60 Fun Facts About Bulgaria

What is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria?

Sofia, at the foot of Vitosha mountain, has been Bulgaria's capital since 1879 and is famous for its mineral springs.

Which sea forms Bulgaria's eastern coastline?

The Black Sea washes Bulgaria's entire eastern coast, home to resorts such as Sunny Beach and Golden Sands and the port of Burgas.

Which river forms most of Bulgaria's northern border with Romania?

The Danube forms about 470 km of Bulgaria's northern border with Romania; the Danube Bridge links Ruse with Giurgiu.

Which alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire and is now used by some 250 million people?

Cyrillic was devised in the 890s by disciples of Cyril and Methodius in the First Bulgarian Empire and became the EU's third official script in 2007.

Which First Bulgarian Empire capital's literary school developed the alphabet that replaced Glagolitic?

Preslav, capital under Simeon I, housed the literary school where the script that replaced Glagolitic was devised; his reign is remembered as the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681 by Bulgars led by which khan?

Asparuh, a son of Kubrat of Old Great Bulgaria, defeated Constantine IV's Byzantine army in 680 and settled his Bulgars south of the great river.

Which Bulgarian khan is said to have used Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I's silver-lined skull as a cup after 811?

Krum crushed Nikephoros I at the Varbitsa Pass in 811 and, by Byzantine account, lined the emperor's skull with silver as a drinking cup; he also issued Bulgaria's first written laws.

Which Bulgarian ruler abolished paganism and adopted Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 864?

Boris I was baptised in 864, taking the name Michael after his Byzantine godfather, and won an autonomous Bulgarian archbishopric in 870.

What did Basil II 'Bulgar-slayer' do to 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners in 1014?

Blinding them, sparing one eye per hundred men, was Basil II's punishment after Kleidion; the one-eyed men led the rest home, Samuil reportedly died of shock and the empire fell by 1018.

Which city was capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 until it fell to the Ottomans?

Veliko Tarnovo, the City of the Tsars, held out on its Tsarevets hill until the Ottomans took it in 1393, and in 1879 hosted the assembly that adopted Bulgaria's first constitution.

For roughly how long was Bulgaria under Ottoman rule after 1396?

Nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule ran from the fall of Vidin in 1396 to liberation in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78; full independence followed in 1908.

Bulgaria celebrates Liberation Day on 3 March, the date in 1878 of the treaty signed where?

The Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 3 March 1878, drew a 'Greater Bulgaria' that the Congress of Berlin cut back that July, feeding decades of irredentism.

Which 1876 rebellion's suppression, reported as the 'Bulgarian Horrors', turned Europe against the Ottomans?

The April Uprising of 1876 was crushed with massacres, most notoriously at Batak; Gladstone's pamphlet 'Bulgarian Horrors' turned British opinion against the Ottomans.

Vasil Levski, Bulgaria's national hero known as the "Apostle of Freedom", died how in 1873?

Vasil Levski, a former monk from Karlovo who built a secret revolutionary network, was captured near Lovech in 1872. Hanged by the Ottomans in Sofia in February 1873, he is mourned as the Apostle of Freedom.

Bulgaria's national flag is a horizontal tricolour of which colours, top to bottom?

White, green, red is the order of the tricolour adopted in 1879; it follows the pan-Slavic white-blue-red pattern with green in place of blue.

Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, replacing which currency?

The lev, whose name means 'lion', had been fixed at 1.95583 to the euro since 1999 under Bulgaria's currency board before the euro replaced it in 2026.

Which rose variety is grown in Bulgaria's Rose Valley for its oil?

The Damask rose (Rosa damascena) is picked before dawn in May and June around Kazanlak; several tonnes of petals go into a single kilo of oil.

Which Bulgarian medical student first identified Lactobacillus bulgaricus in 1905?

Stamen Grigorov, then a medical student in Geneva, isolated the bacillus from Bulgarian yogurt in 1905; Mechnikov later tied yogurt to Bulgarian longevity.

Shopska salad, Bulgaria's national dish, is topped with a thick layer of what?

Sirene (white brined cheese), grated thickly, blankets the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and peppers, so the salad's colours echo the national flag.

Bulgarians traditionally hide lucky charms in a banitsa pastry on which occasion?

On New Year's Eve the banitsa is baked with kasmeti, paper fortunes or dogwood buds tucked between its filo layers; a dogwood bud stands for health.

On 1 March Bulgarians exchange martenitsi, red-and-white charms worn until they see what?

A stork, swallow or blossoming tree, the signs of spring, ends the wearing of martenitsi; the custom, tied to the mythical Baba Marta, joined UNESCO's Intangible Heritage list in 2017.

Bulgarian kukeri, men in animal masks with huge bells, dance through villages to do what?

The kukeri have one job: Scare away evil spirits and usher in a fertile year; they appear in midwinter and before Lent, and some scholars trace them to Thracian rites of Dionysus.

