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ELIZABETH KOSTOVA
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The Shadow Land, famed US author's newest novel, is entirely set in Bulgaria -
FALL OF 1,300 YEARS OF BULGARIA
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Demolition of huge Communist-era monument turns as controversial as monument itself -
LAND OF LOST LENINS
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Only a handful of the hundreds of Lenin statues under Communism remain standing -
PRIME MINISTER WITHOUT A SMOKED SAUSAGE IN HIS HAND
Life in the warped reality of life in GERB's Bulgaria can sometimes assume surreal dimensions. Each outrage committed by the top GERB functionaries is almost immediately followed by something totally unexpected – and even more outrageous than before – in order to distract the attention of the general public from the really…Be the first to comment! Read more...
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DEVNYA MUSEUM OF ROMAN MOSAICS
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The contrast between the drab town of Devnya and its Museum of Roman Mosaics is shocking – the modernistic concrete museum building preserves some of the best mosaics ever found in Bulgaria. Here they are, astonishing images made of thousands of stone tiles, exhibited in situ in a museum that was… -
ALL ALONG BYALA REKA
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Even before the day trippers have started their descent to Byala Reka, or White River, their uneven melody precedes them. After a while the singers themselves appear, hikers whose tiredness testifies that they have seen much more than just the Byala Reka Eco-Path. -
GUČA MADNESS
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The best of Balkan madness, with all its unapologetic joie de vivre, can be experienced at a certain location at a certain time: the Guča Trumpet Festival in August, and this is not just because of the official ritual of waking up all the revellers at 7am sharp with a… -
GOING, GOING, (ALMOST) GONE!
Bizarre monument in front of NDK may finally be consigned to dustbin of historyBe the first to comment! Read more...
-
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
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A major battle between the Russian Imperial Army, backed up by Bulgarian volunteers, and Ottoman forces was fought around that mountain peak in August 1877, predetermining the end of the war as a result of which Bulgaria gained its independence. -
SEVEN BEDTIMES FOR SEVEN BONZOS, An excerpt from a short story originally published in Yeti magazine
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This current issue presents a text by the 2016 Sozopol Fiction Seminars fellow and CapitaLiterature participant Ben Bush -
PREOBRAZHENSKI MONASTERY
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You do not need to be able to read Bulgarian to understand the meaning and to feel the power of a fresco in the Preobrazhenski Monastery, near Veliko Tarnovo. You do not even need to know who the artist, Zahariy Zograf, was. -
BULGARIA'S MONTHLY QUIZ
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Bulgaria's monthly quizThink you know Bulgaria and the Bulgarians?Take our test to doublecheck 1. Where is the Ropotamo reserve?A. At the Black SeaB. In the RhodopeC. In the Stara Planina 2. Bulgarians believe that on Transfiguration Day, 6 August…A. The storks head to AfricaB. The sea changes and becomes dangerousC.… -
ST ANASTASIA ISLAND
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When God created the earth, the Bulgarian legend goes, He gathered all the nations to divide the world among them. To the British, He gave mastership over the seas, while the Swiss received the mountains, the Russians got the great plains, and the Germans took possession of the thick forests.… -
BURGAS THAT WAS
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Against current backdrop of fresh concrete, decaying pre-fab housing estates it's hard to imagine Burgas used to be quiet, yet urbane -
QUOTE-UNQUOTE
"We are surprised with the incidents of aggression during the past few days."Interior Minister Valentin Radev on the street beatings of a mother and daughter on Monday, of a TV journalist on Tuesday and the assassination of a businessman on WednesdayBe the first to comment! Read more...
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SMALL COMPANY, BIG DREAMS
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Timm Rüger and Nikola Gaydarov from Rüger Consulting on importance of expertise and bringing human approach to IT consultancy -
CHRIST IN SPACE? OLD FRESCO IN BULGARIAN VILLAGE CHURCH DEPICTS 'UFO'
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Christ was an alien. Or if He wasn't, then four centuries ago there were UFOs hovering over what is now southwestern Bulgaria. -
SECRETS OF MAGURATA CAVE
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Travelling in Bulgaria's Northwest, particularly in early summer when the greenery is still fresh, tempts you to explore the outdoors: the magnificence of the Belogradchik Rocks, the might of the mountains around Vratsa, the slow flow of the Danube past the walls of Vidin fortress. However, when travelling in this… -
'GREAT WALL OF BULGARIA'
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Barbed-wire fence now stretches all the way from Rezovo at Black Sea to Svilengrad -
CASE OF NDK
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Yet another instance of corruption, wise practical decision or new round of political buffoonery? -
KNOW THINE HISTORY
Bulgaria's extreme nationalism, whose main perpetrators are now in government, sometimes assumes wacky proportions. In the past several months the political establishment of GERB, supported by the loose alliance of ultranationalists identifying themselves as "united patriots," has been ruthless in condemning and eradicating anything that might smack of "anti-Bulgarianness." Of…Be the first to comment! Read more...
