Welcome to Bulgaria

Bulgarians are a proud people. I was unable to put a word to it at first but after a few days in the country and enough daily interactions there it was...pride. At first i chalked it up to the fact that my initial interactions were in the tourist industry, then I thought it was the usual banter one has with a foreigner new to their country, then I wondered if it was a strange nationalism born out of centuries of subjugation. Probably all those are true from time to time, but the culmination of interactions leads me to believe the citizens of Bulgaria, wherever in the world they might live are proud to be Bulgarian. 

I cannot blame them actually, consider this:

- between 632 AD and 1420 the first and second Bulgarian empires included modern day Macedonia, Greece, Ukraine, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey

- Saints Cyril and Methodious used Old Bulgarian (from which modern day Bulgarian derived) to translate the Bible and other sacred texts from Greek

- Cyrillic script was developed in the first Bulgarian empire by followers of Saints Cyril and Methodious

- they survived 5 centuries of brutal occupation under the Ottoman Empire 

- in World War II Bulgaria was one of only 3 countries who were able to protect their Jewish population from the fate of deportation to work or concentration camps. Bulgaria had approximately 50,000 Jewish people at that time. The other two countries, Albania and Denmark

- Bulgarians invented the bacteria (lactobacillus bulgaricus) used to make yoghurt

- Bulgarians invented: the first computer, digital watch, car air bag

- the country is one of the worlds largest wine makers

Surely I will continue to learn more about this country and it's people as i travel on. For now, here are a few photos from Sofia.