Kazan — summer 2014

I finally made my actual reservations for Russia. I'll be going to Bulgaria first for a week, which I am very looking forward to. I'll be spending most of my time in Plovdiv, where my former Bulgarian instructor lives. Guess it's time to start boning up on my Bulgarian.

Here's a map of the country itself. Click on it to get to a bigger map that shows how it relates to the countries around it.

I'll be spending the first five days in Plovdiv and then three days in Sofia before departing for Kazan via Istanbul.

Russian and Bulgarian are both Slavic languages, but they have gone down very different paths. They both descended from Common Slavic, which had complicated verbs and complicated nouns/adjectives. Russian simplified the verbs but kept the complicated nouns/adjectives, and Bulgarian kept the complicated verbs, and simplified the nouns/adjectives.

Russian never developed a definite article ("the"), whereas Bulgarian did. Let's contrast a few sentences.

Curious, eh? There are some atypical northern Russian dialects that also developed a similar definite article. I've always been curious about the why of that.

I sent a message to my old prof of Slavic linguistics, Jim Augerot, and asked him what to eat/not eat in Bulgaria. Here's the answer:

Since Bulgaria is traditionally an agricultural nation, the food tends to be both tasty and healthy. They make great soups and the kebab is very tasty. They love the (I forgot the name, in Romanian they are called mititei), oh, yes, чевабчичи, little grilled sausage thingys, they are a bit greasy but very tasty.

In any case, I don't think there is any problem with eating Bulgarian style.

jim

So far, so good on all the student visas. They are all in the consulate and being processed. We may even get them back earlier than expected, which would astonish me since most of the time visas seem to drag on till the last minute.

Just made my hotel reservations for Plovdiv and Sofia. Interestingly enough, credit card payment is still less widespread in Bulgaria than in other parts of Europe. My 3-day stay in Sofia is pre-paid by credit card through Expedia, but my Plovdiv stay, so say the travel notes, will have to be paid up in the local currency directly with the hotel.