A country often described to lie at
the crossroads linking the East and West, Bulgaria was
the centre of Slavic Europe during much of the Middle
Ages, exerting considerable literary and cultural influence
over the Eastern Orthodox Slavic world by means of the
Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools. Bulgaria is also the
birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, the second most widely
used alphabet in the world, which was developed in these
two schools in the tenth century. Bulgaria is well-known
for its rich folklore, distinctive traditional music,
rituals and tales, but the country's contribution to humanity
also continued in the nineteenth and twentieth century,
when individuals such as John Atanasoff - born in USA
with Bulgarian origin, regarded as the father of the digital
computer, a number of noted opera singers (Nicolai Ghiaurov,
Boris Christoff, Raina Kabaivanska, Ghena Dimitrova) and
successful artists (Christo Javacheff, Pascin, Vladimir
Dimitrov) popularized the culture of Bulgaria abroad.
A number of ancient civilizations, most notably the
Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs and Bulgars, have left
their mark on the culture, history and heritage of Bulgaria.
The country has nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Of
these, two are Thracian tombs (one in Sveshtari and
one in Kazanlak), three are monuments of medieval Bulgarian
culture (the Boyana Church, the Rila Monastery and the
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo), while the Pirin National
Park and the Srebarna Nature Reserve represent the country's
natural beauty, and the ancient city of Nesebar is a
unique combination of European cultural interaction,
as well as, historically, one of the most important
centres of naval trade in the Black Sea. In addition,
the Varna Necropolis, a 3200-3000 BC burial site, contains
what are believed to be the oldest examples of worked
gold in the world.
