The Lonely Planet Guide to Bulgaria

Major Industries

Food processing, machinery and equipment, electronics, rose oil production, chemicals, textiles, construction

Trading Partners

Italy, Germany, Turkey, Greece, France, USA

Getting There and Away

Bulgaria Air (www.air.bg) took over as national carrier from the thankfully defunct Balkan Airlines in November 2002, merging with Hemus Air in 2007. It has flights to most major European capitals but as yet there are no direct flights linking Sofia with the major Asian hubs or North America. Travellers from Australasia will usually have to connect through more popular European destinations. Buses and trains are the easiest way to get to Bulgaria from Europe and Turkey, with frequent services from Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Istanbul, Prague and Western Europe. The only Romania connection is a scrappy maxi-taxi service from Ruse, Bulgaria (on the Danube River) to Bucharest. The train from Greece is usually a hassle (take the bus). The website for Sofia's Central Bus Station is very informative (with a handy English language option): www.centralnaavtogara.bg.

When you enter Bulgaria by car you must state which border crossing you'll be using when you leave and pay a road tax accordingly. There's also a 'disinfection fee' for your vehicle. Route restrictions apply if you're only in transit through Bulgaria. A regular car ferry crosses the Danube from Vidin to Calafat in Romania. Crossing the 'Friendship Bridge' from Romania to Ruse in Bulgaria is painfully slow, though outbound travellers are not usually delayed. Bus services to Istanbul usually reach the border in the middle of the night, when Turkish customs go through every bag vigorously.

Getting Around

Buses link all cities and major towns and connect villages with the nearest transport hub. In some places, buses are run by the government. These buses are old, uncomfortable (when compared with city buses) and slow. Newer, quicker and more commodious private buses often operate in larger towns and cities, and normally cost little more than the fare on a ramshackle public bus.

There are also numerous private companies running services all across the country, the biggest of which are Etap-Grup (tel: 02 945 3939; www.etapgroup.com) and Biomet (tel: 02 963 1366; www.biomet-bg.com), which operate from Sofia and link up with most major towns and cities.

All timetables are listed (in Cyrillic) inside the bus stations and all buses have destination signs (in Cyrillic) in the front window.

For a public bus, you normally buy a ticket from the counter marked kasa (каса) inside the station. This way you're guaranteed a seat and you know the correct departure time and platform number. However, in some cases the cashier will tell you to buy a ticket on the bus.

Madara National Historical & Archaeological Reserve

Know that cute horseman on the stotinki coins? The original bas-relief, carved in a viva-Bulgaria fever onto a 100m (328ft) cliff in the 8th century, is at the superb Madara archaeological reserve. There is also an intriguing rock chapel, an open-air cave wall, and a mountain-top fort with views of Shumen.

Rozhen Monastery

This hilltop monastery was originally built in 1217, but most of what remains was redone in the mid-18th century. It's an atmospheric place, with woodcarvings and a mural-filled church. It's an inspiring reward if you've hit the hiking trail that leads for several kilometres between Melnik and this site.

Tsarevets Fortress

Following the left wall from the main gate, you go past a watch tower then to execution rock where the convicted saw their last moments in the living Bulgarian world.

At night, when tour groups shell out the bucks, an extravagant 'sound and light show' illuminates the citadel (and town). Locals love it, and watch from all over town for free.

Shipka Pass

The scene of an important Russian-Turkish battle in 1877, Shipka Pass is accented by the bare-top 1326m (4350ft) Mt Stoletov and the six-storey Freedom Monument. There are displays on the battles inside, and up top, 360-degree views of the Stara Planina and Valley of the Roses below. It's a Shipka tradition to finish off with buffalo yoghurt at the stands below.

Rila Mountains

Nestling in a narrow valley 119km (74mi) south of Sofia, Rila Monastery helped to keep Bulgarian culture alive during the long dark age of Turkish rule from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The monastery was founded by Ivan Rilski in 927 and served as a retreat for hermits; it was moved 3km (2mi) to its present location in 1335. The clock tower beside the church is all that remains from this period.

In 1833, a fire destroyed the monastery, but it was soon rebuilt on a grand scale in the National Revival style. The magnificent church, with its three great domes, is lined with 1200 frescoes depicting donors and biblical figures. The museums here house religious art and artefacts as well as folk costumes and household implements.

Pre 20th Century History

Excavations of caves near Pleven and in the Balkan Mountains have indicated human habitation as far back as the Upper Palaeolithic Period around 40,000 BC. However, archaeologists now believe that the earliest permanent settlers, arriving around 6000 BC, were Neolithic people who lived in caves, such as at Yagodina in the southern Rodopi Mountains and later, between about 5500 BC and 4500 BC, in round mud huts. Around the Bronze Age, the Thracians moved in, but were eventually overtaken by Greek and Macedonian settlers. Then the Romans invaded.

By AD 46 the Romans had conquered the entire Balkan Peninsula, and the territory of modern-day Bulgaria was initially divided into the provinces of Thrace, in the south, and Moesia, in the north.

