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| Bulgaria | Plants and Animal | Back to Top |
33 percent of Bulgaria is forested, and half this area supports tall trees suitable for timber. About 30 percent of the timber trees are conifers. The Balkan Mountains and their foothills support forests of various trees. Conifer, beech, and oak trees are found in the timber zone of the Rhodope Mountains and their western extensions. Most wildlife is confined to the mountainous southwestern portion of the country, where there are bears, wolves, elks, foxes, and wildcats.
| Bulgaria | Communications | Back to Top |
extensive but antiquated domestic: more than two-thirds of the lines are residential; telephone service is available in most villages; a fairly modern digital cable trunk line now connects switching centers in most of the regions, the others are connected by digital microwave radio relay international: direct dialing to 58 countries; satellite earth stations - 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region); 2 Intelsat (Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions)
| Bulgaria | Culture | Back to Top |
Throughout the era of postwar communist modernization, family life remained one of the most important values in Bulgarian society. In a 1977 sociological survey, 95 percent of women responded that "one can live a full life only if one has a family." From the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s, the marriage rate in Bulgaria was stable at close to 10 percent per year. The rate was slightly higher just after the two world wars. The rate fell beginning in 1980, however, reaching 7 percent in 1989. Slightly more couples married in the cities than in the villages, a natural development considering the ageing of the village population. Most women married between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, most men between twenty and twenty-five. Village men and less educated city men typically married before they were twenty. The first men to marry often were those who had completed their military service, did not plan further education, and could support themselves financially. Those who continued their education often delayed marriage until their late twenties. In choosing their spouses, the less educated and those from more traditional regions of Bulgaria sought qualities most highly valued in traditional society: love of hard work, modesty, and good character. Among the educated classes, values such as personal respect, commonality of interests, and education were more often predominant in the choice of a spouse.
Until 1944 divorce was quite rare in Bulgaria, and great stigma was attached to all individuals who had divorced. After 1944 the divorce rate rose steadily until 1983, when it reached 16.3 percent. Between 1983 and 1986, however, the rate fell to 11.2 percent. In the 1980s, the divorce rate in the cities was more than twice that in the villages, in part because the village population was older. The divorce rate was especially high for couples married five years or less; that group accounted for 44 percent of all divorces. In 1991 the rate was increasing, however, for those married longer than five years.
Concerned about Bulgaria's low birth rate, the government issued new restrictions on divorce in its 1985 Family Code. The fee to apply for a divorce was more than three months' average salary, and every application for a divorce required an investigation. The grounds most often listed in a divorce application were infidelity, habitual drunkenness, and incompatibility.
In 1991 the average Bulgarian family included four people. Families of two to five people were common, whereas families of six or more were rare. In the larger families, moreover, the additional members usually included one or two of the couple's parents. In 1980 extended families spanning three or even four generations made up 17 percent of all households, indicating the persistence of the extended family tradition. Although the tradition was more prevalent in the villages of western and southern Bulgaria than in the cities, many urban newlyweds lived with their parents because they could not afford or obtain separate apartments.
Socialist Bulgaria greatly emphasized the emancipation of women. The 1971 constitution expressly stated that "all citizens of the People's Republic of Bulgaria are equal before the law, and no privileges or limitations of rights based on national, religious, sex, race, or educational differences are permitted" and that "women and men in the People's Republic of Bulgaria have the same rights." Bulgaria's Family Code also affirmed equal rights for men and women.
In 1988 Bulgaria's work force included an almost equal number of men (50.1 percent) and women (49.9 percent). By 1984 nearly 70 percent of working women surveyed said that they could not imagine life without their professional work, even if they did not need the pay. Only 9 percent of the women preferred being housewives. However, most men surveyed in 1988 cited economics as the reason for their wives to work, asserting that the wives should give up their work if they were needed at home.
Household chores remained primarily the responsibility of women, including most working wives. In 1990 the average working woman spent eight and one-half hours at her job and over four and one-half hours doing housework: cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, ironing, mending, and tending the children. In many households, such tasks were still considered "women's work," to which husbands contributed little.
