FUN

Eighty-eight percent of its waters are dead owing to the high concentration of hydrogen sulphate. Through the centuries it has changed its name several times. Its shores colonised by Greeks, who promptly invented a plethora of myths and legends about it. Among those, the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts still tickles the imagination. It is in Europe, but it is still less known than, say, the Bering Sea. An enigma that continues to generate myths and legends.
 

It happens all the time. In parliament, they fight, pull and curse one another. After 5-10 minutes in the assembly hall, you need a psychotherapist.

Boyko Borisov, GERB leader

Are Xi Jinping and Putin younger than me?

Boyko Borisov on whether he is not too outdated to appeal to Gen Z

The result of the general election will be what it will be.

Toshko Yordanov, There Is Such a People party

1. Which of these town is in the Stara Planina mountain range?
A. Gabrovo
B. Kardzhali
C. Gotse Delchev

2. When you order kavarma, you get…
A. A plate of grilled sausages
B. Meat and vegetables stewed in an earthenware pot
C. A rice pie

3. What is the name of the famed ancient rock city in the Rhodope?
A. Castra Martis
B. Bukelon
C. Perperikon

The main reason is that it gained popularity due to a French couple, who lived in the north of Bulgaria, not far from Dve Mogili near Ruse, at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century.

If you have spent in Bulgaria more than a Bansko ski weekend or a binge drinking tour of Sunny Beach, you have probably become familiar with a number of concepts, events and personalities firmly embedded in the Bulgarian national consciousness. The pagan ruler drinking wine from the severed head of a Byzantine enemy he'd just had killed is one. The creation of the alphabet that you still struggle to remember is another. The idea of lost Bulgarian might, when the country experienced its Golden Age and "spread on three seas" is as good as the previous two.

Because he defected from Communist Bulgaria and settled first in France and then in the United States, Christo Yavacheff was not much talked about in the country while he was still alive. Born in Gabrovo on the northern slopes of the Stara Planina mountain range, in 1934, Christo fled the country in the 1950s. At that point, not unlike other East bloc intellectuals who had escaped from Communism, he ceased to exist as far as the local media were concerned. His name would resurface only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.

By far surpassing Christmas, which in the local tradition is mostly a family dinner feast in the middle of a cold, dark winter, Easter is in spring. It indicates both the rebirth of nature and the rejuvenated crave for life, with religious symbolism, though strictly adhered to, playing the second fiddle. The Orthodox Easter rarely coincides with the Western one, owing to a very complicated metathetical, astronomical and clerical argument that dates back to the early Middle Ages. In 2026, it comes relatively early, on the 12th of April.

Just like William Shakespeare, who is considered responsible for the coinage of over 1,700 words and phrases in the English language, including "housekeeping," "break the ice" and "the naked truth," the former Number One Communist, Todor Zhivkov, also contributed his mite to the richness of Bulgarian. This is the only similarity between Tato, or "Dad," and the Bard, researchers claim, and give the popular idiom "This is not a dairy farm" as an example of the former dictator's linguistic creativity.

Rumen Radev will reshuffle the cards of the political establishment.

Kornelia Ninova, former chair of the BSP, on the ex-president's decision to resign and enter active politics

Radev is the absolute alternative of spinelessness, machinations and corruption.

Anton Kutev, former spokesman of caretaker governments appointed by Radev

We are many, they cannot stop the wave.

Rumen Radev announces that he resigns to launch his own party

1. When is the only right day to put on your martenitsa?
A. 1 March
B. 8 March
C. 10 March

2. Who is the president of Bulgaria?
A. Rumen Radev
B. Iliyana Yotova
C. Boyko Borisov

3. There is a Sofia street named after which British author?
A. Terry Pratchet
B. Arthur Conan Doyle
C. Agatha Christie