Bulgaria is a relatively formal society so the initial greeting is a firm handshake and eye contact. When addressing people address them by their title and surname (e.g. Mr Gospozha). Friends and family may use first names but only at the appropriate time. Gift giving is generally done at Christmas and birthdays as well as when invited to someone’s home. Bulgarians have a rich culture and are very proud of it. It is a part of their heritage and is captured in jewellery, costumes, dance and music.
The Bulgarian language is in the South Slavic branch of the Slavic family of languages. It is spoken by 5.4 million people in Bulgaria and by expatriates throughout the world. Bulgarian is closely related to Croatian, Serbian and Romanian, and to a lesser degree with Turkish. In addition, it shares many vocabulary and grammatical features with other East Slavic languages.
In the pre-Soviet era, the economy was based primarily on agriculture along with light industry, which processed the resulting products. The major industries are mining and metallurgy, oil refining, and manufacture of food, beverages, and tobacco products. Agriculture is still an important sector of the economy but has been reduced in size due to heavy industrialization.
Since the end of the communist era the Bulgarian economy has been in transition to a market-based system, which has included some privatization, especially of large state-owned enterprises. However, the country has suffered from low productivity and high unemployment.
The Bulgarian Orthodox church is the dominant religious organization. It has played a vital role in maintaining the sense of Bulgarian identity, even under Ottoman and Communist rule. During the post-communist era, the church experienced a revival – religious holidays were celebrated again and church weddings became popular.
Family is a fundamental social unit in Bulgaria and is extended rather than nucleur. Several generations often live together and a close network of social connections is formed around each member. Table manners are formal, and eldest family members are served first. The eldest man and woman have an important position in the community and make decisions on behalf of the family.
The Bulgarian language has a verb system that has six moods, including perfective and imperfective forms that agree with the subject in person, number, tense, voice, and aspect. Bulgarian verbs are also marked for definiteness, with a distinct dative case. Three cases are exhibited by pronouns – nominative, accusative, and dative – and some verbs have additional case markings for negation and agreement. Infinitives are marked for tense, and some infinitives are conjugated for gender, number, and definiteness. A verb’s aspect is expressed by means of auxiliary verbs that vary in form, and lexical mood is indicated by prefixes or suffixes. The auxiliary verbs can be simple or compound and they agree with the subject in number, tense, and aspect. A Bulgarian verb can have up to three forms in each tense and aspect, although in practice only two are used.