ivo Iliev from the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office. A day earlier - on October 19 - a 15-year-old boy stabbed and killed his peer in a Sofia mall. A few days later, another child again attacked a student at the capital's 94th school in the "Hristo Botev" neighborhood with a knife.
"I carry it with me, because in the evening, when I come home, four or five people jump on me and it's dangerous not to have anything with you", Valentin tells the bTV camera. The boy explains that it is common for them in the ghetto to have a knife on them.
Valentin lives with his mother and two brothers in one room three kilometers from "Narodno sabranie" square. "I work in a restaurant. I wash dishes. It's enough for a living," says his mother Svetla. All three boys don't go to school.
"They went to 106th, but they stopped. They beat them. They don't want to go. The older ones from seventh and eighth grade beat them and they don't want to go. What can I do if they don't want to go? I won't let my children beat them up for me," she explains.
It turns out that Valentin is 16 years old. His day begins with looking for money to repay a debt to loan sharks in the neighborhood. "I'm going to go find 50 leva - to give it to people. I have to give it to some people," he says.
The boy explains how he makes money: "We find brass, wires, we find batteries, other things, we burn brass, we go and return it. And we get money."
If he doesn't manage to return the money - bad. "Fight," he answers briefly. "Many times" happened to him.
Vanya Hristova, a store manager in the neighborhood, talks about the endless thefts. "I go - I bring them cameras, photos of how they steal - they catch them. I haven't filed a complaint specifically for him. Because I'm tired of him and I chase him most regularly", she tells bTV.
According to her, the police find the thieves, a pre-trial investigation is opened with three names, data and an ID card, the boys confess to the thefts. "He goes to the prosecutor's office and the prosecutor's office, without reading, returns it due to an unknown perpetrator. The pre-trial investigation is terminated", explains an indignant Vanya.
"We don't have a prosecutor's office, we have nothing. This is simply the most unfortunate country we can live in," the shopkeeper added.
A woman who grew up in the "Hristo Botev" neighborhood, but who wished to remain anonymous, shared: "The non-working institutions, the lack of a functioning judicial system, the lack of response from social services, from the school that all these children simply do not attend, makes the new generations in the marginal neighborhoods increasingly excluded from society and increasingly problematic."
"The stupidest thing is that I was born in this fucking neighborhood. Do you know why I don't want to say anything? Because I'm ashamed of myself for becoming a racist at 50 and I'm ashamed of myself because I studied with these people. And now my children are afraid to go out," she added.
The boy claims that he stopped stealing. "I stole - yes, I admit it. Film it, I stole. I admit it, but I've stopped stealing. I go and earn my money with honest work", he says.
He shares that everyone is suspicious of him because of his ethnic origin. "It's nasty. It's like you're always being pointed out as guilty", Valentin explains.
When asked if it bothers him that they look at him as if they hate him because he's a gypsy, the boy answers in the affirmative. "And that bothers you?" the reporter asks. "Yes", Valentin says. "And does it make you hate them too?" the question continues. "Yes. What can we say - it will get on my nerves and there should be a fight", the boy concludes.
Valentin has to find 50 leva today to pay back the loan sharks in the neighborhood. He is alone. He survives alone. And he has no choice.
Stoyan Georgiev's report for bTV reveals the harsh truth about children from marginal neighborhoods who carry knives not to attack, but to survive in a world where institutions do not work and society has abandoned them.