What is the poorest part of Europe?

Question

I am planning on doing a documentary that compares poverty in Europe to that of poverty in the USA. However, I do not know which places in Europe I should visit. Does any out there have any idea which places would be good?

Answer 1

1. Moldova

2 Georgia

3 Bosnia and Herzegovina

4 Albania

5 Ukraine

http://www.aneki.com/poorest_europe.html

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessn...

Answer 2

Moldavia, Albania, Belarus, Ukraine. They can tell you about Macedonia that is poor.

I live in Macedonia. You must visit it. We are not so poor and the people are loving and its have very beautiful landscapes.

Answer 3

Serbia and Montenegro, Belarussia, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Romania, Hungary, Latvia.. places like these from the communist style grey concrete projects to simple shacks.

basically east of Berlin... definately noticeable difference once you leave western europe and enter the east.

in the west it would be Portugal

Answer 4

Well, overall, the Rep. of Moldova is per capita poorest, but there are other countries where there is a vast discrepancy in the way the rich and poor live.  For instance...Bihor county Romania is the wealthiest county in Romania due to its proximity to the west and number of foreign companies that set up shop there.  But I can tell you that I have cousins that live 8 people in a 1 room house with the only electricity coming in from an extension cord to power the tv (priorities...I know.)  This is in the wealthiest county of a country that across the board has drastically improved their standard of living.  My advice would be definitely to center around Eastern Europe, because there are huge gaps between the lifestyles of the rich and middle class versus the poor.  I am certain you can also find significant poverty in aging industrial cities like Copsa Mica in Romania because post communism, most heavy industry has dried up and left the area an ecological mess.  If you have the bravery to go to Transnistria (a self declared separatist state in Rep. Moldova) I have heard that it is still hard line communist, so it might provide a nice contrast to Rep. Moldova which still has communist leadership but they have a very shaky grasp on the economy, which is why the standard of living in Rep. Moldova has fallen 70% since 1991.  I can speak from significant personal experience about Romania and Moldova and I can definitely tell you that there is still significant poverty there, despite the positive economic outlooks broadcast on the news.  If you are in Oradea, Romania, I can definitely hook you up with people to talk to.

Answer 5

The eastern parts of Europe, former communist countries like Albania. It´s a very poor country and the parts of former Soviet, which are now individual states, but I don´t know their names as they are very difficult to pronounce, they have it really difficult.

Answer 6

here is a list with the buying power of the European countries:

http://www.umfragen.info/online/umfrage/...

Moldavia, Albania, Belarus, Ukraine and Macedonia are the poorest countries.

Answer 7

It so depends on what you classify as "poor"- poor in resources, standard of living, GDP etc etc?

The simplest & most common term to classify wealth of a country is GDP (standard measure for the country directly comparable)

According to the measure taken by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eur... which therefore can be taken as realiable indicates (based on figures for 2007) the bottom five in Europe (measured) are

44 Montenegro

43 Moldova

42 Malta

41 Macedonia/FYROM (not entering the naming arguement!)

40 Armenia

There is also a prediction for the forthcoming years and this shows futures up to 2013 and the predictions remain the same

Per capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eur... (based on world ranking for countries measured) this is:

126 Moldova

108 Georgia

107 Armenia

100 Ukraine

95 Albania

Personally if you are really making this documentary and comparing the USA then the same as for the USA you need to look withing a country and not at the country at large.  In the USA there are some poorer areas both in terms of states/cities (as compared with others), but also within a city/state there are always areas for every single city/state.  

As you can see from the different stats presented by people here, there is a big degree of interpretation and therefore drawing conclusions is going to be very difficult.

Answer 8

Eastern Europe, by far!  My niece is in Moldova right now.  They don't even have showers!  or indoor toilets in a lot of homes.  Really poor.  Most of the outlying areas of the former communist countries are really struggling.