The world's oldest worked gold, from about 4600-4200 BC, was found near which Bulgarian city?

The Varna Necropolis, found by an excavator operator in 1972, yielded some 3,000 gold objects across its graves; Grave 43 alone held about 1.5 kg of gold.

Which Bulgarian city, founded by Philip II as Philippopolis, is among Europe's oldest continuously inhabited cities?

Plovdiv, the City of Seven Hills, grew from Thracian Eumolpias, was renamed Philippopolis by Philip II in 342 BC, and was European Capital of Culture in 2019.

Musala, at 2,925 m, is the highest peak in Bulgaria and the whole of what?

The Balkan Peninsula has no higher point than Musala, 2,925 m in the Rila range and the coldest place in Bulgaria; the next highest peak, Vihren in Pirin, is 2,914 m.

Bulgaria's largest monastery, a 10th-century World Heritage Site, is named after which hermit saint?

Ivan of Rila, a hermit who lived in a cave nearby, inspired the monastery founded in the 10th century; it was rebuilt after an 1833 fire and listed by UNESCO in 1983.

The 8th-century Madara Rider rock relief shows a horseman doing what?

Spearing a lion beneath his horse, the rider is followed by a running dog; the image was on the stotinki coins and is on the national side of Bulgaria's euro cents.

What did the Greeks call the Black Sea peninsula town nicknamed the 'Pearl of the Black Sea'?

Mesembria, a Dorian Greek colony of the 6th century BC, became the peninsula town whose church-packed old quarter joined the World Heritage List in 1983.

Which Bulgarian folk song, sung by Valya Balkanska, is on the Voyager Golden Record?

"Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin" is a Rhodope song about a rebel leader, sung by Valya Balkanska with kaba gaida bagpipe and launched aboard Voyager in 1977.

Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov was murdered in London in 1978 by what method?

A poisoned pellet fired from an umbrella delivered ricin into his thigh on Waterloo Bridge on 7 September 1978; he died four days later and no one was ever charged.

Todor Zhivkov led communist Bulgaria for 35 years until 1989, making him the longest-serving leader in what?

The Eastern Bloc had no longer-serving leader: Zhivkov ran Bulgaria from 1954 until he resigned on 10 November 1989, the day after the Berlin Wall fell.

Bulgaria's late-1980s "Revival Process" forced Bulgarian names on 850,000 members of which minority?

Bulgarian Turks were forced to take Slavic names in 1984-89; more than 300,000 fled to Turkey in the 'Big Excursion' of 1989 before the policy was reversed.

During World War II, Bulgaria was an Axis ally but is remembered for what regarding its own 48,000 Jews?

It halted their deportation to the death camps in March 1943 after MPs led by Dimitar Peshev and Church leaders protested, though Jews in occupied Greece and Macedonia were sent to Treblinka.

Which former Bulgarian tsar was elected the country's prime minister in 2001?

Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was tsar as a child from 1943 to 1946, lived in exile in Spain, and his party's 2001 landslide made him prime minister until 2005.

Bulgaria's best World Cup finish came in 1994, when Hristo Stoichkov led them to which place?

Fourth place followed a 2-1 quarter-final win over holders Germany and a semi-final loss to Italy; Stoichkov shared the Golden Boot and won the Ballon d'Or in 1994.

Which Bulgarian high jumper's 1987 world record of 2.09 m stood until 2024?

Stefka Kostadinova cleared 2.09 m in Rome in 1987, a mark Yaroslava Mahuchikh beat in 2024; she won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996.

Which two sports are considered Bulgaria's signature Olympic disciplines, providing most of its medals?

Weightlifting and wrestling supply most of Bulgaria's Olympic medals; wrestler Boyan Radev and lifter Yanko Rusev each won Olympic gold, and Karlos Nasar lifted gold in Paris in 2024.

Which title did Grigor Dimitrov, Bulgaria's best-ever player, win in 2017 to reach No. 3?

The ATP Finals in London in 2017, where he beat David Goffin in the final, lifted Dimitrov to a career-high No. 3; he had won the 2008 junior titles at Wimbledon and the US Open.

Where was the father of computer pioneer John Atanasoff born?

A village near Yambol, Bulgaria, named Boyadzhik, was Ivan Atanasov's birthplace; his father was killed by Ottoman soldiers when Ivan was an infant, and Bulgaria treats John Atanasoff as a national hero.

Bulgarian-born artist Christo, with Jeanne-Claude, famously wrapped which German building in 1995?

The Reichstag was wrapped in silver fabric for two weeks in June-July 1995, after 24 years of lobbying across six Bundestag presidents.

Which 1981 Literature Nobel laureate, author of Crowds and Power, was born in Ruse, Bulgaria?

Elias Canetti was born in Ruse in 1905 to a Sephardic family, wrote in German and lived in Vienna, London and Zurich; his novel Auto-da-Fé appeared in 1935.

