I was stunned today to find out my countryland Bulgaria is 2nd in Europe and 5th in the world in terms of most attractive outsourcing destination according to BTA (Bulgarian News Agency). Bulgaria is ordering 5th after, India, Indonesia, Estonia and Singapore. The ranking of most attractive destination is based on factors;
General Competitiveness of Labor cost Worldwide
Eligibility of Workhand
Multilingual English speaking population (mainly young people)
Expertised highly educated people
Very Low Taxes (if compared to "developed" European countries)
Decreased transportation costs (produc transportation to Europe is generally cheap)
Internet bandwidth speed and high bandwidth connectiveness to worldwide Trade Markets
All this opens a big opportunity for economy development and inflush of fresh-money from outsourced jobs. Due to higher and European standard level of education in Bulgaria, the workhand pool in Bulgaria is usually more knowledgeable and better in quality if compared to rest of 3rd world countries India, Indonesia, Sinagopore etc. Bulgaria has generally good infrastructure and offers easy transportation of people and resources, something not so well developed yet in lets say India or Indonesia. Therefore opportunities for further development in Bulgaria as a leading outsource center in Europe are immerse in the coming 10 years. So far big companies who already realized the great Bulgaria potential like Comverse, HP, IBM etc. started actively hire people in Bulgaria and outsource their businesses but this mainly happens in Sofia.
The trend in long run however is that European leading companies start outsource in smaller cities and towns as well. Right now most prepared personal ready for outsourcing in Bulgaria is in field of Information Technologies, Electronics, Marketing, Transportation Equipment, Business Management, Chemical Industry, Food & Bevarage and Logistics. General outsourcing trend is more and more people working in not high qualitified labor to enter the market of out-sourcing. There are plenty of companies already in Bulgaria involved in textile (clothes) industry offering their cheap and high quality workhand to large external multinational companies like Zara, H & M , Versace etc.
Currently Bulgaria is considered the poorest countries in the European Union with the shocking minimal wage of 310 leva about (155 EUR) and avarage monthly sallary of 812 leva (406 EUR) monthly. The cheapness of Bulgaria is still unidentified gold field ignored by many Western Multinational companies. Outsourcing in Bulgaria has great advantages for European Countries based companies in terms of product logistics as product transportation cost and taxation within the European Union are very cheap if compared to rest of top non-EU outsourcing countries. Due to оbviously advantegous conditions in Bulgaria there are plenty of companies in Bulgaria already specialised in auditing outsourcing business risks and planning steps a company could partake to outsource its business in BG. Current Bulgarian government is making further attempts to relieve country's conditions to attract new business investors by 'Simplifying country's business registration and operations administration requirements and fostering better business environment' as said recently by second minister of economicsKrasin Dimitrov in recent business forum "Opportunities and Challanges in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Service Centers (SSC) in Bulgaria"
Thousands of people came to venerate and ask for a last blessing The Bulgarian Orthodox patriarch his All Holiness Maxim. The (Holy Liturgy Service) took place inCathedral Church Saint Nedelia
Cathedral of Sveta Nedelia (Saint Nedelia) is one of the most famous landmarks in Bulgaria's capital Sofia. It is a medieval Church many times rebuild, and its primal building was done in the 10th century many times rebuild, current Church building is made in XIX century. st. Nedelia's Cathedral keeps the Holy Relics of King Stephan Milutin
The Holy King Milutin's Holy Relics are transferred in Bulgaria in the 1460s, whether the holy relics was for years kept across several monasteries in Churches throughout Bulgaria. St. Nedelia's Church building is blessed to store the Holy Saint Relics since the 18th century when the Church become Bishop's residence. It was common the Church to be called St. King Milutin because in the late 19th and 20th century because of significance of holding the Holy remains of Saint Serbian king Milutin
It is no strange that the Holy Liturgy where people can venerate the patriarch will be served exactly in this Church and again it is due to God's human incomprehensible providence.
In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, we have celebrated saint Serbian King Stephan Milutin's veneration just 9 days ago (on 30th of October). It is obviously a providence of God and God inspired BOC Holy Synod decision to do the ( Farewell) Holy Liturgy in the Church holding the Great Saint of Serbia and All Orthodoxy Stephan Milutin Holy Relics.
The Holy Liturgy was headed by Plovdiv region Metropolitan Nikolay.
