Issue 113

Sitting in his panorama-view office at the foot of the Vitosha, Nikolay Hadjidontchev, general manager of Teva-Bulgaria, is both excited about the acquisition of Actavis, one of the country's leading pharmaceutical companies, and anxious about the merger's results. Nikolay Hadjidontchev has over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and on the consumer goods market. Before becoming the general manager of Teva-Bulgaria in 2011, he was the general manager of Alapis Bulgaria, Actavis Ltd, Roche Bulgaria and Unilever Bulgaria.

A mountain is a better protection than a river, but in 15 AD, when the Romans took over the Thracian lands between the Danube and the Stara Planina mountain, they had no choice: The mighty river, whose upper course they had already mastered, became the frontier of the expanding empire, setting a clear line between the civility of Pax Romana and the unruliness of the independent people on the other side of the river, the Barbarians, as the Romans called them.

You are in an unsightly socialist town where rustic houses are scattered amongst prefabricated housing blocks. Men are repairing Ladas and Moskviches and women are dusting carpets in the patches of green. You head for the town square and discover that it is appropriately covered with the large white slabs to be seen in so many other Bulgarian towns, the result of a 1980s plan by Communist rulers to implement pedestrian zones. But there is something a little out of kilter here. The town is oddly clean and the pavement is not falling apart. There are few stray dogs in the streets.

The places everyone should visit before they die fall into three categories: stunning natural landscapes (like the Grand Canyon), sites of astonishing human creativity (e. g. the Giza Pyramids), and Cappadocia.

Lined with advertisements for winter sports and down-at-heel sellers of local potatoes, the road to Samokov, about 70 km from Sofia, does not promise much excitement in the town itself, but Samokov is a surprise. The town is much more than the producer of famous potatoes, a gateway to the Borovets ski resort or the starting point for a number of treks in the Rila mountains.

When you roam the cobbled streets of one of its hills, however, you will see it at its most charming: this is 19th Century Bulgaria, a period referred to as National Revival, when education, the arts and crafts, trade and commerce and industry were beginning to "wake up" following the centuries of Ottoman rule. A word of caution: 19th century travellers complained the steep lanes of the Old Town were tricky to walk, especially when it rained. The situation remains unchanged to this day.

Where in Bulgaria are you?

1. The name of which Bulgarian peak means "Closer to God"?
A. Cherni Vrah, in the Vitosha
B. Musala, in the Rila
C. Vihren, in the Pirin

2. Sts Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the first Slavic alphabet, were…
A. Brothers
B. Father and son
C. Uncle and nephew

Removing the EU monitoring of Romania is discriminatory and unjust, Bulgaria is not worse than Romania.

Kiril Domuschiev, Chairman of the board of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria

We want to be transparent and so the people have faith in us.

Infrastructure Minister Lilyana Pavlova on the public procurements stopped by the government

We all know how boring the Black Sea is. It lacks the saltiness of the Aegean, the rugged coastline of the Adriatic, and the rich marine life of the Red Sea. Its waters are dead, its fauna has been lost to pollution and overfishing. In short, the Black Sea is dull.

If you have visited the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in the summer, calm is the last word you would use to describe it. At this season, the resorts and beaches teem with tourists, and suffer from noise and rubbish pollution. In such circumstances, the feeling that you have stumbled into some sort of a hell on earth is inevitable.

You can enter by the road from the south, the north, the east or even the west, although the west road, unfortunately, is not very good. Actually, even then it was quite bad and annoying to drive on, with lots of potholes; there would often be fallen trees. There is no reason to think that the road is better now. You cannot be sure what to expect, once you manage to get into the city. Even back then, the buildings had almost entirely lost their magnificence and charm, which was reminiscent of a decent past, and suggested a relatively prosperous future.