Bulgarians are the least happy of all citizens of the European Union, according to a survey ordered by the European Commission whose results were made public in February 2007.
Lactobacillus bulgaricus, the bacterium that gives Bulgarian yoghurt its unique flavour and thickness, can be found only in Bulgaria. Yoghurt may seem like something new because of its current popularity but it has been around for centuries. Basically, all yoghurt is cultured milk. The bacteria used most commonly are Lactobacillus bulgaricus (named so because yogurt was first discovered by the people of Bulgaria) and Streptococcus thermophilus. This is what gives yoghurt its jelly-like texture and semisour, tangy taste.
The Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century to write texts in the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language. The alphabet that was originally created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius is known as the Glagolithic alphabet (Glagolica). One of their disciples, Clement of Ohrid (Kliment Ohridski), simplified the Glagolica into a new alphabet which was called Cyrillic. In the following centuries this alphabet was adopted by other Slav peoples - Russians, Croats, Serbs, Belarusians and Ukrainians. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on January 1, 2007 the Cyrillic alphabet became the third official alphabet of the EU.
The highest peak in the Balkan Peninsula is Mt. Mussala, 2,925.4 m, in Rila Mountain in Bulgaria.
Believe it or not, a U.S. citizen of Bulgarian origin, John Atanasoff, is the inventor of world's first electronic digital computer.
The Black Sea is the world’s largest meromictic basin where the deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that get oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, over 90% of the deeper Black Sea volume is anoxic water that lacks oxygen.
October 16 was declared Day of Bulgarian Aviation and Air Force in 1963 in honour of the fact that in 1912 lieutenants Radul Milkov and Prodan Tarakchiev carried out the first military surveillance flight in the world, over the Edirne fortress in Turkey under Bulgarian siege. The crew dropped two hand grenades over Karaagaç in Turkey, an important military target in the First Balkan War.
The first woman in the world to ever fly a military mission was the Bulgarian Raina Kasabova. She flew as an observer on combat missions during the Balkan War in 1912. Kasabova carried out a number of missions dropping propaganda materials and bombs on Turkish targets during the siege of Edirne.
Bulgaria is one of the biggest producers of rose oil in the world. The reason hidden in the high qualities of the Bulgarian Kazanluk rose, a special type, which was cultivated in the country after many years of production and development. The Bulgarian roses are inheritors of the so called Damascena rose that was brought in the country ages ago.
The rose oil is called "the liquid gold" of Bulgaria and used mainly for the making of perfumes, chocolates, liqueur and jam.
The rose oil is three times more expensive than the gold. One kilogram rose oil is extracted from 3,000 kg of roses, which means that for one gramme of rose oil more than 1300 rose blossoms should be used!
The Valley of Roses (Kazanlak region) is one of the biggest producers of rose oil in the world. The conditions in Kazanlak proved to be more favourable for the cultivation of the rose than those in its own country of origin - Tunisia.
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