Which as of now is temporary chosen to serve as Metropolitan for Eparchy of Sofia.
Crowds of people from all around Bulgaria, came to venerate for a last time the Holy Hierarch. The police was forced to prohibit temporary entrance of people in the temple due to the high amount of people trying to enter and venerate patriarch Maxim.
Many priests from across Bulgaria come to venerate the Holy Patriarch and take participation in Patriarch's Farewell's Holy Liturgy
To venerate our wise patriarch for the Farewell Holy Liturgy came the ecomenical Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomeus
The funeral of his all holiness will be tomorrow in Troyanski Manastir Through my lifetime I did not have the opportunity to venerate the patriarch. In my mind however I'm deeply bowing in front of him and asking for his blessing. By God's providence, today in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church it is a big Church feast, Arhangelov den (Assembly of the Holy Archangels). The patriarch Zaupokoina Slujba ( Patriarch Opelo ) as we call it in Bulgaria will be served in Sofia's Cathedral Church of Saint Alexander Nevski tomorrow morning.
Lets hope by his all holiness Patriarch Maxim prayers who "introduced himself in the Lord" as we say in the Church, the state of our Bulgarian Orthodox Church will improve and more and more Bulgarian young people will find Christ and truthfulness of the One Holy Apostolic – Orthodox Christian faith.
Head of our Bulgarian Orthodox Church, his all holiness Patriach Maxim passed away to Christ early this morning 06 November 2012 around 03:30 а.m.
Our beloved patriarch headed the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in truth for the immersely high 41 years! Patarirch Max was the oldest among all Orthoodox Christian patriarchs. Just 8 days earlier, we have celebrated in the Church his 98 birthday. People who know the patriarch personally, said from his youth even even to his old years he used to be "The same humble person".
Our patriarch birthname "in the world" was Marin Naydenov Minkov and Pena Bordjukova. The patriarch was born from a father Nayden Minkov Rachev. Almost none is known about how the future Bulgarian Church patriarch who headed the Church ( 1971 – 2012 ) lived in his young years, similarly little is known about his family (parents) background, all we know is his parents was very pious people.
His Holiness Patriarch Maxim was born in Oreshak a little village near the city of Lovech, Bulgaria. His education was given in his native birth place – the mountain village of Oreshak.
In year 1935 His Holiness completed Sofia's Spiritual Seminary School ( Sofiiska Duhovna Seminaria ). In 1942 his holiness completed a Theological Degree in Sofia State University – saint Clement of Ohrid ( Saint Kliment Ohridski ).
A small note to make here for those unfamiliar with Orthodoxy is in Orthodox Church it is accepted that once a person is ordained to be a Monk or Priest (part of white or black brotherhood), he is usually given a name of a Church saint.
After a while, he was for a short time he served as a Hierodeacon to Lovchanski's Metropolitan (Metropolit of Lovech) and in year 1942, his holiness was assigned as a Theology Teacher in Sofia's Spiritual seminary ( Sofiiska Duhovna Seminaria ), he served as a Christian Theology teacher for about 5 years from y. 1942 to 1947.
In 14 May 1944 from HieroDeacon he was consecrated to be Hieromonk, 3 years later in 1947, he was raised to Archimandrite and assigned as Protosingel of Dorostolsko – Chervenska Eparchy ( Dorstol's Eparchy ) by Mitrpolitan Mihail (Michael).
By decision of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Holy Synod, Archimandrite Maxim was send to serve as a rector for Bulgarian Christian community in Moscow, his ministry in Moscow lasted almost 6 years from 1950 to 1955.
Archibishop Maxim came back to Bulgaria in 1955 and was assigned as a Head Secretary for the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Holy Synod. As a primary secretary of Bulgarian Church Holy Synod he served in year 1955 to 1960. Along with his duties are primary secretary of Holy Synod in 1957 to 1960, he was serving as a Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Synodal periodical spiritual literature print.
In 30 December 1956, he was hierotonize ( ordained ) as Bishop Branitskogo (Branitski) – this happened after proposed by his all holiness patriarch Cyril and decided on one of the regular Holy Synod of Bulgarian Orthodox Church meetings.
30 of October his holiness was assigned to serve as Metropolitan Lovchanski ( Metropolit of Lovchanski Church region ).
