Tsarevets Castle in Veliko Turnovo retains magnetic pull

by Rene Beekman
Turkish TV series like Silver (Gümüş, though for Bulgarian television this is translated as Perl), 1001 Nights (Binbir Gece), The Foreign Groom (Yabancı Damat), The Fall of Leaves (Yaprak Dökümü) and My Mother (Annem) have become hugely popular on Bulgarian television in recent years.
Compared to Latin-American series, which Bulgarian television channels screened in the past, Turkish drama series attract 50 per cent higher ratings, according to bTV programme co-ordinator Ventsislava Konova.
Bulgarian journalist Kristina Vladimirova has now made a 15-minute documentary to find out why these series are …

A cargo airplane is down in a forest preserve near Chicago Executive Airport, also known as Palwaukee, in Wheeling, IL. The plane has crashed into the Des Plaines River and is in pieces. The site of the crash is near the intersection of River Rd and Camp McDonald Rd. Below are pictures of the area.

MABAS fire chief Jay Reardon

Dennis Rouleau, Manager of Chicago Executive Airport

Flight 988 – Тhe twin-engine Learjet
Soon after, the Lake county Sheriff and another car crashed not to far away.

Even knocked down the stoplight still was working…

The audience will vote to single out its favourite director. “Dzift,” a Bulgarian film, after which Hollywood is making a remake, opens the Seventh International Film Festival
New York will enjoy Bulgarian films: tonight, Yavor Gurdev will personally promote his movie Dzift, which opens the Seventh International Film Festival (December 8 -December 13).
In the meantime, the producers of the movie have confirmed the news that they already prepare to sign a contract with an US company, which plans to make a remake of the movie, awarded a series of prestigious international …

Proposal about establishing an annual International Maritime Award on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov’s birthday (7.12.1909 – 23.7.1942) patron of the Naval Academy, Varna

Exactly fifty two years back to the date of its original publication, Ayn Rand’s magnum opus Atlas Shrugged saw the light of day in the Bulgarian language. On October 10, 2009, MaK and East-West [Iztok-zapad] publishing houses unveiled Part I of the Bulgarian edition of the book with a celebration at Grand Hotel Bulgaria in Sofia with more than 120 of Rand’s fans present. The book was presented by the publisher Kalin Manolov, the translator Petio Angelov, the editor Iskra Angelova, and the economist Lachezar Bogdanov.
Atlas Shrugged has been around …

Mortgage rates fell for the sixth week in a row, to a level last seen in the spring.
The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 3 basis points to 5.22 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week’s survey had an average total of 0.34 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.2 percent; four weeks ago, it was 5.4 percent.
The benchmark 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 4 basis points to 4.6 percent. …

The IRS has released IR-2009-083 reporting that about 1.4 million taxpayers have filed (or amended) their 2008 income tax returns claiming the $8000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. This is roughly consistent with NAR’s projections that about 1.8 million taxpayers will claim the credit. NAR also estimates that at least 355,000 of eligible sales would not have occurred without the credit.
The IRS release also reminds taxpayers of the importance of getting to closing before the December 1 expiration of the credit and publicizes a YouTube video it has prepared to help …

In Buffalo Grove (IL), police, firefighters and paramedics responded to a accident around 2:45 pm when three school busеs of Twin Groves Middle School crashed on Buffalo Grove Rd just north of Deerfield Rd. Right now, all Buffalo Grove Rd traffic is being detoured between Larraway Dr. and Deerfield Rd. There is a possibility of some minor injuries. All three buses were full.

Photos: D. Stamatova (www.Eurochicago.com)

Bulgarian archeologists have found a unique golden wreath in an unnamed mound near the South-East village of Krushare, Sliven District.

Archaeologists found 7500 fragments of frescos during excavations in the church of a monastery complex in the Karaach Tepe area near Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Varna, BalkanTravellers said.