Old men in galoshes

Public place for washes

Tripe soup in big sploshes

We only take cash

Wood smoke in the morning

Scratching, coughing, yawning

Die in the house you're born in

Ladies with a tash

Shumensko foams in bars

Nights ablaze with shooting stars

Rusty Lada motor cars

The Black Sea coast

The smile of Desislava

Sticky hot baklava

Bureaucratic right palaver

And Lenin’s ghost

Waterfalls and mountains

Hundred thousand drinking fountains

Still reading by oil lanterns

The home of Orpheus

Summers hot and sunny

An alphabet that's funny

The finest local honey

Drivers smoking on the bus

Holidays in Shabla

All-night games of tabla

Abra and cadabra

Neighbours with the Turks

Yoghurt and banitsa

Give me three goats for my sister

How can you resist her?

Her father never works

Trees full of figs and peaches

Vasil Levski's speeches

Naked on the beaches

Muslims eating pork

Europe’s oldest nation

Can’t control inflation

We never trust Croatians

Migration point for storks

Sporadic folklore dances

Vast wilderness expanses

Dodgy government finances

Fifteen degrees below

Hauls of ancient treasures

Rakia in large measures

Countless other pleasures

A metre deep in snow

Reasons to be Bulgarian… Naz-dra-vee!

Reasons to be Bulgarian… Naz-dra-vee!

Reasons to be Bulgarian… edno, dveh, tree!

Note:

For any non-Bulgarians who may be reading this, the word ‘nazdrave’ (наздраве), when translated literally into English, means ‘for health’.

In Bulgaria we say it:

a)     As an expression of friendly feelings towards our companions before drinking, as in ‘cheers!’

b)     As a salutation to a person about to eat, as in ‘bon appétit!’

c)     As a gesture of goodwill to someone who has just sneezed, as in ‘bless you!’