to buy food and medicinemore than a quarter of bulgarias 7 million people cant afford to heat their home according to eu statistics office eurostat the highest in the 27nation bloc due to poorly insulated buildings and low incomes nearly half of households use firewood in winter as the cheapest and most accessible fuel but rising demand and galloping inflation have driven prices above last years levelsin the capital sofia where almost half a million households have heating provided by central plants many sought other options after a 40 price increase was announcedgrigor iliev a 68yearold retired bookkeeper and his wife decided to cancel their central heating and buy a combined air conditionerheating unit for their tworoom apartmentits a costly device but in the long run we will recoup our investment he saidmeanwhile businesses are trying to stay afloat without alienating customers klara aurell owner of two prague restaurants said shes done all she can to conserve energywe use led bulbs we turn the lights off during the day the heating is only when it gets really cold and we use it only in a limited way she said we also take measures to save water and use energyefficient equipment we can hardly do anything else the only thing to remain is to increase prices thats how it isthe gourmet babushka artisanal bakery in an affluent district of budapest has had to raise prices by 10 the bakery used less air conditioning despite hungarys hottest summer on record and is ensuring the ovens dont run without bread insidewhile it has enough traffic to stay open for now further jumps in energy costs could threaten its viability owner eszter roboz saida twofold increase in energy costs still fits into the operation of our business and into our calculations she said but in the case of a three to fourfold increase we will really need to think about whether we can continue this