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 Culture
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This is a place where you can spend a night at the opera (in several large cities) for the cost of a carton of milk and you are likely to hear one of the many Bulgarian classical singing voices who now work at the Met, La Scala or Covent Garden, but who regularly re-visit nostalgically. Bulgarian was until recently the seventh biggest language for works of fiction to be translated into and this has left traces in the way people think and relate to the outside world. But even if Bulgarian high-culture is still obscure or small, culture is about more than that. The natural and human-made environment in which Bulgarians live, bar the monstrosities of Stalin's era are a rich background of impressions - Thracian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Jewish traditions, sacred art and churches - from the minute chapels of Ottoman times to the grand, gilt designs of fin-de-siecle Russia transplanted after liberation, and to the modernist and Austrian Sezession spots all create a pleasant melange and an interesting guesswork. But at any rate, there is always a lot to see and although you are going to be able to watch a movie in its original English soundtrack at the drop of a hat, mostly, you will prefer to explore.
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