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THE EMPTY CAVE, An excerpt from a novel
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This current issue presents a text by the 2016 Sozopol Fiction Seminars fellow and CapitaLiterature participant Dimana Trankova -
NDK, COMMUNIST-ERA MONSTROSITY OR CULTURE PALACE TO SHOW OFF WITH?
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In Sofia, there is a place where you can see a representative sample of modern-day Bulgarian society in just about a couple of square miles and in less than a few hours. This is the National Palace of Culture, or NDK. On its vast square, teenagers skateboard and flirt, elderly… -
SUNFLOWER POWER
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Travelling in the Bulgarian countryside in the summer is particularly fascinating, for it is then that sunflowers are in full bloom, creating a colourful cacophony with their yellow, orange and brown hues. -
NICOLE SIMMONS, ON TRAVELLING IN BULGARIA, NOT VISITING THE SAME PLACE TWICE AND COLLECTING ART
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Nicole Simmons is the wife of Eric S. Rubin, who has been the US Ambassador to Bulgaria since February 2016. Nicole is also an epidemiologist and international health expert with 20 years of experience managing and developing technical assistance, training and research projects. She is currently a part-time faculty member… -
ATHENS NEVER CEASES TO AWE
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Athens is a place that simultaneously feels very old and very new. It is a place of ancient monuments and of drab, unremarkable post-1940s streets with white houses and greying apartment buildings, with bustling street traffic and elderly people slowly strolling along. There are tourist traps and tavernas that seem… -
BETWEEN THIRD-WORLD TYRANNY AND SECOND-WORLD OLIGARCHY
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Borisov's Bulgaria sleepwalks into increasingly undemocratic future -
ERIC LEBEDEL
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French ambassador on Bulgaria's quaint villages, storks and why he is not eager to talk with Ataka -
AMAZING SINEMORETS
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The Bulgarian southern Black Sea coast might be overdeveloped, but a few corners of pristine nature and immaculate beauty still survive amid the concrete, the lack of proper sewage systems, the hideous new buildings and the jam - packed beaches. Sinemorets, one of the last Bulgarian villages before the border… -
VELIKO TARNOVO CHURCHES
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As a city that remembers its glorious past as one of Bulgaria's mediaeval capitals, and its importance in the 19th century as the nascent Bulgarian nation struggled for independence and recognition, Veliko Tarnovo has a collection of churches that have witnessed or played a part in many historic events. -
THE SILENCE OF BULGARIA'S ABANDONED AIRPORTS
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Being a flight attendant was a glamorous job during Communism. Uniformed beauties on calendars for Balkan Airlines, the state air carrier, reinforced that the job as an aspirational one, while for the more practically minded, the profession had another advantage. When local shops lacked essentials like toilet paper, working on… -
ENDANGERED KOPRIVSHTITSA
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Will traditional town survive threat of losing heritage status? -
BORDER: A JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF EUROPE
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Kapka Kassabova's newest book causes stir in the UK. Coming to Bulgaria soon -
SOFIA'S HIDDEN FLEA MARKET
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London has Camden Passage (Portobello is so upmarket nowadays), Paris has the Marché aux Puces de St-Ouen, Rome has Porta Portese, Athens has Monastiraki and Tbilisi has the Dry Bridge Flea Market: local flea markets are one of the most delightful experiences in capitals across Europe. Once they were the… -
WHEN WILL WE CATCH UP WITH THE AMERICANS...?
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At the beginning of the 1990s, when Bulgarian Communism had collapsed and the nation was gripped with pro-democracy fervour, Todor Kolev, this country's perhaps best known comedian actor, put out a song that instantly became a major hit. Loosely picking on the tune of The Beatles's Let It Be, Kolev… -
THE IRISHMAN WHO DANCED THE HORO
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The name, Rachenitsa, may be too difficult for a foreigner to remember or pronounce, but you have probably seen it as a crude copy on the wall of a traditional restaurant, as a reproduction or a souvenir, or in the original in the National Gallery of Art. It is an… -
MYSTIC BULGARIA
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There are places in Bulgaria that ancient tradition or modern lore have turned into sites that attract not only people interested in beautiful landscapes and history, but also those who believe that they will discover something otherworldly there. Supposedly haunted villages and sites frequented by UFOs rub shoulders with "miraculous"… -
BULGARIA'S TOP CAVES
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How many caves there are in Bulgaria is a question with no definitive answer. So far, more than 4,500 have been discovered and mapped. The number is so high because 22 percent of the country is covered with karst, a topography created when water soaks, dissolves and carves sedimentary rocks,… -
HELL IS NO JOKE
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What first attracts your attention in a Bulgarian Revival Period church? The architecture? The silver-haloed icons of the Virgin Mary? The elaborate carvings of the icon doors? These may all be astonishing, but have you noticed the river of fire, on the outside western wall of most of the churches,… -
MASTODONS OF DORKOVO
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Pliocene museum reveals Bulgaria's unknown prehistory -
BULGARIA'S ABANDONED ECO TRAILS
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Neglect ruins many exhilarating trekking experiences -
C IS FOR SOFIA, A STANDS FOR BURGAS
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In most European countries, licensing cars is a pretty straightforward business. Number plates usually reflect the year of the first registration, or the province where the car's owner resides, or sometimes they give out nothing at all except a unique combination of letters and numbers detectable by the traffic authorities…
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LAND OF LOST LENINS
Be the first to comment! Read more...