After the passing to Christ of our previous Bulgarian Church patriarch, his holiness patriarch Cyril (Kirilos), in the following in the Patriarchate Church (national) assembly of BOC (Bulgarian Orthodox Church) 4 -8 July 1971 in Sofia, Metropolitan Lovchanski Maxim was canonically chosen to be vicar of the BOC Holy Synod.
His entronization as new patriarch took place on 4 July 1971 in Alexander-Nevski's ( Bulgarian Holy Synod ) council. Patriarch Maxim became the 21-st ( Primate ) Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox.
According to Bulgarian Church internal law, the patriarch of Bulgaria is also a Metropolitan of Sofia.
Little after he was chosen the Patriarch of all Russia at that time Pimen, in his speech spoke of the recently chosen Bulgarian patriarch as a prominent hierarch with many virtues.
In November y. 1974 the Assembly of Sofia's Spiritual Academy awarded His All holiness Patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria for his great theological contributions Phd scientific rank( honoris causa ).
To celebrate his 60th anniversary BOC Synodal Publishing of Sofia issued a collection of his works entitled "In the field of the Lord" (Sofia publishing 1975). The book includes words, speeches and articles of Patriarch Maxim for period 1950 – 1974.
In 1974, the Council ofthe SofiaTheological AcademyawardedPatriarchMaxim forhistheological writingsa degree of Doctorof Theologyhonoris causa.60th Anniversary ofPatriarch MaximSynodalPublishingin Sofiaissued a collection ofthe worksof his work"In thefield of the Lord" (Sofia, 1975).The book includes thewords,speeches and articlesfor1950-1974Patriarch Maxim's.
Last year the newly chosen Patriarch of all Russia, Cyril met our Patriarch Maxim.
The funeral of Patriarch is to be served in Troyanski Manastir (Trojan Monastery), in the Church Dormition of the Holy Theotokos behind miracle making icon of the Virgin Mary on Friday 9th of November 2012. By God's providence and the Holy Synod of BOC decision, his body will be laid in the same monastery, where he was ordained as monk. The funeral preparations will be made by the Abbot of Troyanski Monastery Branitski / Bishop Grigorius (Grigorij).
The Bulgarian Government announced Friday to be a day of sorrow in memoriam of patriarch Maxim. Along in the whole Bulgarian country Churches Za Upokojna slubja (A service prayer for the newly introduced patriarch in the Lord ) were served yesterday and will be continuously served in the next 3 days.
Now what is left is we pray for our patriarch's soul and by patriarch Maxim's prayers the Lord Jesus Christ to bless our Bulgarian Orthodox Church with another good and wise patriarch.
БългарÑки ПеÑÐ½Ð¾Ð¿ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ – ГоÑподи Ñил, Ñ Ð½Ð°Ð¼Ð¸ буди / Gospodi syl pomiluy nas – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (A Bulgarian Orthodox Church) song variant
ГоÑподи Ñил Ñ Ð½Ð°Ð¼Ð¸ буди – Gospod i sil s nami budi – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (Russian Orthodox Church) song variant
I don’t know if above Gospodi Sil s Nami Budit song which is in Church Slavonic – ( Ancient Bulgarian Language) has translation somewhere on the Internet but as far as I checked I couldn’t find any translation and hence I took some time trying to approximately translate, above included text I found on the Internet.
It is a bit hard for me and maybe I’m mistaken somewhere in the translation as I’m not understanding very well Church Slavonic but I hope the song will give a general idea, what this so beatiful song lyrics are approximately saying in modern English.
Text song the Gods Power will be with us, You we have as helper in our sorrows, Let God’s Power have mercy on us. Praise him and and His Power, Praise Him becaues of his Great Mercies. – performed by Moscow’s Sretenski Monastery Church Choire
Gods Power will be with us … helper in our sorrows we have. God’s power will be with us Oh Power / (force) of God, have mercy on us!
Praise (Glorify) the Lord in his holiness, praise him testifying his power. God’s Power / (force) will be with us!
Glorify Him because of his power, Praise him because of his multitude of greatness-es. Gods Power will be with us!
Praise (Glorify) Him with voice of trumpets, Praise him with Psalms and (pipes ?). Gods Power will be with us!
Praise Him in (timpans and lices – not sure how this is translated – means other musical instruments?) – Praise him in strings and organs. Gods Power will be with us!
