An Anketa poll that recorded 824 votes posed a brutal question: if you stood in front of the people found guilty of killing Georgi Kuzev and knew you would face no punishment, would you do to them what they did to him?
Sixty percent said yes.
The poll was posted following the death of 37-year-old Georgi Kuzev, who was attacked on Youth Hill in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, on August 4, 2026. According to prosecutors, the assault lasted more than an hour. Kuzev later died in hospital from his injuries.
The killing sparked public outrage and calls for justice. Five teenagers were initially charged with murder. On August 27, prosecutors charged three additional minors, bringing the total to eight suspects, aged 14 to 17. All eight were accused in connection with the killing, but the charges do not constitute convictions.
Respondents were not asked about policy, sentencing, or the justice system. They were asked what they themselves would do if the normal consequences of violence disappeared.
The largest group, 60%, chose “Yes, they deserve it.” Another 29% rejected the option outright: “No — I do not want to become what I condemn.” Eight percent said they would not act but understood those who would. Three percent did not know.
The gap between the first two answers is wide. Most respondents selected retaliation in a scenario where punishment was removed from the equation. A substantial minority refused to cross that line even then.
These numbers cannot tell us what anyone would actually do. They measure responses to a single hypothetical, not real behavior, and they come from a self-selected online poll with no documented sampling, weighting, or repeat-vote controls. They are not a measure of Bulgarian public opinion. They also cannot show whether support for revenge would shrink if the threat of punishment returned, because the poll never asked that version of the question.
What they do show is narrower and still striking. When the legal barrier is lifted in the mind, a clear majority of the respondents said they would meet extreme violence with the same violence. A smaller but significant share said they would not, because they refuse to become the thing they condemn.
The poll does not resolve the moral argument. It simply records how 824 votes were cast when the argument was made personal and the risk was removed.
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