Bulgaria

World champion figure skater Kimmie Meissner will skate an exhibition Saturday at the University of Delaware as part of a send-off show for athletes competing at U.S. Nationals. The Bel Air teen, the runner-up at Nationals last year who finished sixth at the Olympics, will perform to "Keep Holding On" from the soundtrack of Eragon. The show also will include appearances by U.S. ice dance silver medalists Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov and 2006 Junior World bronze medalist Christine Zukowski.

A handful of $100 bills passed at a Bel Air 7-Eleven store has put federal authorities on the trail of one of the world's largest counterfeiting rings, responsible for more than $3.5 million in phony bills printed in Bulgaria.Secret Service agents said yesterday that a Bulgarian native, Valeri Gueorguiev, was a courier who delivered tens of thousands in counterfeit cash to Maryland. He was arrested last week in Bel Air with a duffel bag crammed with $62,700 in fake money, authorities said.

WASHINGTON -- As part of the campaign against President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, the Clinton administration and NATO have tried to cut off his oil supply and bank accounts.It is a campaign that has not gone well, U.S. and NATO officials say. Barges filled with oil in Ukrainian ports cross the Black Sea and chug up the Danube River through Bulgaria and Romania. To pay for it, Milosevic is using money secreted in banks in Cyprus during earlier sanctions against Yugoslavia, the officials said.

RAYKOVO, Bulgaria -- With a hoe in one hand and a cane in the other, Slava Todorova Ardakova waves off an offer of help from her granddaughter as she ambles toward her greenhouse, where the 99-year-old tends her vegetables daily.`I don't like to stay in one place too long. I walk a lot. I never use any medication. I work for myself, do my own dishes and my own mending,` she says, bending her tiny frame as she works in the garden.The only time Ardakova even considered seeing a doctor was when she was 97, and then she decided to refuse an operation that might have improved her eyesight.

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- In the hospitals, doctors have stopped performing all but emergency surgery because they don't have anesthesia or the money to buy it." 'Urgency' becomes a very relative term," says Dr. Slavyan Nikolov, a surgeon whose salary at First City Hospital is $10 a month. "There is no medicine. People without money have no options."The same diagnosis applies to all of Bulgaria, where a critical economic situation and political unrest have almost paralyzed the country. There is hyper-inflation, which means that Bulgarians without hard currency can barely afford to eat. The banking system has collapsed.

LEKA WAS a two-day-old prince in 1939, when he was spirited away from Albania ahead of Mussolini's invading army. He later moved to Egypt, Spain, Rhodesia and South Africa, selling arms but always listing his occupation as "king" on his home-made Kingdom of Albania passport. After communism collapsed in 1993, he returned to his native land but was expelled after 24 hours.So how come King Leka I is back in his chaotic land of birth and treated with respect?"In Albania, there is such turmoil that politicians and government authorities see me as a stabilizing factor," he says.

Dracula, the Transylvanian count with an appetite for blood, lived in a decaying castle in Varna, now in Bulgaria. Varna is also the site of the International Ballet Competition, which travels between Moscow, Bulgaria and Jackson, Miss.Until now, this was the only known connection between Dracula and ballet. However, the 100th anniversary of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel has inspired a number of vampire ballets.Ballet Theater of Annapolis is one of several companies paying homage to the centenary.

TWO EXTRAORDINARY months of massive protests in Serbia's cities against one-party crypto-Communist rule has finally borne fruit: an apparent concession to newer and smaller demonstrations by the rulers of neighboring Bulgaria.Following a week of protests and the November election of an anti-Communist to the ceremonial post of president, Bulgaria's Socialist party boss, Georgi Parvanov, agreed with opposition leaders to early elections. The Socialists (the old Communists under another name)

AFTER THE FALL of communism throughout Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Romania went on as though little had happened. The Communists, saying they were Democratic Socialists, continued ruling. People voted for them by choice or from fear. All that ended last Sunday.In Bulgaria's election, the anti-Communist Petar Stoyanov won a landslide victory for the ceremonial presidency, defeating a former Communist. The Socialists (former Communists) still rule under Prime Minister Zhan Videnov, as a result of 1994 parliamentary elections.

Travel-bargain specialists have a word of advice for vacation planners worried about the dollar's collapse: Bulgaria.Yes, Bulgaria. Not the undifferentiated, gray land mass conjured up by Cold War stereotypes, but a colorful, bucolic -- even flashy -- gem of a destination, offering attractions from a seacoast with casinos to unspoiled countrysides with skiing.It's a locale where the dollar reigns supreme, unbowed by its swoon on world markets this year."We advised our readership to stay away from Germany and most of Western Europe," says Herbert Teison, editor of the Travel Smart newsletter in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. "On the other hand, Eastern Europe, particularly Bulgaria, is a good buy."

