Our writer and designer, S. Stefanov, is wearing a Roman legionnaire's outfit he borrowed from Francesco, one of the participants in The Eagle on the Danube, the first European Festival of Rome held in Svishtov. The armour weighs about 12 kg, the helmet - about 3, the shield - about 8 kg and the sword - about 2 kg.

During the four days of the festival various activities and rituals were recreated by members of the Legio Prima Italica, including battles with barbarians, a legionnaire's funeral, Roman dances etc. Hopefully, the festival will become a "cultural routes" tradition for the small northern town of Svishtov.

Watch video here.

"About 24 million Japanese eat Bulgarian yoghurt daily," Japanese ambassador, Mr. Tsuneharu Takeda said while on a visit to a milk processing farm in the northern town of Vidin. According to the ambassador, if historical monuments and nature in Bulgaria were properly promoted, this could attract a great number of Japanese tourists.

The annual Balkan Folk Festival is held in Veliko Tarnovo. Performances of traditional Bulgarian folk songs and "old city songs" (from the 1920-1940s) can be heard and seen for a week at the Mother Bulgaria monument in the very centre of the town.

The signs on the entrance and exit of the village of Dzhulyunitsa were replaced at a special ceremony today, marking the efforts of the State Administration on the "Understandable Bulgaria" project. The ceremony was lead by Nikolay Vassilev, Minister of State Administration and Administrative Reform. The project, in its part for establishing standards of spelling Bulgarian names in Latin letters, is based on the law on transliteration passed in 2007.

The name of the village of Dzhulyunitsa is among those very hard to spell or pronounce for foreigners. The village is located just 20 km from Veliko Tarnovo, whose name is also often misspelt, e.g. Veliko Turnovo or Veliko Tyrnovo. According to the transliteration law, the sound "schwa" in Bulgarian must be written using the letter "a".

"Rumen Petkov is an authoritative cynic who has opened an umbrella over amphetamine shipments not only to Turkey but to the West too," German investigative reporter Jurgen Roth said in an interview for a Bulgarian daily.

Bulgaria’s Interior Minister is currently a hot topic of discussion over his alleged connections to mobsters. Petkov said in response that he will sue the German journalist for libel.

"Where should we be looking for our Mafia bosses?"
"Maybe you could look inside your government, it's there that you're likely to find them," Jurgen Roth also said in his interview.

The electricity provider for North-Eastern Bulgaria, E.On, have launched a campaign for the mounting of special platforms on electrical posts where storks will be able to make their nests. The campaign is a joint effort between the electricity provider and the Bulgarian Society for Protection of Birds.

In Bulgaria, storks, together with swallows, are seen as the heralds of spring – Bulgarians remove their martenitsa when they see a stork or a swallow or a tree in blossom. The way you see your first stork is believed to define what the year will be for you – if you see the stork standing, it will be a year of little or no progress, if striding – some development, if flying – a sign of prosperity, if a couple – marriage or love ahead, if nesting – children or grandchildren.

The Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo - the influx of tourists is rising as the weather gets warmer.

The whole of Bulgaria is covered in snow - winter in its full splendour (after a couple of years of unusually warm weather) has brought life in half of the country to a sudden halt.

Lost In Translation

Rob Stevenson sent us this photo of a sign above a shop in Dobrich, which made him laugh. :)

Posters of mayor candidates can be seen on almost every public wall throughout towns in Bulgaria. Sometimes, dozens are piled on top of each other. Peeling a layer off may take the curious back to elections that were held years ago.

No alcoholic drinks are sold in Bulgaria on the "day of reflection" before and on voting day. The only exception this time was Sofia where the sale of drinks was allowed on the "day of reflection" for the first time. Other municipalities did not follow the example of the capital.

"Education with money - spiritless future"

More than 50,000 teachers from all over Bulgaria protest in front of the Parliament, demanding the resignation of PM Stanishev, education minister Vulchev and finance minister Oresharski.

Forest guards and environmentalists have also joined in the protest activities.