Only a handful of the hundreds of Lenin statues under Communism remain standing
-
ELIZABETH KOSTOVA
Be the first to comment! Read more...
The Shadow Land, famed US author's newest novel, is entirely set in Bulgaria
-
PRIME MINISTER WITHOUT A SMOKED SAUSAGE IN HIS HAND
Life in the warped reality of life in GERB's Bulgaria can sometimes assume surreal dimensions. Each outrage committed by the top GERB functionaries is almost immediately followed by something totally unexpected – and even more outrageous than before – in order to distract the attention of the general public from the really…Be the first to comment! Read more...
-
FALL OF 1,300 YEARS OF BULGARIA
Be the first to comment! Read more...
Demolition of huge Communist-era monument turns as controversial as monument itself
-
GOING, GOING, (ALMOST) GONE!
Bizarre monument in front of NDK may finally be consigned to dustbin of historyBe the first to comment! Read more...
-
SMALL COMPANY, BIG DREAMS
Be the first to comment! Read more...
Timm Rüger and Nikola Gaydarov from Rüger Consulting on importance of expertise and bringing human approach to IT consultancy
-
QUOTE-UNQUOTE
"We are surprised with the incidents of aggression during the past few days."Interior Minister Valentin Radev on the street beatings of a mother and daughter on Monday, of a TV journalist on Tuesday and the assassination of a businessman on WednesdayBe the first to comment! Read more...
-
PREOBRAZHENSKI MONASTERY
Be the first to comment! Read more...
You do not need to be able to read Bulgarian to understand the meaning and to feel the power of a fresco in the Preobrazhenski Monastery, near Veliko Tarnovo. You do not even need to know who the artist, Zahariy Zograf, was.
-
ST ANASTASIA ISLAND
Be the first to comment! Read more...
When God created the earth, the Bulgarian legend goes, He gathered all the nations to divide the world among them. To the British, He gave mastership over the seas, while the Swiss received the mountains, the Russians got the great plains, and the Germans took possession of the thick forests.…
-
DEVNYA MUSEUM OF ROMAN MOSAICS
Be the first to comment! Read more...
The contrast between the drab town of Devnya and its Museum of Roman Mosaics is shocking – the modernistic concrete museum building preserves some of the best mosaics ever found in Bulgaria. Here they are, astonishing images made of thousands of stone tiles, exhibited in situ in a museum that was…
-
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Be the first to comment! Read more...
A major battle between the Russian Imperial Army, backed up by Bulgarian volunteers, and Ottoman forces was fought around that mountain peak in August 1877, predetermining the end of the war as a result of which Bulgaria gained its independence.
-
BURGAS THAT WAS
Be the first to comment! Read more...
Against current backdrop of fresh concrete, decaying pre-fab housing estates it's hard to imagine Burgas used to be quiet, yet urbane
-
BULGARIA'S MONTHLY QUIZ
Be the first to comment!
Bulgaria's monthly quizThink you know Bulgaria and the Bulgarians?Take our test to doublecheck 1. Where is the Ropotamo reserve?A. At the Black SeaB. In the RhodopeC. In the Stara Planina 2. Bulgarians believe that on Transfiguration Day, 6 August…A. The storks head to AfricaB. The sea changes and becomes dangerousC.…
-
ALL ALONG BYALA REKA
Be the first to comment! Read more...
Even before the day trippers have started their descent to Byala Reka, or White River, their uneven melody precedes them. After a while the singers themselves appear, hikers whose tiredness testifies that they have seen much more than just the Byala Reka Eco-Path.
-
GUČA MADNESS
Be the first to comment! Read more...
The best of Balkan madness, with all its unapologetic joie de vivre, can be experienced at a certain location at a certain time: the Guča Trumpet Festival in August, and this is not just because of the official ritual of waking up all the revellers at 7am sharp with a…
-
SEVEN BEDTIMES FOR SEVEN BONZOS, An excerpt from a short story originally published in Yeti magazine
Be the first to comment! Read more...
This current issue presents a text by the 2016 Sozopol Fiction Seminars fellow and CapitaLiterature participant Ben Bush