In their social planning, Bulgarian legislators usually viewed their country's women mainly as mothers, not as workers. Besides the laws passed in an effort to increase the country's birth rate, legislators passed laws giving certain privileges to women in the workplace, often keeping their reproductive capability in mind. Women were prohibited by law from doing heavy work or work which would adversely affect their health or their capacities as mothers. The list of prohibited jobs changed constantly, and women sought such jobs because they generally offered better pay and benefits. Depending on the type of work, women could retire after fifteen or twenty years, or after reaching age forty-five, fifty, or fiftyfive . Women who had raised five or more children could retire after fifteen years of work, regardless of their age or type of work. Men were generally offered retirement after working twenty-five years or reaching age fifty, fifty-five, or sixty. Some jobs were restricted to women unless no women were available. Without exception these were low-skill, low-paying jobs such as archivist, elevator operator, ticket seller, coat checker, and bookkeeper. Other jobs, such as secretary, stenographer, librarian, cashier, and cleaning person were considered "appropriate for women." Men in the workplace often expressed resentment of women in positions of authority.
| Bulgaria | Defence | Back to Top |
Military branches: Army, Navy, Air and Air Defense Forces, Civil Defense Forces, Internal Troops
Military manpower - military age: 19 years of age
Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 1,891,498 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 1,581,697 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 56,104 (2001 est.)
| Bulgaria | International Disputes | Back to Top |
None
| Bulgaria | Economy | Back to Top |
Bulgaria was predominantly agricultural, with virtually no heavy industry. In Communist Bulgaria following World War II (1939-1945), all industrial enterprises were nationalized and operated under a series of five-year economic plans, modeled after the Soviet system, with financial aid from the USSR. Heavy industry was the government’s highest priority. Bulgaria enjoyed one of the most prosperous economies of the Soviet bloc. In 1990 Bulgaria began converting from a socialist to a market economy, which was expected to result in a positive economic reversal. The reversal did not happen, however, leading to popular dissatisfaction with the social effects of the reforms. Consequently, the legislature did not enact laws that would have resulted in mass privatization, and the major industrial sectors remained under state control. Some reforms and privatization had begun, however, and in 1994 more than twice as many state-owned enterprises were privatized than in 1993.
The main sources of revenue under the socialist system were the turnover tax and deductions made from the profits produced by public enterprises. The turnover tax, a form of value-added tax, was based on a fixed rate and went immediately into the budget after the sale of products by state enterprises. In this way the state budget received a regular and uniform source of revenue to finance the undertakings called for in the economic plan. The turnover tax was dependent on the size, variety, and sale of manufactured products; ultimately it was passed on to the consumer. The profit deduction tax from state enterprises, unlike the turnover tax, was not at a fixed rate. It came from each enterprise's net income after deduction of the turnover tax. The profit shown by an enterprise was the difference between income and maintenance expenses. The advent of privatization in the early 1990s has made the future of the old taxation system uncertain.
Bulgaria, a former communist country struggling to enter the European market economy, suffered a major economic downturn in 1996 and 1997, with triple digit inflation and GDP contraction of 10.6% and 6.9%. The current government - which took office in May 1997 after pre-term parliamentary elections - stabilized the economy and promoted growth by implementing a currency board, practicing sound financial policies, invigorating privatization, and pursuing structural reforms. Additionally, strong assistance from international financial institutions - most notably the IMF which approved a three-year Extended Fund Facility worth approximately $900 million in September 1998 - played a critical role in turning the economy around. After several years of tumult, Bulgaria's economy has stabilized. Its better-than-expected economic performance in 1999 - despite the impact of the Kosovo conflict, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, and structural reforms - and strong growth in 2000 portends solid growth over the next few years; this assumes continued fiscal restraint, additional structural reforms, aid from abroad, and prosperous times in the EU economy.
| Bulgaria | Education | Back to Top |
Before the National Revival of the mid-nineteenth century, education usually took the form of memorization of the liturgy and other religious material. Supporters of the National Revival movement were instrumental in establishing and supporting Bulgarian schools in the cities--first for boys, and later for girls as well. These activists also introduced the chitalishta. Often located next to a school, the chitalishta served as community cultural centers as well as reading rooms. The first schools, which began opening in the early nineteenth century, often did not go beyond a basic education; students wishing to continue their education had to go abroad.