Praise Him with cymbals and (good hearted?) voices, praise him, praise Him with exclamations: every living soul (exhalation) to glorify the Lord. Gods Power will be with us:
Praise the Lord in all holiness, Praise Him in statement of his power. Gods Power will be with us:
Glory: Oh Lord, If we do not have (byhom?) Your holy prayer books, and the goodness of thy prayer books and the goodness of all saints who pray for us; what would we do oh Saviour, we who sing you.
You are glorified all time by Angels
You who glorify all the time Angels. Seer of all hearts, have mercy on our souls.
And again: Many are my prayers oh Holy Theotokos / (Virgin Mary), I have come to you the most pure, asking (requiring) rescue.
Come to my infirm (weak) soul, and pray Your Son and and Our Lord, to grant me Forgiveness of sins, Because I’m poor and week (in evil), You who are most Blessed among Mankind.
Oh you most Holy Theotokos, in my lifetime don’t leave me on a human mercy (hope) but you alone intercede on my behalf and Have Mercy on Me!
All my hopе I give to you, Oh Mother of God, Rescue (Кееp) me under your Shelter / (Shroud).
God’s Power Will be With Us is a triumph song of Victory of the Holy Orthodox Christian faith and the Orthodox Christians over all evil that is in the post sin fallen world. It is a Victorious Chant stating God’s power is with all us Orthodox Christians.
It is an expression of the power that our Holy Orthodox Christian faith contains. Gods power will be with us is a well known for all Eastern Orthodox Slavonic Christians. It is being sing in most if not all Slavonic Eastern Orthodox Churches around the world i.e. – Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia
It is common that this very beautiful Ancient Church Slavonic song is being nowdays sung, by Orthodox Christian choires even in the Western World which so sadly is nowdays predominated by Roman Catholic and Protestant (denominations beliefs). Here is God’s power will be with us – as sung in Church Slavonicin a Roman Catholic Chapel
Orthodox Christian Chant – Gospodi sil s nami (Russe Znamenny) / Gospodi sil s nami budit
Pojanje Koviljskih Monaha-Psalam 150 (Part of Gospodi sil s nami budit – Repetancance Great Lent Canon sing in Serbian Monasteries)
This Church chanting song is sing in the Great Lent Church period around all Slavonic Churches around the world. The spiritual deepness the song contains and spiritual joy is amazingly great for us Eastern Orthodox Christians; it is barely impossible to explain in words, but I hope by listening it the listener re-unites with our Christ = (Messiah) = Saviour and his Holy Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church!
This Orthodox Song is also present, probably in Greek, Syriac, Jerusalem, Ethiopian,Coptic, Chinese and the rest of local Orthodox Church-es throughout the whole universe. If someone from other Orthodox Churches reading this post, can point me out to their Church variant of these glorious Church hymn I will be mostly thankful!
Glory be to the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit now and Forever and Ever. For Gods Power – Christ’s Holy Spirit will be with us ever unto the Ages of Ages accordinly to the promise of our Lord Jesus in Holy Gospels.
Today I’m joyed to note here in our Bulgarian Orthodox Church calendar we venerate the Greatest Bulgarian saint and maybe one of the greatest Hesychast (Hermits) of our times – Saint John of Rila
Great are the mercies over the years, we as Bulgarians received throgh the holy prayers of st. John. The saint is called of Rila because he spend biggest part of his life in Rila Mountain “desert”, living a life of solitude and holiness. As his living states, he has numerous times been fighting the passions and been fighted by the devil and evil spirits, who tried to shutter his faith unsucessfully. With his vigilance and persistance in faith and his deep love for Christ, he achieved saintship. Pupils of the saint has later established Rila Monastery – a monastery holding rich spirituality and being a spiritual fortress of Orthodox Christian faith. St. John is also considered a building stone (not to say creator) of Bulgarian lands monastic life. Here is the Troparion to the Saint:
Тропар на Св. Иван РилÑки / St John of Rila’s antiphon
For his holy living our Lord Jesus Christ granted the Saint, great spiritual gifts including the gift of miracle making and healing.
