On December 3, a Georgian-language Facebook user published a post claiming that during a protest in Bulgaria against Arab investments, people were chanting the word “Russia.” The post is accompanied by a video showing a protest march with audible chanting.
The claim that the crowd in the circulated video is chanting “Russia” is false. In reality, they are chanting the word “mafia.” It is also incorrect that the protest in Bulgaria was directed against Arab investments. In fact, the protest began during discussions of the 2026 state budget, which envisaged tax increases.
At the end of November 2025, the Bulgarian government presented its 2026 budget plan, which included significant tax hikes. This detail sparked public dissatisfaction and led to mass protests, primarily involving members of so-called Gen Z. The protests spread beyond the capital, Sofia, to include Varna, Plovdiv, and other major cities. It is noteworthy that the protests quickly produced results, and the government withdrew the proposed budget draft.
The footage circulated on Facebook reflects these protests that took place in November and December. The video also shows the name of the TikTok account (@iamvedat1) from which the Facebook user obtained the footage. In the description of the TikTok post published on December 1, it is stated that the video shows people protesting “against a mafia-style government and years of corruption.” The accompanying hashtags indicate that the footage was filmed in the city of Plovdiv.
After analyzing the video and reading the TikTok post description, it becomes clear that people are chanting not “Russia,” but the word “mafia.” Numerous other videos from the same protest have also circulated, where the chant “mafia” can be heard even more clearly. This is further confirmed by various international and local media outlets, including AP and the Bulgarian News Agency, which also note in their video descriptions that participants frequently chant the word “mafia,” referring to government corruption and comparing officials to mafiosi.
For additional analysis, Myth Detector used Google’s Pinpoint program, which is designed to transcribe audio from video. The results confirm that only the word “mafia” can be heard in the footage, repeated several times.
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