The educational system established after Bulgaria gained its independence retained the same basic structure through 1989. The 1878 Temporary Law on National Schools established free compulsory education in primary school for both sexes. The schools were designed to teach reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. In practice, not everyone received that education, but the law gave the villages an incentive to open new schools. By the turn of the century, one-third of all Bulgarian villages had primary schools. In the early days, the immediate demand for a large number of teachers meant that many new teachers had little more education than their students. Later reforms specified a seven-year standard education with a curriculum based on a West European model. Some peasants, especially uneducated ones, withdrew their children from school because they believed the classes were unrelated to peasant life. This led to the offering of textbooks and prizes as an incentive for students from poorer families.
Communist rule in Bulgaria brought forth a new approach to education as a means of indoctrinating Marxist theory and communist values. Literacy was promoted so that the communist-controlled press could be disseminated throughout society. New classes for both adults and children aimed at providing as many as possible with a high-school education and abolishing illiteracy. Schools switched their focus from liberal arts to technical training and introduced a curriculum modeled on that of the Soviet Union. Russian language study was introduced for all, from kindergartners to adults who had already completed their education. Copies of Pravda, the primary newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were distributed even in isolated villages. After the overthrow of Zhivkov, however, English became the most studied foreign language in Bulgaria, and the study of Russian declined dramatically.
In 1979 Zhivkov introduced a sweeping educational reform, claiming that Marxist teachings on educating youth were still not being applied completely. Zhivkov therefore created Unified Secondary Polytechnical Schools (Edinna sredna politekhnicheska uchilishta, ESPU), in which all students would receive the same general education. The system united previously separate specialized middle schools in a single, twelve-grade program heavily emphasizing technical subjects. In 1981 a national program introduced computers to most of the ESPUs. The change produced a chaotic situation in which teaching plans and programs had to be completely overhauled and new textbooks issued to reflect the new educational emphasis. This project proved unworkable, and by 1985 new specialized schools again were being established.
The fall of Zhivkov resulted in a complete restructuring of the country's educational system. In retrospect Bulgarian educators recognized that the socialist way of educating was not only bureaucratic, boring, and impersonal. It also led to disregard for the rights of the individual, intolerance of the opinions of others, and aggressive behavior. The centralized system with its regional hierarchies was therefore scrapped in favor of a system of educational councils in which every 400 teachers could elect a delegate to the National Council of Teachers. The first goal of the new organization was to depoliticize the schools in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Education.
In 1991 the Bulgarian educational system consisted of three types of schools: state, municipal, and private (including religious). The grade levels were primary (first to fourth grade), basic (fifth to seventh grade), and secondary (eighth to twelfth grade). Children began first grade at age six or seven and were required to attended school until age sixteen. Parents also had the option of enrolling their children in kindergarten at age five. Secondary school students had the choice of studying for three years at professional-vocational schools or for four years at technical schools or general high schools. Religious schools operated only on the high-school level. Specialized high schools taught foreign languages, mathematics, and music; admittance to them was by special entrance exams. Special programs for gifted and talented children began as early as the fifth grade. Special schools also operated for handicapped children. Children suffering from chronic illnesses could receive their schooling in a hospital or sanatorium.
Prior to the postcommunist reform era, about 25,000 students dropped out every year before reaching their sixteenth birthday; another 25,000 failed to advance to the next grade. Under the new system, parents could be fined 500 to 1,000 leva if their children failed to attend school; fines also were levied for pupils retained in grade for an extra year.
Public opinion on the educational reform focused mainly on depolitization. By the 1990-91 school year, new textbooks had been introduced in many subjects, but many of them were not completely free of socialist rhetoric. A first-grade mathematics textbook published in 1990 contained the following exercise: "Count how many words there are in this sentence: 'I am grateful to the Party, for it leads my country to beautiful, radiant life and vigilantly protects us from war.'" A newly published music book contained songs about the party, a communist youth organization, and Lenin. Many teachers likewise continued to espouse the communist rhetoric in which their profession had been long and firmly indoctrinated. In late 1990, about 50,000 Sofia University students demonstrated against poor education and against continued requirements to attend courses in Marxism. Their protest caused the university to eliminate compulsory political indoctrination courses. The 1991 Law on Public Education declared that "no political activity is allowed in the system of public education."
