Bulgarian survival kit

About this kit

Bulgarian (български език) is spoken by around 9 million people in Bulgaria and across the diaspora. The first Slavic language to adopt the Cyrillic alphabet, it opens the door to the entire East Slavic world. With this kit, you have the bare essentials for Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and the Black Sea coast.

Bulgarian (български език) is the oldest literary Slavic language: the translation of the Bible and liturgical texts in the 9th century by the disciples of Cyril and Methodius established Old Bulgarian as the matrix of common Church Slavonic. Today spoken by around 9 million people, it is the official language of Bulgaria and one of the official languages of the European Union, written in Cyrillic with thirty letters. Grammatically, Bulgarian is unique among Slavic languages: it has lost grammatical cases (except remnants) in favour of a postposed definite article (knigata = the book, knigite = the books), it possesses an extremely rich verbal system with evidentiality (the speaker indicates whether they witnessed the facts or are reporting them) and it develops a wide range of compound tenses. Travelling in Bulgaria means discovering Sofia and its Alexander Nevski cathedral, Plovdiv with its Roman theatre, the Rila monastery nestled in the mountains, the Black Sea coast with Nessebar and Sozopol, the Valley of Roses, the kuker masks of folklore and a Balkan cuisine with a thousand flavours. This kit gathers the bare essentials to handle an arrival at Sofia airport, a taxi or train ride, an order at a traditional mehana, a medical emergency and a smooth departure. You will find greetings adapted to formal Bulgarian address, phrases to find your way, key words for eating and sleeping, plus cultural tips to understand the disorientating reversal of yes and no by gesture. Memorise these expressions before leaving and you will gain confidence on arrival.