Bulgaria's geographic center lies at latitude 43 00 North and 25 00 East (CIA data.) That's on a parallel near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The country is slightly larger than the state of Tennessee. Its population is approximately 8 million with approximately 1,250,000 living in Sofia, the capital. Bulgarians are the largest ethnic group at nearly 84%, Turks at 8.5% and Romas 2.6%. Others include Macedonian, Armenian, Tatar and Circassian. About 84% of Bulgarians are Orthodox, 13% Muslim and less than 2% Roman Catholic.
Bulgarians were first to use the Cyrillic alphabet immediately after it was created by Byzantine missionaries in the 9th century. We were given instruction on the alphabet during one of the lectures on our Danube River cruise ship. This web site has more detailed information on the Cyrillic alphabet:
http://www.kirildouhalov.net/language/alphabet.html
Our port call was made at Ruse. Notice that as our route continues east that instead of following the river to the north in Romania it suddenly jogs to the right. That's where we took the canal to Constanta on the Black Sea.
Republic of Bulgaria National Flag.
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