National Holidays

1 January - New Year
3 March - Liberation Day
1 May - Labour Day
Late April/May - Easter
6 May - St. George's Day (Day of Bulgarian Army)
24 May - National Culture Day
6 September - the Union Day
22 September - the Independence Day
1 November - Day of National Revivals
24 December - Christmas Eve
25 December - Christmas
26 December - 1st day of Christmas

Electricity

220 Volt;
50 Hertz - Western-style appliances need adapters for the country's twin-prong plugs, as well as voltage converters (for US appliances only)

Roads
Right hand drive. Speed limits:
- residential areas - 50 km/h
- country roads - 90 km/h
- motorways - 120 km/h

Checkpoints
with Serbia: Kalotina (E80), Vrashka Chuka, Otomantsi
with Republic of Macedonia: Gyueshevo (E871), Zlatarevo
with Turkey: Kapitan Andreevo (E80), Malko Turnovo (E87)
with Greece: Kulata (E79)
with Romania: Vidin (E79), Oryahovo, Rousse (E70, E85), Silistra
Black Sea Ports - Varna, Burgas
Airports - Sofia, Varna, Bourgas

Medical Service
Free first aid and consultation in emergencies

Shopping hours
Offices - Mon-Fri 9am-5:30pm
Banks - Mon-Fri 9am-3pm
Shops - Mon-Fri 9am-7pm; half-day Saturday. But more of the shops stay open until 8pm on weekdays and 5pm on Saturdays. Few shops (except for grocery stores) are open on Sunday.

Currency Exchange
In banks and 24-hour exchange offices. The exchange rate is announced every day.

Credit Cards
Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Diners Club, American Express, Access, Airplus.

They can be used both on ATMs and for payment of all standard services in hotels, restaurants, night clubs, shops, car rentals, plane tickets, etc.

Bulgaria is a country in southeastern Europe and is situated on the middle of the Balkan Peninsula on a busy crossroad of different cultures. To the north the country borders Rumania, to the east – the Black Sea, to the south – Turkey and Greece, and to the west – Serbia and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a National Assembly ( One House Parliament ) of 240 national representatives. The President is Head to State.Bulgaria, with its cultural monuments, is situated between the spacious beaches of the Black Sea and the fantastic mountain chains of the Balkans. The country connecting Asia and Europe has a history of 1300 years.

The numerous cultural and historical remains by Thracians, proto - Bulgarians, Byzantines, Greeks and Ottomans are buried in the picturesque nature, hidden in deep forests, in the numerous mountains or under the fine sand of the Black Sea coast.
Favoured by a moderate climate, the land of the roses is very rich in plants and forests which to a great extent are of natural origin. Thus one can find trees which are up to 1650 years old and a plant variety of 3500 species.

One third of the territory of Bulgaria is lined by mountains.

The population of the country is around 8.2 million. Besides, in the capital Sofia alone live more than one million people. The share of the urban population is 68 percents. In the ethnic structure the Bulgarians represent the greatest share of the population. Other groups of the population are the Bulgarian Turks, Romanies and to a smaller extent Jews, Armenians, Russians and Greeks. The official religion in Bulgaria is the Orthodox church (Christian Orthodox).

Bulgaria occupies a relatively small area - 111 000 sq. km, but is nevertheless distinguished by generous and varied nature - a sea with a 380 km. long coastal strip and golden beaches, mountains with their own characteristic features, shelters valleys and high plateaus, over 550 curative mineral springs, dozen of unique natural phenomena and 2000 thrilling caves, a healthy climate and diverse flora and fauna.

Air temperatures in summer vary between 23°C and 36°C, water temperatures between 17°C and 25°C. There are more than 240 hours of sunshine in May and September, and more than 300 in July and August. The deep-cutting coves and rugged shores, wooded hills and romantic peninsulas, vineyards and orchards, fishing towns and secluded campsites lend a unique fascination to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.

History

Today’s land of the Bulgarians is one of the ancient springs of civilization in Europe. The first traces of human activities in these territories date back to the Paleolithic Age ( Old Stone Age ) and immutably follow their course through all pre-historic epochs.

It was namely in Bulgarian lands that was found – dating back far before Mesopotamia and Egypt – the findings in the Varna Halkolithic Necropolis of 5th millennium BC.

Among them is the most ancient golden jewelry in the world and symbols of authority.

During the Bronze Age ( 3100 – 1200 BC ) the Bulgarian lands were populated the ancient Thracians. Modern science identifies more and more evidence that namely Ancient Thrace was one of the centres for consolidation of the Indo-Europeans. The most ancient Thracian monuments date back to the same historic period as was the Old Kingdom in Egypt.

The historical development of the Bulgarian lands and the people that inhabited them in the antiquity has been determined by one major factor - their crossroads situation between Europe and Asia. The waves of settlers that swept from both continents into the south or into the north at different times, quite often turned the plains of Thrace, Moesia, Macedonia and the Balkan mountains into an arena of fierce clashes. Prior to the settlement of the Bulgarians about fifteen hundred years ago, this most contended land of the European civilization had seen other people's cultures, with markedly impressive presence in the history of humankind on the planet Earth come, evolve and then, tragically go.

The earliest traces of human life on the Bulgarian lands date back to Paleolithic and Mesolithic times. The brilliant drawings in some Bulgarian caves and the flint labour tools are the only remnants of the primitive man, the homo sapiens forebearer.

