PROUD TO BE DIFFERENT?
The Orthodox Church was perhaps the most outspoken of all the gays' opponents. In a statement posted on its web page, the Bulgarian clergy used strong language to condemn what it termed a "mortal sin" and "ignominious affray"
ADAM MICKIEWICZ IN BURGAS
But what was Adam Mickiewicz doing in Burgas, now Bulgaria's second Black Sea coast town, at a time when it barely existed except as a small, disease-ridden village, and Bulgaria was a territory of "European Turkey"?
ARCHAEOLOGY NOW
Yes, archaeology in Bulgaria has changed a lot in the last 10 years. The American Research Center in Sofia, or ARCS, which was founded in 2004, marks an episode in this series of changes, and a positive one at that.
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Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's by now habitual reflex is to shift the blame elsewhere, usually onto his predecessors.
The Bulgarian public has become used to almost everyday police raids, with names like ''The Impudent,'' ''The Crocodiles,'' ''The VAT-ers,'' and ''The Magistrates''
All this hectic activity must be seen in the context of EU demands that the Bulgarian government must do something about the problem of corruption. However, the slow, corruptible legal system is letting Boyko Borisov down
Why did so many Bulgarians, notorious for being unable or unwilling to unite on almost any issu e of public significance, see red at the sight of Jeleva's inept stuttering at the European Commission? 
In the face of the worsening economic crisis and the flu epidemic, some Bulgarians are starting to wonder whether Boyko Borisov's bark is worse than his bite 
Between 1944 and 1989 the Communist authorities committed hundreds of crimes. But neither in 1997, nor in 2009, 20 years after the fall of the Communist regime, has there been any meaningful investigation into state crime in Bulgaria. Nor is there an institute or an agency to study and document these crimes. The general public knows and cares little about them, and the outside world even less.
Poet Edvin Sugarev has summed up the situation in one of his articles: "If Irina Bokova was Göbbels' daughter, would she have been elected director of UNESCO so easily and without problems?" 
Todor Zhivkov's phenomenal political longevity was not the result of either good physical health or good luck. It was the result of a brutal authoritarian regime clothed in empty talk about Developed Socialism and imaginary "patriotic values."
Many of the DPS supporters see The Falcon as their only defence against a reoccurrence of the harsh years of the Revival Process, and the only source of economic, political and social stability. For the rest of Bulgaria's citizens, he is something between a Machiavellian politician and the greatest and only stumbling block to a bright future for Bulgaria. Until the latest general election, he was considered omnipotent; a man who could, through his own party, allot most of the EU funding for Bulgaria, allow illegal development in protected areas and do a range favours for selected "circles of companies" – for a relevant pay-back, of course.
Dogan's voters are economically dependent on him. The DPS has been putting a stop to every attempt to privatise Bulgartabac for years. Having a monopoly of the market, it exercises control over tobacco producers, who are mainly Muslims, fixing low purchase prices and delaying payments. At present, the holding is again officially up for sale. Dogan's voters are neither deaf nor blind, and can see that the DPS is far from what it promises to be. But the party leader adeptly manipulates their main fear – that the Bulgarian state will again try to suppress their basic rights the way it has done in the past. He may not build roads nor attract investors to the regions thanks to which he has been at the top of the political pyramid for 20 years, but he never fails to commemorate the victims of the Revival Process. Search
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