THEY are outsiders, generally rediscovered only when politicians come seeking votes at election time. Outsiders who, ironically, are often mistaken for "mainstream" Bulgarians or for Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent.

The Pomaks are neither one nor the other.

Antonina Zhelyazkova, chairperson of the board of directors of the International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, Pomaks are ethnic Bulgarians who adopted Islam at various times in the past.

However, research in the regions where most Pomaks live has led to them being associated with a particular group of people living in South Eastern Europe, a mere part of the Ottoman Empire's historical heritage.

The Pomaks were pretty isolated from the rest of the Bulgarian society for centuries. They retain an old Bulgarian language dialect and some old customs which arose before the 17th century.

Rumi Radenska's Pomaks research describes the Pomaks as having Slavic Christian ancestors, a reason why their language is so close to Bulgarian.

According to her, there were three main reasons that people in the Rhodopes became Muslims: through marriage, in a voluntary manner, or forcefully. The last reason is the most common one.

Most probably the Pomaks are descendants of the population in the Southern Balkan Peninsula, which in the course of the long Ottoman domination in the territories turned to Islam, keeping their primary culture and speaking in a Bulgarian dialect.

Debate about the Pomaks ethnic origin has taken on a political dimension for two reasons.

First, because the population of the Pomaks is not restricted to the borders of Bulgaria. There are Pomaks living in the northern part of Greece, and in Macedonia and Turkey. Although most of the Pomaks live in Bulgaria, about 30 000 live in Thrace and Macedonia, and others are found in Romania. In addition to speaking Rhodope (Bulgarian), some of the Pomaks have adopted Macedonian or Greek as a second language.

Second, the question of the Pomaks' origin plays a major part inside Bulgaria when it comes to the political debate around minorities.

Nowadays the terms Pomaks and Bulgarian Muslims are used as interchangeable and synonyms, without evaluating the minority group at all.

The word "pomak" seems not to have any ethymology that may be traced back earlier than the 19th century.

It was first used in the region of Lovech in times preceding the national liberation of Bulgaria.

One thing all researchers into the Pomaks agree on is that the studies they all do on this minority group depend highly on the origin of the researchers themselves and thus many Bulgarians have called the Pomaks "Bulgarians who were forcefully converted into Islam".

One of the vastly Pomak-populated territories of Bulgaria are the Rhodopes Mountain territories, where many people became Muslims for economic reasons: tax differences and social advantages seemed to be their chief motivation.

The Ottomans had their own reasons to want to convert the people in the Rhodopes to Islam. One of the strongest theories expressed by Radenska is the fact that the Rhodopes were a huge hunting ground for the sultan, his family and large number of his people who all needed to be served (only by Muslims) during their stay there.

The Pomak economy is based on agriculture and their major crops include rye, barley, corn, flax, potatoes and tobacco. Pomak women are famous for their excellent weaving materials and for the healthy diet of yoghurt, bread and lamb meat they prepare. The rural lifestyle of the Pomaks and the self-made houses are a tourist attraction today and observances of the mixture of Muslim and Christian traditional celebrations and rituals best represent the lifestyle of Bulgarian Pomaks.