Emerging Bulgaria

Returning from charming village #x, drink/dine for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee, museums so piled high with gold and treasures they almost dull the senses, and speculate on buying farmhouses for less than $20,000, R and I circle back, in conversations, to speculate on why this land's so little known.

Discussing with R's friend's over beers, they offer the following theories:

Hurt by the British association with Great Uncle Bulgaria, star of the popular children's series, the Wombles.

Princess Diana's apparently infamous quote that, when depressed she felt, “lower than a cockroach in Bulgaria."


Ambiguous gender status of Bulgaria's most famous exports – wrestlers. Not helped by Bulgaria's representative team that marched the circle at the most recent Olympics – dour, beefy and genderless to a one.

And, of course, it has a funny name.


I foresee big things. The little land that roared...


C