NEW YORK - - Maria Sharapova came armed with her nerve and her serve Tuesday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Dressed asymmetrically in gauzy black, gray and white, and showing no evidence of an uncertain serve that has plagued her this summer, Sharapova dispatched Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova, 6-3, 6-0, in 73 minutes. Because Sharapova missed the first five months of this season while recovering from shoulder surgery last fall, the 22-year-old Russian is seeded only 29th. It is an unaccustomed place in the draw for Sharapova, who was once ranked No. 1. Sharapova said she was particularly happy with how she attacked the match by moving forward.

When James De Vinne was in nursery school, he became interested in all the flags of the world. Then came a fascination with skyscrapers from cities as far away as Dubai. In elementary school, that passion for learning about countries was cemented through a geography club. This year, the Dumbarton Middle School sixth-grader beat out middle school students from across the state to represent Maryland in the National Geographic Bee held last week in Washington. James got six out of nine questions right, making it to the top 20 of the 55 entrants but not to the final group of 10 participants.

VELIKO TURNOVO, Bulgaria - Up and down the twisting, cobblestone streets of this charming ancient city, hundreds of photocopied leaflets with grainy black-and-white images of the dead are tacked onto trees, utility poles and the sides of buildings. Most of these people are long dead. Some passed on more than a dozen years ago, yet relatives in this so-called "city of the czars" and other towns across Bulgaria keep the crinkled, yellowing death notices on public display, as if to remind friends and neighbors not to forget the people.

News item: Trade rumors continue to swirl around Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia, though general manager Mark Shapiro insists that he wants to re-sign the club's veteran ace. My take: It's OK for Orioles fans to dream, but Sabathia probably isn't going to be wearing Baltimore on his road jersey next year. News item: Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow, who already had a checkered past, was suspended recently by Kentucky racing officials after one of his other horses tested positive for an excessive amount of Clenbuterol.

World champion figure skater Kimmie Meissner will skate an exhibition at the University of Delaware on Sunday - not Saturday, as previously reported - as part of a send-off show for athletes competing at U.S. Nationals. Meissner, 17, of Bel Air, who was the runner-up at nationals last year and finished sixth at the Olympics, will perform to "Keep Holding On" from the soundtrack of Eragon. The show also will include appearances by U.S. ice dance silver medalists Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov and 2006 Junior World bronze medalist Christine Zukowski.

World champion figure skater Kimmie Meissner will skate an exhibition Saturday at the University of Delaware as part of a send-off show for athletes competing at U.S. Nationals. The Bel Air teen, the runner-up at Nationals last year who finished sixth at the Olympics, will perform to "Keep Holding On" from the soundtrack of Eragon. The show also will include appearances by U.S. ice dance silver medalists Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov and 2006 Junior World bronze medalist Christine Zukowski.

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- On the eve of a United Nations deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called yesterday for diplomatic action against Tehran, warning that the Security Council cannot permit the regime to "simply ignore its will and its word." Rice, appearing at a NATO meeting, said it was "pretty clear" that Iran will ignore the deadline set for today by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency for a halt to enrichment. When the International Atomic Energy Agency reports this failure, she said, the Security Council must ask itself whether it will remain credible if it allows Iran to "simply flout the will of the international community" without penalty.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-led international military coalition in Iraq shrank further yesterday after Bulgaria and Ukraine completed troop withdrawals and Poland announced it was reducing its contingent by 40 percent and switching to a non-combat role. Responding to appeals from U.S. officials, the Polish government reversed an earlier plan to remove all troops by the end of this year. But Polish officials said the 900 remaining soldiers of its 1,500-troop force will focus almost exclusively on training Iraqis while they wind down their mission over the course of 2006.

On Friday, October 14, 2005, NIKOLA ANDREYEV MISHEV; born in Bulgaria on January 28, 1913. Nikola came to America in 1968. The Cockeysville resident was 92. Beloved husband of the late Todora Mishev; devoted father of Andrei N. Andreyev of Cockeysville and Todor Andreyev of Bulgaria. Also survived by four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Mr. Mishev will lie in state on Saturday, October 15 at the St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church from 10:30 A.M. until 11 A.M., the funeral hour.

A Memorable Place New appreciation for the old country By Maria Demireva SPECIAL TO THE SUN Last summer I really got to know Bulgaria, my country of birth. My family moved from Bulgaria when I was 6 years old to settle in Sweden. Later we moved to the United States. More than 15 years have passed since we left Bulgaria, but my parents, brother and I regularly go back during the summer to visit friends and relatives. When we returned last summer, it was different: I saw my country of birth in a new light.