Bulgaria's name is derived from a Turkic people, the Bulgars, who originated in the steppe north of the Caspian Sea.
In the latter part of the seventh century, one branch of the Bulgars moved up the Volga River, establishing the Kingdom of the Volga Bulgars; the other branch moved westward along the Black Sea settling near the mouth of the Danube. Although the name Bulgaria is not of Slavic origin, the Slavic people, who had entered the Balkan Peninsula earlier, absorbed the invading Turkic people and were, in large measure, the precursors of the present-day Bulgarians. Bulgarian kingdoms continued to exist in the Balkan Peninsula during the Middle Ages, following which the Ottoman Turks ruled Bulgaria for 500 years, until 1878.

In that year, a Bulgarian principality was established between the Danube River and the Balkan Mountains when Russia and Romania assisted the Bulgarians in defeating the Ottomans. In 1885, the union of the Principality of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia south of the Balkan Mountains created an autonomous Bulgarian state with roughly the same borders as those of present-day Bulgaria.

A fully independent Bulgarian kingdom, proclaimed September 22, 1908, participated in an anti-Ottoman coalition that defeated the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War (1912). The coalition soon dissolved over territorial disputes, however, and Bulgaria was isolated and defeated quickly in the Second Balkan War (1913) by Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, and Turkey. It later allied itself with Germany in World Wars I and II and suffered defeats twice more. Bulgaria's involvement in these wars was partly due to its ambitions for an outlet to the Aegean Sea and its desire to annex Macedonian and Thracian territory held by Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey.

Although Bulgaria declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom during World War II, it did not declare war on the Soviet Union. In August 1944, Bulgarian emissaries opened talks in Cairo with Allied representatives, seeking to take Bulgaria out of the war. On September 5, 1944, while these talks were still under way, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria.

Communist rule in Bulgaria began September 9, 1944, when a communist-dominated coalition, called the Fatherland Front, seized power from the coalition government formed to arrange an armistice with the Allies. At the same time, Soviet forces were marching into the country without resistance. Communist power, consolidated in the next 3 years, led to the adoption on December 4, 1947, of the so-called Dimitrov Constitution, modeled after that of the U.S.S.R.

Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform (a Soviet-led international socialist organization) in June 1948 and the subsequent Moscow-dictated persecution of "national communists" throughout Eastern Europe also led to arrests and trials in Bulgaria. In 1949, Traicho Kostov, a Bulgarian communist leader, was executed on charges of conspiring with the Yugoslavs. He had remained in Bulgaria during the war and was second in rank only to Georgi Dimitrov, who had spent the war years in Moscow. Vulko Chervenkov, Dimitrov's brother-in-law, who also had spent the war years in Moscow, emerged as the "Stalin of Bulgaria" after Dimitrov's death in 1949. In 1954, following Stalin's death and separation in the U.S.S.R. of the positions of party leader and head of government, Chervenkov yielded the position of party chief to Todor Zhivkov. In the next 7 years, Zhivkov superseded his one-time mentor, blaming him for the "Stalinist excesses" and "violations of socialist legality" which had characterized the 1948-53 period. Chervenkov was ousted finally from his last leadership position in November 1961, and shortly thereafter Zhivkov took on the additional post of premier, thus recombining the positions of party leader and head of government.

In 1971, he gave up the premiership and took on the newly created and more prestigious position of Chairman of the State Council (chief of state). He held this position and that of Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) Secretary General until November 1989. Petur Mladenov, who led the Politburo in its effort to oust Zhivkov, now also holds both these positions, despite his declarations favoring separation of party and State powers. Mladenov is leading the BCP in its efforts to maintain a credible claim to political leadership in the country, despite a high level of opposition to the Communist Party which is now appearing.

Geography

The Republic of Bulgaria covers a territory of 110 993 square kilometers. The average altitude of the country is 470 meters above sea level. The biggest mountain range – 750 kilometers long – Stara Planina Mountain occupies central position and serves as a natural dividing line from the west to the east. It reaches the Black Sea to the east and turns to the north along the Bulgarian – Yugoslavian border.
The natural boundary with Romania is the Danube River, which is navigable all along for cargo and passenger vessels.

The Black Sea is the natural eastern border of Bulgaria and its coastline is 378 kilometers long. There are clearly cut bays, the biggest two being those of Varna and Bourgas. About 25 % of the coastline are covered with sand and host the seaside resorts.
Many European travelers claim that Bulgaria is Eden on Earth. It has everything – a sea, rivers and lakes, high mountains, virgin forests, hot and cold mineral springs.

Climate

Bulgaria as a whole is situated in the moderate climatic zone. Winters are colder in Northern Bulgaria and much milder in the Southern part of the country. Winter temperatures vary between 0 and 7 C below zero.

Typical continental climate in spring. Summer is hot and sweltering in Northern Bulgaria. Autumns are mild and pleasant in Bulgaria.
The multi- coloured forests in autumn add the picturesque landscape. Autumn showers in principle are more frequent than in spring. May, October and November are the rainiest months.

Population

The last census ( in 2001 ) showed that 7 973 673 people live in Bulgaria. The average life expectancy for women is 74, and for men – 67. Most of the Bulgarian population lives in cities. There are many ethnic groups living in Bulgaria ( Turks, Armenians, Jews, Greeks ) as a consequence of its historical and geographical specifics. All minorities live in harmony with the Bulgarian population without any social or ethnic pressure. In the past few years many foreigners from West Europe relocated in Bulgaria, looking for slower rhythm of life, calmness and coziness, which they find here.