The most famous story the meeting of Saint John with King Peter I is well known and documented in historical sources, Here is the story itself (Story is copied as translated from Bulgarian to English and located in wikipedia free encyclopedia:
Tsar Peter I (son of tsar Simeon I) took a 120 km. trip to the Rila Mountains in order to meet St. Ivan and seek spiritual advice. Their meeting is described in detail in one the hagiologies of St. Ivan Rilski as well as in the Testament of St. Ivan of Rila itself. After a long and exhausting trip, tsar Peter I reached the place where St. Ivan Rilski lived, however, upon arrival, the tsar then realized that the dwelling of the saint was inaccessible, probably due to the rough local terrain. As the medieval hagiologies point out, St. Ivan of Rila refused to meet the tsar in person to avoid the temptation of vanity and pride due to the extraordinary visit. As such, the two men only bowed to each other from a distance. The emperor sent a soldier to deliver the gifts that were brought for the saint. St Ivan of Rila kept only the a small portion of food and returned all of the gold and precious gifts, advising the tsar that monarchs need gold in order to protect the country and help the poor.
According to local Bulgarian Church Tradition, due to his saintship God granted the saint Dormition. Dormition is less used (word) term outside of Orthodox Christian faith, in short it means Jesus himself went down from Heaven with with Holy Theotokos and his Holy Angels to receive St. John of Rila’s saintly soul!
Those familiar with Orthodox Christian faith base, would know over the whole humanity history, there are few respected to receive Dormition. Most famous and greatest Dormition is of course, the Dormition of Holy Theotokos; According to our Church history in a similar way to Holy Theotokos Dormition, saint John received his Glorofication and Salvation on the day of his Dormition.
Shortly before his death (Aug 18, 946) St. Ivan of Rila wrote his Testament Zavet (the bulgarian word for testament). st. John’s Testament is a literary work and a a deeply spiritual Christian message instructing his successors how to adjoin to proper a high spiritual life. The testament is an instruction dedicated to teach the whole Bulgarian nation to stick firmly to faith in Christ and live a good life in Christ.
Here is a link to a friend’s of mine personal blog. Unfortunately the blog is fully in Bulgarian and thereforerequires you to be a native Bulgarian speaker. However the blog content is a valuable one and even a translatevia Google Translate might be of use to English speakers. Here is a link to the Blog itself Martin Petrov’s Personal Blog END—–
A friend of mine gave me 2 link to very extended collection of Bulgarian Rock/Metal Bands this are bands like Hipodil, Kontrol, Holera, 5-ta Invalidna, Necromancer, Nova Generacia, R Malyk, R Golqm, Ahat and much much more known and uknown Bulgarian bands! :)Check the links below Big Bulgarian Rock, Metal, Blues Music Collection 1And More Bulgarian Metal,Rock Music Enjoy!END—–
I think I mentioned on my blog that until I’ve upgraded to Debian Unstable, my subtitles in Bulgarian stopped working. That happens in all of the Video supporting programs. I do a lot of reading and writting in English thus I have exported default LANG variable to en_US.UTF8 (my LANG is LANG=en_UTF-8). I tried everything via configuration files in Both Mplayer and Vlc to make the players work with Cyrillic in CP1251, badly enough nothing helped. After some time of trying out stuff I came to the following solution.I’ve created files: /usr/local/bin/vlc and /usr/local/bin/gmplayer containing: 1. vlc’s file#!/bin/shLANG=bg_BG.CP1251 exec /usr/bin/vlc “$@â€2. gmplayer’s file#!/bin/shLANG=bg_BG.CP1251 exec /usr/bin/gmplayer “$@†The “$@†is a default bash variable which contains everything passed by next to /usr/bin/vlc and /usr/bin/gmplayer END—–
I’ve came to the conclusion that there is no easily to find bulgarian orthodox bible for download. Thus after spending an hour Googling for Bulgarian Orthodox bible I finally found one. The one I found was in DOC and I thought that it would be nice if the Bulgarian Orthodox Bible is available for download in various formats for users convenience. For that reason I’ve converted the bulgarian orthodox bible I found to a few of the most famous desktop reading formats out there and stored it on my machine. I’ve also built a small website through which The Bulgarian Orthodox Bible can be downloaded . Currently the website offers a bulgarian orthodox available for download in (DOC, ODT, TXT, PDF) formats, as well as the same formats are prepared for download in RAR archive. I truly hope this would be useful to the fellow orthodox bulgarian brothers and sisters. END—–