Depolitization was expected to be a slow process because of the extent to which the schools had been politicized before 1990. At the end of 1990, over 90 percent of all teachers were still members of the Bulgarian Socialist (formerly Communist) Party. For this reason, the Law on Public Education prohibited teachers from becoming members of political parties for a period of three years, beginning in 1991. Because the Zhivkov regime had tinkered often with Bulgaria's educational system, longtime teachers had developed a cynicism toward reform of any type. This attitude hampered the removal of the old socialist structures from the educational system.
Some students married and began families while they were still in school, and two-student families were not uncommon. Such families often depended on help from parents because of their low income and because of a shortage of student family housing. By 1990 most Bulgarian students worked in their free time, unlike their predecessors in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Reform also reached higher education. In 1990 a new law on academic freedom emphasized the concept of an intellectual market in which universities, teachers, and students must maintain high performance levels to stay competitive. The law gave every institution of higher learning the right to manage its teaching and research activities without government interference. This right included control over curriculum, number of students, standards for student admissions and teacher hirings, training and organization of faculty, and the level of contact with other institutions of higher learning in Bulgaria and abroad. Students received the right to choose their own professors. The higher education law was criticized for withholding students' rights and because the legislature had failed to consult students in the law's formulation.
In 1991 experts evaluated the state university system as weak in critically needed technical fields of study. The availability of interested students was also questioned. In the 1990-91 school year, no graduate students with enterprise scholarships majored in subjects such as computer systems, artificial intelligence systems, or ecology and environmental protection. Graduate programs in critical nontechnical fields such as management economics, marketing, production management, and finance also had no students.
After the overthrow of Zhivkov, France and Germany made early commitments to help Bulgaria carry out educational reforms. In 1991 the United States began planning a new American college in Blagoevgrad, where students would be taught in English using American educational methods. The first 200 students were to include 160 Bulgarians, 20 students from neighboring European countries, and 20 Americans majoring in Balkan studies. The University of Maine was to supply the teachers. Plans called for business and economics to be the major areas of concentration. Affordability was a potential barrier to participation in this plan by Bulgarian students; the cost was low by American standards, but far above the average Bulgarian's price range. And the tuition-free Bulgarian university system was expected to lure many qualified students from the new university. Nevertheless, Western education assistance was an important symbolic step in moving the social institutions of Bulgaria into the European mainstream, from which they had been isolated for forty-five years.
Because the societal change stimulated in Bulgaria by the process of democratization is likely to continue through the 1990s, translations of the Bulgarian press are an invaluable source of current information. A wide variety of articles and broadcasts on social topics, as well as government documents and laws, are translated in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service's Daily Report: East Europe and the Joint Publication Research Service's JPRS Report: East Europe. Amnesty International's Bulgaria: Imprisonment of Ethnic Turks is an impartial source of information on the Turks and other minorities during the assimilation campaign of the 1980s. Hugh Poulton's The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict includes material on ethnic policy and regional issues after the overthrow of Zhivkov. Kak Zhiveem (How We Live) is a new Bulgarian-language sociological magazine that includes Western-style surveys on topics such as housing and the standard of living. Bulgarien, volume six in the German series of southeast European handbooks, offers chapter- length treatment of most aspects of society, including education, minorities, population, and religion; some articles are in English, most are in German. (For further information and complete citations.
