We are on the bulgarian black sea, but for shure this story could happen at other beaches similar elsewhere. Property and ownership is one of the main points and conflicts in capitalist society. But while some type of property is (sadly) accepted by majority there are points where the bullshitting of the majority is very obvious and a bigger amound of people do not want to accept the created hierarchies any more.
This is the case here at the Black sea coast. One special local thing is that the country recently joined European Union and the bulgarian government consists of "colourful" coalitions - which includes in between the turkish party the "bulgarian national union" together with "ataka" (the populist anti-turkish and extrem nationalist party), and the socialist party. A lot of building up of hotels on the coast started just three years ago as it got easier for foreign companies to invest. And there are still spaces at the coast where people can enjoy the sea without private permissions of commercial organisations or other "owners".
From years different people, mainly from bigger cities, go to the beach in "Irakli", a village in the not (yet) commercialized part of the centre of bulgarians black sea coast and put their tents for some days or weeks. What a strange idea that somebody could own a beach and make people to pay for being in the nature. But this is how the ones in government and hotel-mafia want it to be. The majority of the local citizens usually welcome the "investors" cause they dream for a wealthy life without so much work on the fields. So if you have a field you just sell it and buy a flat in the next bigger town. But the results you can see elsewhere at the coast. No other beach than hotel-beaches and parts of the nature left over just as a commercial good.
So the conflict in Irakli is the following. There are people, young and old, who are used to organize their summertime themselves and even created wooden cupboards, tables and bars out of natural stuff somewhere where it is nice at the beach - and there are companies who want to privatize nature and make profit out of the location, create fences and consume-temples. These companies want to build hotels and organize tourist trips in the area, where we spend out time. A swiss company bought here in Irakli together with bulgarian companies land from different local villagers. As it is a natural park partly, it was not legal to build until now at this area, but they started even without permission another big hotel, hoping nobody would care. But as people who used the beach and some local people reacted, the companies now have to wait for permission to destroy one of the last natural places at the black sea in bulgaria. Ecological NGO's got information about the selling and aim so they informed the media and asked the ministry for explanations. This case was a bigger topic in the television and newspapers, as there are quite a lot of sympatizers for ecological topics in the public.
The permission is to be decided next year and as money is what makes the politicians put their signs under papers, it is likely that the permission will be given next year when everything is more calm as they expect it to be. The same happened at other places before and now there are a lot of big hotels owned by mafia people, which are empty or sold as apartments but created out of the greed and mostly to "wash money". The swiss company is showing their property-claim with a fence around the place they want to build 50 new bungalows, "a new village". There is a big shield with signs that you are not allowed to enter, camp or use the area. At the beach is a sign that you are not allowed to walk nude and that you have to pay for the shadow of the umbrellas. Because some people entered the place "without permission" last year, now there is a guard in a shelter at the entrance of the area. A picture which is showing the ashaming ignorance and profti-only-thinking. Another infiltration of the companies is a new commercial bar close to the beach and garbage-baskets with the sign of the company, as if the beach is theirs.
Even if talks about Ecotourism have been constantly risen up - when you go on the big skiing resorts in the mountains (like "Bansko" and "Pamporovo") or if you pass by the 350 km long sea cost - you see castles and hotels as big as the Egypt monuments.
This is one of the realities that a lot of Western Europeans still cannot percept. Bulgaria is not a poor country. It has a big dinasty of pharaons which exploit the human abilities and use every option to make their business look clean, profitable and attractive. Behind this pharaon family hides not only the mafia leader but also police and politician without whose signs and corruption the game would have different rules.
But things are not finished yet. This beach is still autonomous used. Without permission and without aiming for it. People who do so are not seeing themselves as political but they act in that part like my utopia of selforganisation looks like. Do not respect authorities just because they are authorities but decide on your own what your time and enviroment should look like. Nobody really likes to live in garbage and this topic is existing very similair in autonomous centers and is also there functioning without "authority" or "guards". Everybody has to care for the garbage, food and athmosphere or it will not be a nice place to stay for anyone. And the practice shows that non-centralized beachlife can exist or is at least at this place functioning better than the commercial beach-places. And a lot of people are not seeking for hotel-service, work and consume reality and other shit, but enjoy to create their own.

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