59 Fun Facts About Bulgaria

Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007 alongside which other country?

Romania. The pair joined on 1 January 2007, taking the EU to 27 members; the next year Brussels froze some of Bulgaria's aid over its failure to tackle corruption.

Which sea forms Bulgaria's eastern coastline?

Black Sea. Apart from two fine natural harbours the coast has few bays, but its long sandy beaches turned it into Bulgaria's summer strip of seaside resorts.

Which river forms most of Bulgaria's northern border?

Danube. For decades a single bridge, opened at Ruse in 1954, was the only one across the border stretch; a second followed at Vidin in 2013.

Which alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire?

Cyrillic. Disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius devised it in the First Bulgarian Empire, basing it on Greek capital letters, and Bulgaria's entry in 2007 made it the EU's third official script.

Which capital of Simeon I housed the literary school usually credited with the script that replaced Glagolitic?

Preslav. Its scholars are usually credited with adapting Greek capital letters into the new script, though some give the honour to Clement of Ohrid; Simeon's reign became a golden age of Slavic letters.

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

Asparuh, a son of Kubrat, won his new realm in 680 when Emperor Constantine IV left the front to treat his gout: the Byzantine troops took it for flight, panicked and were routed.

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

Krum trapped Nikephoros I's army in a mountain pass in 811, after the emperor had sacked the Bulgarian capital; the skull is said to have been lined with silver for his table.

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

Boris I took the name Michael at his baptism, later retired to a monastery, then came back out to depose his own son, who had tried to bring the old gods back.

What is Byzantine emperor Basil II, the 'Bulgar-slayer', said to have done to thousands of Bulgarian prisoners in 1014?

Blinded them: chroniclers say Basil II left one eye to one man in every hundred so he could lead the rest home, and that the Bulgarian ruler Samuil collapsed and died at the sight.

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

Veliko Tarnovo held out on its fortified hills until the Ottomans sacked it in 1393; nearly five centuries later it hosted the assembly that adopted Bulgaria's first constitution.

Which mountain pass did Bulgarian volunteers help hold in the 1877-78 war that ended Ottoman rule?

Shipka Pass was held in August 1877 against a far larger Ottoman army sent to relieve the besieged fortress of Pleven; stopped at the mountains, that army never got there, and Pleven later surrendered.

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 alarmed the other powers; the Congress of Berlin cut it back that July.

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

The April Uprising was crushed with massacres, most notoriously at Batak; American reporter Januarius MacGahan's dispatches from the ruins moved Gladstone to write his pamphlet 'Bulgarian Horrors'.

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

Hanged by the Ottomans in Sofia in February 1873, Levski was a former monk who had spent years building a secret network of revolutionary committees; he was caught at an inn near Lovech weeks earlier.

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

White, green, red has been the order since 1879; from the late 1940s the state emblem sat on the white stripe, and the plain tricolour only returned in November 1990.

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

The lev had been pegged since 1997, first to the German mark and then to the euro, so the changeover simply used the long-fixed rate of 1.95583 leva to the euro.

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

The Damask rose is picked by hand in the early morning in May and June around Kazanlak; about three tonnes of petals go into one kilo of oil, which is why it sells for thousands of dollars.

In 1905 Bulgarian medical student Stamen Grigorov identified the bacterium behind which fermented food?

Yogurt is soured by Lactobacillus bulgaricus, which Grigorov found in samples of Bulgarian yogurt; Nobel laureate Ilya Mechnikov then credited it for Bulgarian peasants' long lives and promoted yogurt across Europe.

Bulgaria's Shopska salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers 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 cut so that everyone at the table gets a charm that foretells their year; cooks once tucked in cornel twigs, whose number of buds stood for different kinds of luck.

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

A stork, swallow or blossoming tree, each a sign of spring, ends the wearing; many people then tie the martenitsa to a fruit tree's branch to pass their health and luck on to it.

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

Scare away evil spirits is the whole job: the din of the bells on the dancers' belts is meant to drive them off, and so bring the village a good harvest and health for the year.