Bulgaria’s literacy rate is 100 percent. Education is free and compulsory for children from the ages of 7 through 16; 99 percent of primary school-aged children are enrolled in school. Students attend primary school for four years, basic (or middle) school for three years, and secondary school for three to five years depending on the course of study. About 30 percent of students continue their education past the secondary level. There are more than 20 institutions of higher learning in Bulgaria, including the University of Sofia.
| Bulgaria | Government | Back to Top |
Government: Strong central government, with system of nine provinces (consolidated in 1987 from 28 districts), run by people's councils with limited autonomy and authority over local services, publicly owned enterprises, and administration. After ouster of Todor Zhivkov in 1989, communist party retained control of government but titles of head of state and party chief were separated. First noncommunist government elected 1991. Since 1990, president was head of state, prime minister was chief executive and head of fourteen-member Council of Ministers (cabinet). Unicameral legislature (National Assembly, Narodno subranie) with 400 delegates; election law simplified in 1991 for direct representation by district. Legislative decision making slowed by distribution of seats between Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP; formerly Bulgarian Communist Party, BCP).
Politics: Until 1989, BCP had complete control in oneparty system with only nominal opposition. Opposition parties legalized after Zhivkov ouster in 1989. In 1990 BCP/BSP lost control of Council of Ministers when internal splits and strong opposition forced resignation of its last government, replaced by caretaker coalition government representing major parties. UDF, coalition of over twenty parties and movements, assumed leading role in 1991; with Movement for Rights and Freedoms, it formed working legislative majority after 1991 election and controlled Council of Ministers. Numerous smaller parties, notably Bulgarian Agrarian National Union and Bulgarian Social Democratic Party, remained active.
Foreign Relations: After collapse of Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact and Comecon in 1991, sought acceptance into European community and improved relations with Balkan neighbors. In absence of Warsaw Pact protection, national security sought through detente with former enemy Turkey and Western support. International image improved by major reform in diplomatic corps in 1991.
| Bulgaria | History | Back to Top |
The History of the land now known as Bulgaria has been determined by its location between Asia and Europe, by its proximity to powerful states competing for land and influence at the junction of trade routes and strategic military positions, and by the strong national territorial drive of various Bulgarian states. Before the Christian era, Greece and Rome conquered the region and left substantial imprints on the culture of the people they found there. The Bulgar tribes, who arrived in the seventh century from west of the Urals, have occupied the region continuously for thirteen centuries. Over time Bulgarian culture merged with that of the more numerous Slavs, who had preceded the Bulgars by one century. After converting to Christianity and adopting a Slavic language in the ninth century, the Bulgarians consolidated a distinct Slavic culture that subsequently passed through periods of both expansionist independence and subordination to outside political systems.
From the ninth until the fourteenth century, Bulgaria was a dominant force in the Balkans because of its aggressive military tradition and strong sense of national identity. The chief rival and neighbor, the Byzantine Empire, left a lasting political imprint on two Bulgarian empires as it competed with them for regional domination. Marking the deterioration of both the Byzantine and the Bulgarian political structures, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 began four centuries of Turkish suppression of Bulgarian cultural and political institutions.
By the eighteenth century, however, weakening Ottoman control allowed a Bulgarian cultural revival. In the next century, Western political ideas gradually combined with the reborn Bulgarian national consciousness to form an independence movement. The movement was complicated by internal disagreement on aims and methods, the increasing weakness of the Ottoman foothold in Europe, and the conflicting attitudes of the major European powers toward Bulgaria. Russia gained distinction as Bulgaria's protector by driving out the Turks in 1877, but France and Britain curbed Russian power in the Balkans by forcing establishment of a limited autonomous Bulgarian state under Turkish rule. The instrument of that limitation, the Treaty of Berlin, revived longstanding Bulgarian territorial frustrations by placing the critical regions of Macedonia and Thrace beyond Bulgarian control. Both of those disputed regions had substantial Bulgarian populations. During the next sixty years, Bulgaria would fight unsuccessfully in four wars, in a variety of alliances, to redress the grievance. None of the four wars brought substantial new territory to Bulgaria.
Beginning in 1878, Bulgaria was nominally ruled by members of West European royal houses under a parliamentary form of government. Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov unified the country during its first decade, but extremist political parties exerted substantial influence from the beginning. Between 1878 and the declaration of full independence in 1908, Bulgaria passed through a period of peaceful modernization with expansion in industry, science, education, and the arts. Modernization and industrialization sowed the seeds of class conflict, however, nurturing strong socialist and agrarian opposition parties in the decades that followed independence.
