Tranquility combined with landscapes untouched by tourism: if you have a longing to visit, Bulgaria will deliver. Here and there isolated and lesser known villages lay scattered over vales and hills, offering the chance to awaken to bird song, spend the long days exploring quiet lanes and traditional houses, and the evenings contemplating the surrounding vistas, preferably with a glass of cold Rakiya.
United Patriots became Tamed Patriots, now they are United Failures.
Veselin Mareshki, leader of Volya, or Will, party
I advise Mr Mareshki to take more regularly the pills that he sells.
Vice Prime Minister Krasimir Karakachanov
The truth is being perverted. I don't drink whisky, but vodka, and small ones at that.
Former Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov
The rock of the threshing floors. One can easily see why the people from the Bivolyane village gave that name to Harman Kaya. The area's defining features are two large circles in the bedrock, which resemble the threshing floors where people, in the times of pre-supermarket bread, used to separate wheat from chaff.
You pull over by the side of the road and you are simply dumbfounded: a huge horseshoe bend is just in front of you. You pinch yourself and then you realise you are not in Arizona, but in the midst of the Bulgarian Rhodope, and the river you are staring at is one of this country's longest water sources that feeds several reservoirs, some of them very big, and that goes through most of the Rhodope's dramatic scenery before it leaves Bulgaria and hits the Aegean Sea.
Where in Bulgaria are you?
Bulgaria's news cycle nowadays consists largely of real and imaginary scandals that grab the public attention for a while before being buried under a heap of new scandals. In July, however, a small event squeezed through the cracks and made some short-lived noise.
The tomb of politician Stefan Stambolov (1856-1895) in the Sofia Central Cemetery was vandalised. Its bronze bust was stolen and the pediment was damaged.
In 2008 everyone on Sofia Underground stared at whoever tried to surf the Internet on their mobile phones.
In 2018 everyone on Sofia Underground stared at whoever held a newspaper in their hands.
In 2028 everyone on Sofia Underground will be starring at whoever doesn't scratch the numbers of a get-rich-quick lottery ticket.
Some reporters ask Tsvetan Tsvetanov: "Sir, is it true that everyone in Bulgaria can get arrested? Aren't there any untouchables?"
There are places in the history of each nation that represent a turning point of events. For the Americans, these are Liberty Bell and Gettysburg. For the British there are Stamford Bridge and Waterloo. For the French there is the Bastille, and for the Germans, the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall. The Greeks have the Thermopylae, and the Italians the Rubicon.
The Bulgarians have the Shipka Pass.
1. Where is Sozopol?
A. On the southern Black Sea coast
B. On the northern Black Sea coast
C. In the Stara Planina
2. The salad known in Bulgaria as Ruska, or Russian, contains...
A. Asparagus
B. Lobster
C. Mayonnaise
This is the biggest town in the Southeast. It is connected to Sofia via one of Bulgaria's two completed motorways and has an airport that usually needs a second wind in summertime. Burgas itself has few particular sites of interest, but bestselling author Elizabeth Kostova singled one out in her latest novel, The Shadow Land (2017). This is the old Maritime Garden casino, or just The Casino, as everyone in Burgas refers to it.
Burdened with the robotic directions of Satnav devices, we have lost the ability to feel like explorers. Yet, there are places that, though identifiable on Satnav, still convey the feeling that they are at the edge of the known world.
Ani on the Turkish-Armenian frontier is one such place.
Scattered on the steep bank of the border-defining Arpa Chai river, Ani is what remains of the once populous capital of Armenia. Domed churches of dark grey and red stones sprout from heaps of debris among a barren landscape: otherworldly, surreal, dreamlike.
I went out for a run one lightly rainy morning – on Halloween, actually. Movement kept at bay the dreadful sensation that the island hungered to swallow me up, annihilate my spirit. And so I laced up, pulled the hood of an old sweatshirt over my head, and ran along the road that served the beach house. Relief came only when the road fed into a park, and the park into trails that twisted through the woods. My sneakers splashed mud up onto my shins and calves.
Teeth are among the few parts of the human body that are not only extremely important for the proper functioning of the organism, but that also influence the self-confidence and the person's overall charisma.
On the one hand, without healthy teeth we cannot eat properly. Thanks to them we "mill" the food so that it can be absorbed by the body. In some people problems with missing teeth begin with ageing, but plenty of others loose a tooth or more while they are still at active age.
Your business is fine, but you want something more. You are aware that you, your employees and the market have potential, but you just cannot pinpoint where exactly to channel your experience and energy...
The problems in your company follow one after another, while you are so buried in your immediate duties to think over what is going on, why does it happen and how to solve the situation...
Spacious rooms. Excellent quality of construction materials. Selected neighbours. A sense for tranquility. An excellent vista. Energy efficiency. "Smart" home. These are but a few of the things you get in Sofia's latest luxury properties.
Today there is hardly a person who would argue that good health is possible without healthy food. Food provides organism with the proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins and microelements needed for its proper function.