Bulgaria to join euro area on 1 January 2026

Nice. It’s amazing to see the progress Bulgarians have made in the last 20 years after joining the EU. I can imagine it hasn’t been an easy process.

Two things that surprised me when I spent a couple of months in Bulgaria:

* Bulgarian support for the EU is pretty low and people didn't think it made their life much better

* Bulgarian support for Russia is very high, like 50%, probably due to their historic help in kicking out the Turks

It’s also more of a generation thing though. The older people are nostalgic about the past and their youth and for a country that experienced 2 decades of very low birth rates that’s the 70s and 80s and those years are under the communist rule and very good years for Bulgaria as the country was experiencing economic boom from computers and electronics manufacturing.

Also, under under the Communist rule supported by USSR, they indoctrinated people into a version of history that Turks are the absolute evil, and Russians are the absolute angels saving them from the ottomans.

I.e. in pre-EU era it was called Ottoman slavery, later they start calling it Ottoman era as it was more accurate as Ottoman’s system was based on collecting taxes and resources from the conquered places when giving them plenty of autonomy. Obviously not ideal but far from slavery.

Unless you were Armenian.

Not at all, Armenians were also an integral part of the Ottoman society and that’s how you still have plenty of Armenian cultural heritage dating back to Ottoman times in modern Turkey. You must be referring to the events around WW1 that led the loss of huge numbers of the Armenians through atrocities committed by the Ottomans which some say that it was a genocide, others say it was poorly managed suppression of a rebellion in a dying empire. Still unresolved issue unfortunately.

On the other hand Bulgarians and Turks teamed in wars after the forming of the new Bulgarian state.