The period between 1912 and 1944 was full of irredentist wars and internal political turmoil. By 1900 Serbia and Greece were the major territorial rivals, but a World War I alliance with Germany gained Bulgaria little advantage over them. After the war, the agrarian reform government of Aleksandur Stamboliiski had failed to unite the country by 1923. The series of unstable factions and forms of government that followed Stamboliiski was broken only by Bulgaria's participation as an Axis ally in World War II. Again no territory was gained, but World War II brought Soviet occupation, the end of the monarchy, and forty-one years of unbroken communist rule beginning in 1948. During that entire period, Bulgaria was the closest East European imitator of Soviet internal and foreign policy. The years 1948 through 1989 were a time of collectivization, heavy industrialization, drastic restriction of human rights, and close adherence to Soviet Cold-War policy.
| Bulgaria | Introduction | Back to Top |
Bulgaria, Republic of, republic in south-eastern Europe, known from 1946 to 1990 as the People's Republic of Bulgaria and now known as the Republic of Bulgaria. Situated in the Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria is bordered on the north by Romania, on the east by the Black Sea, on the south by Turkey and Greece, and on the west by Serbia (part of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro) and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Once an independent kingdom, Bulgaria was dominated by the Communist Party from 1946 until 1990, when a multi-party system was adopted. The area of Bulgaria is 110,912 sq km (42,823 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Sofiya.
Official Name - Republic of Bulgaria| Bulgaria | Land | Back to Top |
N/A
| Bulgaria | Languages | Back to Top |
The official language is Bulgarian, spoken by about 90 percent of the population. Turkish is the largest minority language. See Bulgarian Language; Turkish Language. For more than 40 years the Bulgarian government promoted atheism, to which an estimated 65 percent of the population subscribed in the early 1980s. The governmental reform of the late 1980s loosened religious restrictions, however, and by the 1990s 85 percent of the population belonged to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (an Eastern Orthodox branch), while another 13 percent were followers of Islam. There are also Jews, Roman Catholics, Uniate Catholics, and Protestants
| Bulgaria | Legal | Back to Top |
Legal system: civil law and criminal law based on Roman law; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal Executive branch: chief of state: President Petar STOYANOV (since 22 January 1997); Vice President Todor KAVALDZHIEV (since 22 January 1997) head of government: Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) Simeon SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA (since 24 July 2001); Deputy Prime Ministers Nikolay VASILEV (since NA), Kostadin PASKALEV (since NA), and Lidiya SHULEVA (since NA) cabinet: Council of Ministers elected by the National Assembly elections: president and vice president elected on the same ticket by popular vote for five-year terms; election last held 27 October and 3 November 1996 (next to be held NA 2001); chairman of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) nominated by the president; deputy prime ministers nominated by the prime minister election results: Petar STOYANOV elected president; percent of vote - Petar STOYANOV 59.73% Legislative branch: unicameral National Assembly or Narodno Sobranie (240 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms) elections: last held 17 June 2001 (next to be held NA June 2005) election results: percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - National Movement for Simeon II 120, UDF 51, BSP 48, DPS 21 Judicial branch: Supreme Administrative Court; Supreme Court of Cassation; Constitutional Court (12 justices appointed or elected for nine-year terms); Supreme Judicial Council (consists of the chairmen of the two Supreme Courts, the Chief Prosecutor, and 22 other members; responsible for appointing the justices, prosecutors, and investigating magistrates in the justice system; members of the Supreme Judicial Council elected for five-year terms, 11 elected by the National Assembly and 11 by bodies of the judiciary)
| Bulgaria | Life | Back to Top |
Clothing is Western in style and European fashions are popular. The main ingredients in Bulgarian food are lamb, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and yogurt. A typical meal may consist of shopska salata (cucumber salad), tarator (yogurt and cucumber soup) or chorba (bean soup), and agneski drebulijki (shish kebab). Lokum (a nut-filled pastry) is a common dessert. Domestically produced wine and brandy is of high quality. In rural areas Bulgarians live in single-family houses; most urban dwellers live in apartments. Soccer is the most popular sport; the Bulgarian soccer team became a source of national pride when they competed in the semifinal round of the 1994 World Cup.
