Bulgarian is the official language of the Republic of Bulgaria, and it is also spoken in four other countries as monther tongue by a part of the population. With 4.97 million native speakers, it is the third most-spoken Slavic language after Russian and Polish. It belongs to the South Slavic branch of the Slavonic language family.

Its phonology is characterised by a phonetic alphabet, with an almost perfect one-to-one correspondence between letters and their sounds. A complex grammatical system has been created, with a number of tenses and moods (indicative, imperative, conditional, subjunctive and renarrative) and a variety of prefixes and suffixes, e.g. ppocheta’read’, bcichki ‘hear’, batko/bate ‘brother’. A wide vocabulary of familial relations is also present, ranging from the closest relatives (chicho ‘brother’, vuicho’mother’s brother’, svako ‘aunt’) to the furthest ones, such as badzhanak (the relationships between sisters’ husbands).

The Bulgarian constitution declares that all persons are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and should act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood. The State shall guarantee their life and liberty, ensure conditions for the free development of the individual, promote social initiative, create a prosperous economy, and develop culture in order to achieve its aims.

There are about 250 larger urban areas and 4,000 smaller villages in Bulgaria. The latter include scattered hamlets, clusters of farmsteads and, deep in the mountains, a handful of historic monasteries. Most of the larger towns were founded in the communist era and have rapidly grown, so that by 1969 the urban population overtook the rural.

Traditional Bulgarian dairy products demo slot are yoghurt, milk pudding and white brined cheese (tepche). The latter is the most widespread and consumed of them all; it is prepared from cow’s, sheep’s, goat’s, buffalo’s or mixed milk which is hardened with a special technology, then fermented, pressed, stored in a brine and dried. It is produced in Bulgaria and distributed in the Balkan peninsula, Turkey, former Soviet republics, and Mexico. The production of tepche is a significant industry for the country.