The gold hoard most often called the world's oldest, from about 4600-4200 BC, was found near which Bulgarian city?

Varna's Copper Age cemetery was found by accident in 1972 by an excavator operator, Raycho Marinov; its graves held some 3,000 gold objects weighing about six kilos.

Which Bulgarian city, renamed Philippopolis by Alexander the Great's father, is among Europe's oldest continuously inhabited cities?

Plovdiv is still called the City of the Seven Hills, though only six remain: one of them was levelled in the early 20th century.

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: the Bulgarian peak tops even Greece's Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the gods, by about eight metres.

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

Ivan of Rila lived as a hermit in a cave nearby; the monastery grew from the followers who gathered around him.

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

Spearing a lion that lies at his horse's feet, while a dog runs behind; in a 2008 public vote Bulgarians chose the rider for their future euro coins, and he now appears on the cents.

Bulgarian-born actress Nina Dobrev starred in which TV drama?

The Vampire Diaries cast Nina Dobrev, who left Bulgaria at two and still speaks the language with her family, as Elena, and made her centuries-old vampire double a Bulgarian too: Katerina Petrova.

A Bulgarian folk song sung by Valya Balkanska left Earth in 1977 on a golden record aboard which spacecraft?

Voyager: both probes carry her song, taped in the late 1960s by a visiting American folklorist, on a gold-plated disc meant for any alien finders, and both have since crossed into interstellar space.

How was Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov murdered in London in 1978?

A poisoned pellet fired from an umbrella struck Markov's thigh as he waited for a bus on Waterloo Bridge; he died within days, and the tiny hollow pellet is thought to have held ricin.

Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's leader for 35 years, fell in 1989 the day after which event?

The fall of the Berlin Wall came on 9 November 1989; the next day Zhivkov's own Politburo ousted him, and the new leadership quickly lifted the curbs on free speech and assembly.

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

Bulgarian Turks were made to take new names in the winter of 1984-85; in 1989 more than 300,000 were pushed across the border, an exodus the regime passed off as the 'Big Excursion'.

Bulgaria was an Axis ally, yet what did it do with its own Jews, nearly 50,000 people, in 1943?

Halted their deportation: parliament's deputy speaker Dimitar Peshev and Orthodox Church leaders protested in March 1943 and the plan was dropped, though over 11,000 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied lands were sent to Treblinka.

Which former Bulgarian monarch was elected prime minister of Bulgaria in 2001?

Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha reigned as a child from 1943 until the monarchy was voted out in 1946; after decades in exile he launched a party in April 2001 and won the election that June.

Which Bulgarian striker won the 1994 Ballon d'Or after sharing the World Cup Golden Boot?

Hristo Stoichkov scored six goals as Bulgaria, winless in five earlier World Cups, knocked out holders Germany and finished fourth.

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

Stefka Kostadinova cleared 2.09 m in Rome and nobody went higher for almost 37 years; by the time Yaroslava Mahuchikh did, Kostadinova had been running Bulgaria's Olympic Committee for nearly two decades.

Which two sports have won Bulgaria the most Olympic medals?

Weightlifting and wrestling account for nearly half of Bulgaria's Olympic medals; its lifters ruled their sport in the 1980s, though two of them lost their 1988 golds to failed drug tests.

Which title did Bulgarian tennis star Grigor Dimitrov win in 2017 to reach a career-high world No. 3?

The ATP Finals in London came at his first attempt: he qualified for the eight-man event for the first time, beat David Goffin in the final and rose to No. 3.

A 1973 US court ruling named John Atanasoff, son of a Bulgarian immigrant, the inventor of what?

The electronic computer: Atanasoff built his machine at Iowa State around 1940, and the judge voided the patent on the far more famous ENIAC after finding its makers had drawn on his work.

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

The Reichstag vanished under 100,000 square metres of silver fabric in 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 grew up speaking Ladino, the old Spanish of his Sephardic family, and only learned German as a boy, from his mother; it became the language he wrote in.