| Bulgaria | organization | Back to Top |
ACCT, BIS, BSEC, CCC, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, EU (applicant), FAO, G- 9, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICFTU, ICRM, IFC, IFRCS, IHO (pending member), ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, NAM (guest), NSG, OAS (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, PFP, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMEE, UNMIBH, UNMIK, UNMOP, UPU, WCL, WEU (associate partner), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO, ZC
| Bulgaria | People | Back to Top |
In 1991 Bulgaria was divided into nine provinces (oblasti--sing. oblast). These administrative units included the city of Sofia (Grad Sofiya) and eight provincial districts: Burgas, Khaskovo, Lovech, Mikhaylovgrad, Plovdiv, Razgrad, Sofiya (the region outside the city), and Varna. Each province was named for the city that was its administrative center. Excluding the city of Sofia, the provinces encompassed territories ranging from 9.5 percent of the country to 17.2 percent, and their population ranged from 7.5 percent to 14 percent of the national total. The eight provinces were divided into a total of 273 communities (obshtini--sing. obshtina); the city of Sofia was divided into districts (raioni--sing. raion). Because this system was established in 1987, references to another type of district, the okrug (pl. okruzi), remained common in the early 1990s. The new government that took office in 1991 announced that yet another change was needed in Bulgaria's political subdivisions because the 1987 system reflected the discredited policies of the Zhivkov regime.
The population of Bulgaria (2001 estimate) is 7,707,495. The 1985 census population was 8,948,649; the subsequent decrease was largely caused by emigration. Bulgaria has a population density of 69 persons per sq km (180 per sq mi). The population became increasingly urbanized after 1945, and today 70 percent of the people live in urban areas. About 85 percent of the population is classified as ethnic Bulgarian and about 9 percent is Turkish. Small groups of Armenians, Roma (Gypsies), Greeks, and Macedonian Slavs also inhabit the country.
Ethnically, the population is fairly homogeneous, Bulgarians making up about 85 percent of the total. The Slav tribes that settled in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, thereby assimilating the local Thracian tribes, formed a basic ethnic group. The group known as the Bulgars, who formed the first Bulgarian state in 681, formed another component. With the gradual obliteration of fragmented Slav tribes, Bulgars and Slavs consolidated into a unified Slav people who thenceforward retained the name of Bulgarians. This national unity, present in embryonic form during the long Ottoman domination, flowered in the independence struggles of the 19th century.
| Bulgaria | Politics | Back to Top |
Alliance for National Salvation or ANS (coalition led mainly by Movement for Rights and Freedoms or MRF) [Ahmed DOGAN]; Bulgarian Business Bloc or BBB [Georgi GANCHEV]; Bulgarian Socialist Party or BSP [Georgi PURVANOV, chairman]; Democratic Left or DL (bloc led by BSP, includes Ecoglasnost Political Club and Bulgarian Agrarian National Union) [leader NA]; Euro-left [Aleksandur TOMOV]; Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization or UMRO [Aleksander KARAKACHNOV]; Kingdom of Bulgaria Federation [leader NA]; Movement for Rights and Freedom or DPS [Ahmed DOGAN]; National Movement for Simeon II [Simeon SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA]; New Civic Party for Bulgaria [Bogomil BONEV]; People's Union or PU (includes Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union and Democratic Party) [Anastasiya MOZER]; St. George's Day [Lyuben DILOV]; Union of Democratic Forces or UDF (an alliance of pro-democratic parties) [Ivan KOSTOV]
| Bulgaria | Provinces | Back to Top |
28 provinces (oblasti, singular - oblast); Blagoevgrad, Burgas, Dobrich, Gabrovo, Khaskovo, Kurdzhali, Kyustendil, Lovech, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pernik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Razgrad, Ruse, Shumen, Silistra, Sliven, Smolyan, Sofiya, Sofiya-Grad, Stara Zagora, Turgovishte, Varna, Veliko Turnovo, Vidin, Vratsa, Yambol
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