Silvia Veselinova welcomes us to the new offices of Idea Buildings where she is surrounded by smiling colleagues and a multitude of tulips. The construction company she runs has just moved into a new space in a modern office building "to shake up some energy" and to mark the beginning of a new phase in its development.
Giuseppina Zarra is no novice to the Balkans. She is one of the rare breed of diplomats who have made a comeback to Sofia after her initial spell here in the 1990s. Then she served as a first secretary, now she is the host of Italy's palatial embassy on Ruski Boulevard, in the middle of Bulgaria's capital. Zarra's love affair with Bulgaria ranges from literature to music and from history to exploring the hidden treasures of Sofia.
Bulgaria may be famous for many things but sequoias is apparently not one of them. Think again. If you know where to look you will discover a number of wonderful redwoods that will make your head swirl: Am I in the Sierra Nevadas, the natural habitat of the world's largest and tallest trees, or am I in the eastern Balkans?
The curious case of Bulgaria's sequoias started in the late 19th century when a few enthusiasts imported redwood seeds and planted them in various locations, mainly for aesthetic purposes.
The leaders of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, or BSP, Kornelia Ninova; of Yes Bulgaria, Hristo Ivanov; and of Democratic Bulgaria, or DB, Gen Atanas Atanasov resigned. The reason, they said, had to do with the bad election performance of their respective political organisations. Their action was novel in Bulgarian politics and the civil service as such: very few Bulgarians resign from any position of power unless they really have to.
Today, knowing what time it is becomes a problem only if the battery of your smart phone is dead and there is no one around to ask. For previous generations, it was different. For millennia, people measured their days and nights by the movement of the sun and stars, or waited for a rooster to crow.
Finishing Hemus Motorway by 2024 was never realistic.
Regional Development Minister Grozdan Karadzhov on promises Boyko Borisov used to make while he was PM
The [GERB-controlled] anti-corruption commission has produced more saints than the Bulgarian Church in 100 years. The people it has investigated were given veritable halos, despite them being sanctioned by the Magnitsky Act.
Konstantin Bachiyski, Changes Continued MP
As the largest and most famous monastery in Bulgaria, and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Rila Monastery can appear a little overwhelming if you visit in high season or during major Christian festivals. The crowds that gather in the picturesque yard, with its toy-like painted church and the striped arches of the galleries, can obliterate any feeling of holiness, or the tranquility that is usually associated with a monastic institution of such fame.
Huddled deep among the hills of the Eastern Rhodope, Tatul could be any one of the many hamlets that you pass through while travelling in this area. Yet, it is not an ordinary Rhodope village. A high rocky hill rises about 300m south of it, crowned by one of the most peculiar megalithic structures the Thracians ever made.