Welcome to Bulgaria - The Ultimate Guide To Bulgaria

Founded in 681 Bulgaria is one of the most ancient countries in the world history. Bulgarian land is the cradle of civilization, existed 7- 8 thousand years ago. Bulgaria is a motherland of Slav culture, the land of Orpheus and Spartacus. Bulgaria is noted for not having ever changed its name through the ages. Today, the country is an active member of NATO , and is also due to join the European Union on January 1 , 2007 .
For 1300 years history, thirteen centuries, Bulgaria has given the world men of great achievements, the Cyrillic alphabet, mysterious Thracian treasures and burial tombs, magnificent frescos and many brilliant examples of ancient applied arts. Bulgaria is an example of magnificent nature – climate with four seasons, sea, high mountains, forests and all that in one with ancient historical sites and wonderful resorts.

According to the 2001, Bulgaria's population is mainly ethnic Bulgarian (83.9%), with two sizable minorities, Turks (9.4%) and Roma (4.7%). Of the remaining 2.0%, 0.9% are distributed among some forty smaller minorities, the most numerous of which are the Russians , Armenians , Vlachs , Jews , Crimean Tatars and Karakachans . The people who have not declared their ethnicity are 1.1% of the total population.

Bulgarian is the mother-tongue of 84.8% of the population; it is a member of the Slavic languages . Bulgarian is the only official language, but other languages such as Turkish and Romany , are spoken corresponding closely to ethnic breakdown.

Most Bulgarians (82.6%) are, at least nominally, members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church , the national Eastern Orthodox church. Other religious denominations include Islam (12.2%), various Protestant denominations (0.7%), Roman Catholicism (0.5%), with other denominations, atheists and undeclared numbering ca. 4.1%.

Bulgarian festivals and customs date back to ancient times. You have to see and experience Bulgarian folklore dances, mystical voices, and colored costumes!

You have to taste the Bulgarian cuisine! Delicious dishes, that you must try and enjoy; Bulgarian fruits and vegetables are grown up with so much sun and love, in the rich Bulgarian soil and four seasons – climate.

Fire dancing (nestinari) is an ancient pagan mysterious ritual - barefooted dancers (nestinari) in a trance, performing on burning embers. When the Christianity entered in the Bulgarian culture, this dance has been transformed – dedicated to Christian saints; the dancers began to perform it, holding in hands an icon. This religious and mystical ritual for expelling illness, for health and fruitfulness is one that must be seen to believe it.

The Festival of Roses is a beautiful and unique festival celebrated in the Rose Valley near the town of Kazanluk (at the foot of the Balkan Range) on the first weekend of June every year. In the run-up of the event, a Queen Rose beauty contest is held in several rounds. Artists, actors, circus performers, writers and singers flock to Kazanluk at the start of June. The Bulgarian oleaginous rose yields 70 percent of the world's attar of roses used by every perfume company as an essential component of its products.
The history tells that in the Thracian provinces of the Roman Empire, the Thracians grew 12 varieties of roses, one of them known as the "Thracian Rose".
In the 1270, during the crusades, Count de Gruye brought the Damascus rose from Syria to the valley of Kazanlak where conditions proved excellent. Experts claim that Bulgarian roses and rose oil owe their unique properties to the local climate and the generous soil. The temperatures in February, when roses bud, are ideal. The blossoms are picked in May and June, when high humidity is very important. So is the cinnamon-forest soil in the area and, last but not least, the remarkable skills of the Bulgarian rose-oil producers.

Carnival of Kukeri held in the region of Dupnitsa and Pernik is a splendid festival of brightly colored masks and costumes which marks the beginning of the spring. Every participant makes his own multi-coloured personal mask, covered with beads, bells, ribbons and woollen tassels. Some of the costumes are inheritance from great grandparents – this is the way the tradition lives on and on, connecting the old times with the contemporaneity. There are specific dance that the participants play, making big noise with bells tied around the waist, to expel the evil spirits and the sickness. The heavy swaying of the main mummer is meant to represent wheat heavy with grain, so this custom is also dedicated to the fertility, inviting a year of wealth.

The Bulgarian voices or the mysterious Bulgarian voices, as they are known. Experts are still trying to explain the incredible range of the Bulgarian voice and the variety of songs. Its unique sound was universally acknowledged by the fact that the popular Rhodope song "Izlel e Delyu hiadutin" sung by the talented singer Valya Balkanska was recorded on a gold record and was sent as a message to outer space on the American spaceship Voyager in 1977. The world is discovering it again and again at major folklore and song contests in Italy, France, England and Ireland from which the Bulgarian music and dance ensembles invariably walk off with the first prizes. There is a big interest in Bulgarian folklore in US, Australia and Japan, there are many foreign people, who like to learn it and to perform.

The folk festivals "Pirin Sings" and Rozhen Sings are the best-known Bulgarian folklore festivals. Many thousand visitors from Bulgaria and abroad came together to witness the show by the hundreds performers on each festival. They came to see and to learn these inspiring events and the curious world of Bulgarian folklore traditions.

Rila mountain and the spiritual tradition of Dunovism, the spiritual dance paneurithmia, attracts many foreign and Bulgarian disciples, who found init peace, beauty and spiritual recreation. As it was said by the Master of this doctrine, Petar Dunov, the Rila mountain is one of the biggest spiritual academies in the world; a sacred place for the ones, who search the rising up of the spirit and healing the soul and the body.

The country has nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Of these, two are Thracian tombs (one in Sveshtari and one in Kazanlak , three are monuments of medieval Bulgarian culture (the Boyana Church , the Rila Monastery and the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo ), while the Pirin National Park and the Srebarna Nature Reserve represent the country's natural beauty, and the ancient city of Nesebar is a unique combination of European cultural interaction, as well as, historically, one of the most important centres of naval trade in the Black Sea. In addition, the Varna Necropolis , a 3200-3000 BC burial site, contains what are believed to be the oldest examples of worked gold in the world.

UNESCO Madara Horseman

An unusual place - a plateau rises in the middle of a plain which, when viewed from the west, resembles a petrified waterfall. At a height of 23 meters the figure of a horseman has been hewn into the sheer rock, piercing a lion with his spear, and flanked on both sides by inscriptions reflecting the military and political power of the First Bulgarian Empire.
This symbol of Bulgarian statesmanship is the only one of its kind in the whole of Europe. Monumental in design and execution, the Madara Horseman is a magnificent message from the early Middle Ages.

UNESCO Kazanluk Tomb

Located in the romantic Valley of Roses, near the town of Kazanluk. Built during the 4th century B.C. for a wealthy Thracian rules. The perfectly preserved murals are a unique testimony of pictorial art during the Hellenic period. In a talented and realistic way the artist has conveyed both the rites of a bural feast, as well as the inner state of the figures.

Applied crafts have gradually emerged from the narrow frame work of strictly domestic life to become an art which breeds art: Bulgarian embroidery with its intricate geometrical figures, Bulgarian rugs and carpets with their vibrant colours, exquisitely painted Bulgarian ceramics, finely ornamented Bulgarian fretwork and superbly fashioned Bulgarian jewellery.
The Samovodene Market in Veliko Turnovo, the Permanent National Exhibition of Folk Art in Oreshak near Troyan and the Etura architectural and ethnographic complex near Gabrovo are all original museums of the revived beauty of Bulgarian handicrafts. You are bound to find your own particular memento from Bulgaria here - a small carved wooden wine vessel, a Troyan pottery set, a fleecy Rhodope rug, an original piece of silver jewellery, a finely embroidered silk blouse or a colourful carpet.