Located at the southeastern part of Europe, Bulgaria is the oldest country that preserved its original name throughout the centuries. It is known for its beautiful resorts along the coast of the Black Sea; clean, calm and wide beaches with fine grain golden sands. 

The country takes pride in their rich folklore, opera singers, and musicians. Folk dances, music, national costumes and traditional rituals have an important place in the life of Bulgarians. Every town and village celebrates Christian holidays and folk festivities in its own special way.

A really interesting fact that a Bulgarian folk song from the Rhodopes has been sent into space for seeking alien life flies with Voyager through the space as the best music example of the Earth civilization. 

Voyager  1 is a space probe that program to study the outer Solar System.

Great opera singers such as Boris Christoff (bass), Nicolai Ghiaurov (bass),
Raina Kabaivanska (soprano) all have Bulgarian origins. Christo Javacheff is  the controversial Bulgarian artist who has been creating impressive outdoor works and installations all over the world, the latest of which is The Floating Piers (2016) at Lake Iseo, Italy. 

Bulgaria is famous for their yogurt. The microflora of the Bulgarian yogurt is unique and it is believed that yogurt has been produced here for more than 4000 years. For yogurt to be considered of the Bulgarian variety, it needs to be made with two specific starter bacteria, Lactobacillus bulgaricus (the bacterium that is responsible for giving Bulgarian yogurt its unique flavor and consistency, can only be found in Bulgarian air) and Streptococcus thermophilus. Dishes like tarator (famous yogurt cold soup with cucumbers) contains Bulgarian yogurt in its purest form and ayryan (famous summer drink with yogurt, water and salt).

Tarator. A Bulgarian cold soup that has yogurt.

The rose, queen of flowers is one of the symbols of Bulgaria. For centuries Bulgarians have planted roses, picked their flowers and extracted their heavenly essence - attar of roses. The country is known as the Land of Roses, as The Rose Valley near the town of Kazanlak produces 85% of the world's rose oil. In recent years, Bulgaria also tops lavender oil producers ranking.

Rose Valley, Kazanlak in Bulgaria. 

Bulgaria is also well known among the Jews - Bulgaria is unique even in its recent political development. Being officially ally of Hitler’s Germany, the nation’s tzar Boris II saved 38,000 Bulgarian Jews and Jews were not sent to the concentration camps.

Talking about dishes, Bulgaria is also famous for its cuisine: 

meatballs called kyufte;

and its finger-like version called kebapche;

banitza - whisked eggs and pieces of cheese between filo pastry;

shopska salad with rakia a typical salad made of cucumbers, tomatoes and feta cheese with the local brandy drink;

shkembe chorba - tripe soup only for hardcore meat eaters.

Many of those are also popular in the neighbouring countries in different forms, however Bulgarians consider these as their national dishes. 

Bulgaria is one of the major wine producers - you can get wine with quality no worse than French and Italian wines, at ten times cheaper price.

However, there is this habit of Bulgarians that we may find odd. The people in Bulgaria nod their heads in reverse, when they want to show “Yes”, they actually nod for “No”. So when you visit Bulgaria it's best to keep this in mind or just listen to what they're saying to avoid confusion. 

Bulgaria is a country filled with gorgeous landscapes and it is full of astonishing culture. They also have a lot of historical monuments. In conclusion, Bulgaria is a country like no other. 

Show your love and admiration for this wonderful country with these phone cases designed with Bulgaria's flag and paintings! Click the image.