Bulgaria News, Sofia News: The Sofia Echo - Bulgaria English-Language Newspaper

It was one of the summer moves that just about every football fan kept an eye on, even if the result seemed pre-ordained months ago – Bulgaria’s Dimitar Berbatov joining European champions Manchester United in a big-money move that would finally confirm beyond any doubt his read more

Medals for Markov murderAn investigation by Hristo Hristov, Dnevnik daily

New documents have confirmed that the operation that led to the 1978 murder of Bulgarian dissident and playwright Georgi Markov, code name “Wanderer”, in London was a topic of discussion between the KGB and the Bulgarian intelligence services that Bulgaria’s communist ruler read more

Romania’s corruption fightSpasena Baramova

Corruption has always been a hot topic on the Balkans. Be it for the region’s communist background, economic backwardness or some other reason, bribery and graft have been present in the everyday life of the Balkan people to an extent incomprehensible to the average Westerner. read more

Business

PROPERTY FOCUS: Hospitals: the next hot thing?Svetlana Guineva

In 2000, there were only 18 private healthcare facilities, with a capacity for 306 beds. By last year, however, Bulgaria had 71 new private hospitals and 3110 beds, Dnevnik daily reported. Despite the still rough-around-the-edges system of providing medical insurance to read more

TOURISM BAROMETER: Hand in handPetar Kostadinov

It was not so long ago when Bulgaria and Romania were competing with each other to attract tourists to their respective Black Sea resorts. Newspapers on both sides of the border used to report how the two countries’ tourism industries were using advertising tricks to portray read more

Features

The long return homeKapka Kassabova’s novel Street without a Name examines a childhood under communism, and an ever-present sense of being of elsewhereMagdalena Rahn

It would be more exact, though, to say that while Street without a Name is something of a return to her past, Kapka Kassabova’s novel does not signal her own return to Bulgaria. She comes, regularly, every summer, for weeks or a month or so, because of family and friends here, read more

READING ROOM: On two euro a day and the goodness of othersMagdalena Rahn

Meet Thierry, Julia, Wilfrid and Simon. And Sylvain, Flavie, Caroline and Killian. Six are from France, the other two are from Quebec. Answering to an internet-based call sent out by Valence, France, native Thierry Montaner in 2007, the eight who ended up forming the team of read more

FILM REVIEW: You Don’t Mess With the Zohan / Зохан: Стилист от запасаPavel Ivanov

In a summer season totally dominated by comic book-based and superhero movies, one thinks that, at least, Adam Sandler would offer some guilty-pleasure respite for movie-goers battered into submission by cool do-gooders in outrageous costumes performing impossible feats. Oddly read more

Opinion

MY BULGARIA: Bulgarians or EuropeansPetar Kostadinov

After weeks of discussions, the three major right-wing parties in opposition came up with a motto that is to unite Bulgarians against the Government. The magic line, according to the parties, is “I am a European”. One of the right-wing leaders said that by describing read more

ECO ECHO: Concrete talesElitsa Grancharova

As it seems, the sand along the entire Bulgarian sea coast will soon be replaced by concrete. It is not enough that the famous local golden sands are not even bronzy any more, but more of a grey-brown at the places where any is left at all; it seems that the coastal zones of read more

LEGAL ALIEN: Manchurian CandidatesClive Leviev-Sawyer

Anyone remember the scurrilous claim about Bill Clinton, at the time he first was a candidate for the presidency of the United States, that he was a Manchurian Candidate of the Soviet Union? The smear was based on the fact that while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Clinton had read more

Sport

Trying for the World CupPetar Kostadinov

Bulgaria’s national football team will start its qualifying session for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa on September 6 with a historic game against Montenegro in Podgorica. This will be the first official game for Montenegro’s team, which has played a total of 10 friendlies read more

The Williams show

The Williams sisters will play yet another match against each other on September 5 in the semifinals of the 2008 US Open tennis tournament. The clash will happen exactly two months from the day Venus Williams, right, won the title at Wimbledon against her younger sister Serena read more

Venue Review

Architectural-Museum Reserve Tsarevets /Царевец/Holly Edwards

Just as a trip to Athens would be incomplete without visiting the Acropolis, so the hike up to Tsarevets is an integral part of the Veliko Turnovo experience. The medieval fortress that watches over the city may not be as beautiful as its Greek counterpart, but it is steeped in read more