Bulgaria

Bulgaria’s spine is the Balkan range, the Stara Planina, which runs to the Black Sea and gave the peninsula its name. North of it the Danubian Plain slopes to the Danube and the frontier with Romania; south of it the Thracian Plain follows the Maritsa, and the Valley of Roses lies beneath the range. In the south-west the Rila massif rises to Musala, the Balkans’ highest peak, beside the Pirin and Rhodope ranges.

Gold buried at Varna more than six thousand years ago is among the oldest worked gold ever found, and Thracian kings left painted tombs at Kazanlak. Khan Asparuh founded a Bulgar state in 681; under Boris I it adopted Christianity in 864, and the Cyrillic alphabet took shape at Preslav. Veliko Tarnovo, seat of the second Bulgarian empire, was taken by the Ottomans in 1393. The April Uprising of 1876 and the Russo-Turkish War brought autonomy in 1878, full independence came in 1908, and communist rule lasted from the 1940s until 1989.

Bulgarians shake their heads for yes and nod for no. Each March people tie red-and-white martenitsi to their wrists to welcome spring, and in winter kukeri dancers in masks and cowbells chase away evil spirits. Lactobacillus bulgaricus, the yogurt bacterium, is named after the country. Rose oil from the valley goes to perfume houses, copper is smelted at Pirdop, the Kozloduy nuclear plant stands on the Danube, while wheat and sunflowers cover the plains.