Ivan Vazov's Under the Yoke is set in a fictional version of which town, his birthplace?

Sopot, Vazov's birthplace, appears in Under the Yoke as Byala Cherkva; the 'Patriarch of Bulgarian literature' wrote the novel in exile in Odessa in 1887-88.

Bulgaria's abandoned Buzludzha Monument, a flying-saucer-shaped hall opened in 1981, was built by whom?

The Bulgarian Communist Party built it to mark the 1891 secret meeting on the peak that founded Bulgaria's socialist movement; the hall was abandoned after 1989.

Sofia's Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is named after a medieval prince from which country?

Alexander Nevsky was a 13th-century prince of Novgorod and Vladimir in Russia; the cathedral, built mostly between 1904 and 1912, honours the Russian soldiers who died in the 1877-78 war.

Bulgarian is unusual among Slavic languages because it lacks what?

Noun cases and infinitives are missing from Bulgarian, unlike most Slavic tongues; it compensates with a suffixed definite article and 'evidential' verb forms showing whether the speaker witnessed an event.

Georgi Ivanov, Bulgaria's first cosmonaut, flew to orbit in 1979 aboard which spacecraft?

Soyuz 33 carried Georgi Ivanov and Nikolai Rukavishnikov into orbit on 10 April 1979; an engine failure stopped them docking with Salyut 6 and they landed after two days.

Bulgaria's Second Balkan War of 1913 saw it fight against whom?

Its former allies Serbia, Greece and Montenegro, plus Romania and the Ottoman Empire, fought Bulgaria after it attacked over Macedonia in June 1913; the Treaty of Bucharest that August cost it most of its gains.

Bulgaria's Simeon I, ruler 893-927, was the first Bulgarian ruler to assume which title?

Tsar (emperor) was the title Simeon I took after his wars with Byzantium, the first Bulgarian ruler to bear it; his reign brought Bulgaria's greatest extent and a cultural golden age.

Bulgaria's Sunny Beach, the Black Sea's largest resort, sits immediately north of which World Heritage town?

Nesebar's old town sits on a rocky peninsula just south of Sunny Beach, the resort founded in 1958; its dozens of medieval churches earned UNESCO listing in 1983.

Bulgaria's Belogradchik Rocks lie on the slopes of which mountain range?

The Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) rise behind Belogradchik in Bulgaria's northwest; locals call the red sandstone shapes Adam and Eve, the Madonna, the Schoolgirl and the Bear.

Bulgaria's Air Force dates to two lieutenants flying a balloon at which 1892 event?

The Plovdiv International Fair of 1892 hosted the balloon ascent that Bulgaria's air force dates itself from; in 1912 Bulgarian airmen dropped some of the first aerial bombs on Edirne during the Balkan War.

Bulgaria's Sofia Metro is famous for which station, where passengers walk past exposed Roman ruins?

Serdika station, beneath the Largo, lets passengers walk past excavated streets of Roman Serdica; the metro, Bulgaria's only one, opened in 1998.

How many provinces does Bulgaria have, in addition to the metropolitan capital province of Sofia City?

Bulgaria's 27 provinces plus the capital's own province make 28 oblasti, created in the 1999 reform and subdivided into 265 municipalities.

In which month and year did Bulgaria join NATO?

March 2004 saw Bulgaria join NATO on the 29th alongside six other ex-communist states; US forces share the Bezmer and Graf Ignatievo air bases and the Novo Selo range.

Bulgaria's Antarctic research base, St. Kliment Ohridski, stands on which island?

Livingston Island in the South Shetlands has hosted the St. Kliment Ohridski base since 1988; Spain's Juan Carlos I base stands nearby on the same island.

Bulgaria's EuroHPC petascale supercomputer, switched on in 2021, is named what?

Discoverer, an Atos BullSequana XH2000 system, went live in 2021 as one of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking's petascale machines, far outstripping Bulgaria's 2015 Avitohol.

Which company launched BulgariaSat-1, the country's first geostationary communications satellite, in 2017?

SpaceX lofted BulgariaSat-1 on a Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center on 23 June 2017, the second flight of a reused Falcon 9 first stage.

Roughly what share of Bulgaria's electricity comes from the Kozloduy nuclear reactors?

About 35% was Kozloduy's typical share of Bulgarian electricity in the early 2020s, from two 1,000 MW units; four older units were shut down by 2007 as an EU accession condition.

Kozloduy's operating units 5 and 6 are reactors of which design?

VVER-1000 pressurised-water reactors power Kozloduy's units 5 and 6, which came online in 1987 and 1991 with about 1,000 MW each.

Who represented Bulgaria at the first modern Olympics in 1896?

A Swiss gymnast, Charles Champaud, who was teaching in Bulgaria, competed under the Bulgarian banner in Athens in 1896 and is counted as the country's first Olympian.