[1] According to an international agreement of 1980, Bulgaria, along with other Comecon members such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, accepted Vietnamese guest workers in the country as a relatively cheaper manual labour workforce.
[3] Plattenbauten (панелка; panelka) and mobile home hostels were built in 1984 in the Krasna Polyana municipality of Sofia to accommodate the Vietnamese; by 1990, the area had acquired the nickname "Little Saigon".
[5] The idea was to compensate Bulgaria's lack of sufficient manual workforce and at the same time to relieve Vietnam of some of its growing population, with the trained workers potentially coming back.
In practice, however, this co-operation was subject to much corruption in Vietnam, with many members of its richest class of merchants paying bribes equivalent to around €1,000 (in 1985) to be sent to Bulgaria, where they expanded their speculative business, engaging in black market trade, production of counterfeit goods such as jeans, etc.
Along with the Chinese, Koreans, Arabs and other immigrants, the Vietnamese have established a presence among the vendors in Sofia's well-known and frequented bazaar Iliyantsi.