Which Bulgarian writer wrote the classic novel Under the Yoke while in exile in Odessa?

Ivan Vazov began Under the Yoke far from home and set it in Byala Cherkva, a thinly disguised version of Sopot, the small town where he was born.

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.

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

Alexander Nevsky was a 13th-century prince of Novgorod in Russia who won his byname, 'of the Neva', by routing a Swedish invasion force on that river in 1240.

Bulgarian is unusual among Slavic languages because it lacks what?

Noun cases and infinitives were both shed over the centuries, and Bulgarian grew a 'the' tacked onto the end of the word instead: masa is 'table', masata 'the table'.

In 1979 Georgi Ivanov became the first Bulgarian to do what?

Fly in space: Ivanov's Soyuz 33 lost its main engine on the way to the Salyut 6 station, so the docking was called off and the crew came home after two days on a steep emergency re-entry.

In 1913 Bulgaria attacked its former allies Serbia and Greece in a quarrel over the division of which region?

Macedonia had just been won from the Ottomans; Bulgaria's attack over its share backfired within weeks, as two more neighbours joined in and the peace treaty took away most of its gains.

Simeon I, who ruled Bulgaria from 893 to 927, was its first ruler to assume which title?

Tsar (emperor) was a title Simeon I claimed for himself: schooled in Constantinople for a career in the church, he spent his reign at war with Byzantium, hoping to take its throne.

Bulgaria's Sunny Beach, its biggest seaside resort, sits immediately north of which World Heritage town?

Nesebar's old town stands on what was once an island, joined to the shore by a narrow strip of land; its forty-odd churches, many in ruins, earned it a place on the World Heritage list.

The Belogradchik Rocks rise in Bulgaria's far northwest, on the slopes of which mountain range?

The Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) rise behind the red rock towers, some up to 200 m tall; the Romans set a fortress in among them, using the rocks themselves as part of its defences.

Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova earned an Oscar nomination in 2021 for playing the daughter of which comic character?

Borat's daughter Tutar made Bakalova the first Bulgarian actress nominated for an Oscar; the film kept her so secret that she was first billed under a made-up name, Irina Nowak.

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

Serdika takes its name from Roman Serdica: the station sits in the middle of the ancient city's ruins, some six metres below today's streets, and stretches of them are on show inside.

Which Bulgarian ski resort town lies at the foot of the Pirin Mountains?

Bansko was once a town of stockbreeders and travelling merchants; beneath Pirin's highest peaks it has grown into one of the main winter sports centres in south-eastern Europe.

Which organisation did Bulgaria join in 2004?

NATO took in Bulgaria on 29 March 2004 along with six other countries; the former Warsaw Pact member has since agreed to share several of its military bases with American troops.

Where does Bulgaria run its St. Kliment Ohridski research base?

Antarctica: the base stands on Livingston Island in the South Shetlands, and the continent's maps now carry Bulgarian names, among them a Musala Glacier and an Opalchenie Peak.

Bulgarian Kaloyan Mahlyanov, fighting as Kotoōshū, became the first European to win a top-division title in which sport?

Sumo: Mahlyanov took it up after growing past the 120 kg limit of his first sport, and in May 2008, as Kotoōshū, he won the Emperor's Cup, something no European had done before.

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

SpaceX launched BulgariaSat-1 on a Falcon 9 whose booster had already flown five months earlier, only the second time the company had reused one; the booster then landed again on a drone ship.

Bulgaria's only nuclear power station takes its name from which nearby town?

Kozloduy's two working reactors supply more than a third of Bulgaria's electricity; four older units were shut by 2007 because the EU made their closure a condition of membership.

Which Bulgarian striker won two Premier League titles and a Golden Boot with Manchester United?

Dimitar Berbatov joined United in 2008 for £30.75 million, though Tottenham had also accepted an offer from Manchester City; his 48 goals for Bulgaria are a national record he shares with Hristo Bonev.