Peaceful Slavic farmers grazed in during the 6th century and set up home. In 679, the Bulgars, thought to be of Indo-Iranian origin, crossed the Danube to found the First Bulgarian Empire; they then expanded south at Byzantium's expense before finally conquering Macedonia in the 9th century. The Bulgars were eventually assimilated by the more numerous Slavs, and adopted their language and way of life.

In 865 a Byzantine monk who painted a picture of hell on the palace walls managed to frighten Tsar Boris I into accepting Orthodox Christianity. In 870 the Bulgarian Church became independent, with its own patriarch, which encouraged Tsar Simeon (893-927) to expand his kingdom through Serbia to the Adriatic Sea. Simeon's kingdom shrank again when he overstretched his covetous hands toward the Byzantine crown. This weakened Bulgaria, making it susceptible to the Byzantine emperor, Basil II, who had the eyes of 15,000 Bulgarian soldiers put out after a decisive victory in 1014. Bulgaria passed to Byzantine rule four years later.

The Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396) was founded after two brothers, Asen and Peter, led a general uprising against Byzantium. Swollen with renewed confidence, the new empire covered all of Thrace, Macedonia and Albania. It was gnawed away over the next two centuries by the Tatars and then the Turks. By the end of the 14th century, the Turks controlled all of Bulgaria, beginning five centuries of Ottoman rule.

As repressive regimes go, the Turks weren't too bad, making no systematic attempts to convert the Bulgarians to Islam or to eradicate their language and customs. It was only as Turkish power weakened in the 18th century that they unleashed rising taxes and inflation, the burden of their unsuccessful wars against the Austrians and the Russians. Resentment brewed and the Turks responded fitfully (in between wars) by introducing reforms aimed at assimilating the Bulgarians, but it was too late. In the early 19th century popular customs and folklore blossomed in the National Revival, while underground revolutionaries plotted against the Turks. When a revolt broke out prematurely at Koprivshtitsa in April 1876 the Turks suppressed it with unprecedented brutality, while spreading tales of 'Bulgarian atrocities' throughout Europe. About 15,000 Bulgarians were massacred at Plovdiv and 58 villages destroyed.

Outraged European allies came to Bulgaria's rescue in the late 1870s. Russia, the chief saviour, suffered 200,000 casualties in the conflict, but forced Turkey to cede 60% of the Balkan Peninsula to Bulgaria. The modern history of Bulgaria - and its little brother complex in relation to Russia - dates from this 1878 liberation. European powers, fearful of a powerful Russian satellite in the Balkans, hacked away bits of Bulgaria, leaving everyone unsatisfied and ready to snap into the two Balkan Wars which preceded WWI.

Modern History

Bulgaria did none too well as a result of 20th-century diplomatic hand-wringing, losing Macedonia and grumbling its way into an alliance with the Central Powers in WWI, despite internal opposition. The interwar years were characterised by serious problems with Macedonian refugees, communist uprisings and economic crises. One of Bulgaria's darkest moments came in September 1923, when thousands of agrarian and communist agitators were killed in a reactionary campaign. Bulgaria sided with Germany at the outbreak of WWII, but Tsar Boris III, fearing a popular uprising, refused to declare war on Russia. The underground Fatherland Front consolidated opposition to the pro-German government, eventually gaining the popular support necessary to overthrow the monarchy. Communist Todor Zhivkov persuaded a none-too-reluctant army to switch sides, resulting in the Bulgarians fighting alongside their erstwhile liberators (Russia) and against their recent allies (Germany) until the war's end.

Under Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria's leader from 1954 to 1989, the country became one of the most prosperous in eastern Europe, with farmers allowed to till small private plots and industrial growth eventually contributing to over half the gross national product. The collapse of communism in 1989 left industry exposed, and the transition to democracy has been a troubled one. The renamed communist party (now the Bulgarian Socialist Party) managed to control the direction of newly democratic Bulgaria, restricting the influence of the president to troubled noises.

Recent History

In June 2001, the Bulgarian monarchy made an unprecedented comeback when former king Simeon II was elected prime minister. In the same election, the country's Turkish minority was represented in the government for the first time, and the president has encouraged Bulgarians to be more tolerant of Turkish-Bulgarians. Rapid inflation, high unemployment, the lack of a social safety net and the visible wealth of sanctioned criminals have caused widespread disillusionment. Progress, plodding beast that it is, continues under President Georgi Parvanov. Membership of NATO was granted in 2004, and entry into the European Union followed in 2007.

A sympathetic introduction to the lives and musical traditions of Roma across the Balkans.

An engaging collection of simple age-old fables and stories.

Popular at home even if his international profile wasn't high, Rainov wrote several popular novels. This one was a cold-war spy novel from the other side of the Iron Curtain, and was made into a film in 1971.

Bulgaria's best loved novel tells the patriotic story of the April Uprising of 1876 and the country's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire.