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The studies of the movements between the city and the village generally (especially in Southeastern Europe) refer to analyses of the processes of urbanization, and rarely focus on the so-called counter-urbanization. However, over the past decade, the increasing environmental sensitivity of a part of the urban population in active age, as well as the emergence of social movements that promote a slow and environmentally friendly lifestyle have intensified the anti-urban trends. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the measures introduced to limit its spread have created a new social reality in which people continue their lives in ways that for many differ from the previous routine, influencing also the mobility patterns. Hence, the article aims at analyzing the urban-rural migration in Bulgaria within the context of the current coronavirus crises. Our thesis is that the pandemic enhances internal mobility in the medium term, since the physical distancing motivates people to spend more time outdoors and away from the urban environment. At the same time, some of them are able to seek spatial freedom in rural areas due to the opportunity to work and study from distance. In this respect, the ethnographic case studies presented in the text show the peculiar impact the constantly alternating imposition and lifting of certain restrictions has on the mobility decision-making and lifestyle of individuals and entire families.

This article is based on first-hand ethnographic data and focuses on two cases of bicultural, bilingual and cross-national couples of Bulgarian women and their migrant husbands (an Egyptian and a Filipino). More specifically, it deals with different aspects of social and emotional adaptation of the male marriage migrants to the receiving country - Bulgaria. The main goal of the article is to present different specificities of their everyday life, socialisation and professional development abroad while still being close to their roots. Since marriage with a local is a crucial factor for this multi-layered process, the role of their Bulgarian wives is also considered. The text contains two thematic sections - the first one focuses on the social adaptation of the immigrants in the context of Bulgarian language acquisition. The process each of the foreigners have been going through is presented by their manners of communication within their own bilingual marriages, the professional environment and the ‘new’ social circle. The second section deals with the place of the immigrants’ home country within their lives in migration and their nuclear mixed families. Their habits and the activities they engage in ‘there’, are also used as a tool for describing a part of their social and emotional adaptation ‘here’.

The article addresses the topic of shifting co-presence of four Bulgarian- Syrian families living in Bulgaria with their Syrian kin. Since the dividing line is the beginning of the conflict in Syria, the body of the text consists of two sections: the first one regards the physical co-presence before and the second one presents the virtual co-presence after. The notion before also refers to the free movements between "here" (Bulgaria) and "there" (Syria), and after encompasses the time of the peculiar "exile" of the mixed families who were deprived of the possibility to travel and to be bodily present. Therefore, the shift is shown by analysing the essence of the face-to-face and from-distance communication within the context of changing lifestyle circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]