EAST MEETS WEST
Sheyla Bonnick's Boney M, Ivana, Iliana, director Keith Hill together with many fans and co-organisers after Frontier Promotion's first concert in Veliko Tarnovo.

117 canvases showing the Earth From The Air were exhibited in Sofia. The photos, taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand will be shown until November 17 near the Bridge of Lovers (next to NDK, the National Palace of Culture). The famous exhibition has so far been displayed in as many as 100 cities around the world.

Bulgarian "celeb" Mitio Krika (Mitio the Jack) has been charged with hooliganism after a car accident where a VW Polo scratched Mitio's Nissan Navara jeep. Angered by the "impertinence" of the VW driver, Mitio hit the headlights, the roof and the bonnet of the smaller car, threatening to thrash the driver. As Mitio and his wife were arrested later, the sports "celebrity" (he does body building) said he would sue the VW driver for extortion, stating that "such famous people like him" cannot be blackmailed. Mitio also said that he would renounce his Bulgarian citizenship...

Maxim Staviski, the partner of Albena Denkova in the ice skating world champions couple was the cause of a serious car crash near Bourgas in which one died and three were injured, one of them still in coma. Maxim was driving with 1.1 pro mil of alcohol in his blood. Interestingly enough, the sports star is one of the people who started the campaign against drunk driving "If you have drunk, get out of the car, I want to get there alive"...

Veliko Tarnovo hosts the 10th International Folklore Festival, part of CIOFF. This year's participants include Argentina, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mauritius, Romania, SAR, Thailand, USA, Venecuela, Russia, and Chinese Taipei.

Every evening, in the town's central park, thousands watch the performances of the colourful and exotic visitors. The festival ends on August 4th.

Statue of the ancient goddess Cybele. Cybele was originally worshiped in Asia Minor, but a perfectly preserved temple was discovered during excavations in Balchik in April, on the northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast. A second statue was recovered yesterday in the best preserved temple of "the great mother of gods" and of all life, of renewing nature and fertility.

The find comes after emergency excavations by the Varna archaeological museum as building entrepreneurs have already poured concrete over parts of the temple in another demonstration of lack of culture among Bulgaria's 'businessmen'.

MANOWAR fans sing along while the US band performs Bulgaria's national anthem at the 2007 Kaliakra Rock Fest in Kavarna. Listen here.

The Orpheus sanctuary in the Rhodopi mountains is now officially 1000 years older than the pyramids in Egypt. Orpheus' tomb near the village of Tatul used to attract worshipers from the whole of the antique world and is comparable in greatness only to Stonehenge.

European Museum Night: photo from the former Veliko Tarnovo prison, museum since 1961. Bulgarian revolutionary, Vassil Levski stayed there before he was taken to Sofia in 1873 to be hanged.

At 10 pm there were hundreds who were eager to walk down the dark dungeon steps.

The Chinese Ambassador for Bulgaria opened a Chinese Kites exhibition in Veliko Tarnovo.

Balkan Folk music festival in Veliko Tarnovo. One of the many events Bulgaria's cultural capital hosts throughout the summer.

The cherry-tree cannon used 131 years ago in the April Uprising. The town square of Panaguirishte hosts the memorial service and the retreat lead by Vice President Angel Marin.

Batak, the Sveta Nedelya Church, now a museum, contains some of the skulls of several thousand butchered Bulgarians, mostly women, children and old people, murdered by Turkish troops in early May 1876, after the April Rebellion was crushed. A German and a “Bulgarian” tried to alter Bulgarian history, causing an outrage amongst Bulgarians. Bulgarian officials, including President Parvanov, a historian himself, expressed their indignation.

130 years ago, on April 24, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. This happened a year after the atrocities performed by the Turkish armies murdering thousands of Bulgarian women, children and old men as they crushed the 1876 Rebellion. As the war ended on March 3rd 1878, Bulgaria gained independence after 500 years of slavery. Picture: the Shipka battles, most crucial in the war.