Somewhere in Sofia today, the woman who has spoken more prime-time American telly into Bulgarian living rooms than just about anyone turns 64. Elena Rusalieva was born in Sofia on 18 August 1962, and if you have ever sat through ER, Lost or Desperate Housewives on a Bulgarian channel, you already know her: she was quite literally the voice talking over the original actors.
What happened on this day
Rusalieva was born into what you might call Bulgaria's speaking trade. Her mother, Maria Rusalieva, is an actress; her father, Alexander Alexandrov, was an announcer on Bulgarian National Radio; her grandfather, Vladimir Rusaliev, was a poet. It seems we are looking at a family where using your voice beautifully was rather the dinner-table standard.
Her own training was in puppetry, which in Bulgaria is a serious art form, taught at the national theatre academy with the kind of reverence the British reserve for RADA. In 1985 she graduated in puppet theatre acting from the VITIZ academy (the Krastyo Sarafov institute) in the class of Dimitar Stoyanov, spent 1985 to 1989 at the State Puppet Theatre in Pazardzhik, and from 1992 joined the Sofia Puppet Theatre, in productions from Hansel and Gretel to Peter Pan and Mowgli.
The career that made her a household sound began in 1994, when the director Iskra Marinova invited her into dubbing, approaching her through her mother, who was initially not keen on her daughter doing voice-over work. Rusalieva started at the state broadcaster BNT, then the private studios came calling: Multi Video Center, Diema, Nova Television. Her credits read like the box-set shelf of the last three decades: ER, Ally McBeal, CSI: Miami, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, Ugly Betty, Modern Family and Empire.
The Bulgarian theatre world's Ikar awards run a dubbing category (once known as the Golden Voice), and her story there is quietly heroic: nominated in 2005, again in 2007 for Lost and Desperate Housewives, and twice more in 2008 and 2009 for Ugly Betty, four times the bridesmaid, losing to the likes of Ivan Tanev and Tanya Dimitrova, before finally winning in 2013 for the legal drama Damages. She also directs dubs at BNT, and does full lip-sync animation work: she was Odette in The Swan Princess and Marina in The Pebble and the Penguin.
And one footnote this audience will enjoy: in 1987 she appeared in a television theatre production called An English Son-in-Law (Зет англичанин), alongside Georgi Belev and Parush Parushev. Given where you are reading this, the casting rather writes its own joke.
Towns celebrating today
Three Bulgarian towns mark their holiday on or around 18 August.
Dolna Mitropoliya, about ten kilometres northwest of Pleven (population roughly 3,300), celebrates today. Its claim to fame is overhead rather than on the ground: the air base next door hosts the aviation faculty of the National Defence University, the school where Bulgaria's military pilots have trained since it moved there in 1948. It also, improbably, has Bulgaria's first and only supermoto track, hosting motorcycle racing since 1992.
Dospat, high in the Rhodope Mountains of Smolyan Province (roughly 2,400 people, a largely Bulgarian Muslim town), celebrates around 18 to 21 August. Its signature is Dospat Dam, the highest dam in Bulgaria by altitude and the second largest by capacity, a magnet for fishing and summer escapes. The town's name most likely comes from Despot Alexius Slav, a medieval ruler of these parts in the 12th or 13th century.
Rudozem, near the Greek border where the Elhovo and Chepino rivers join the Arda (roughly 3,600 people), marks today as the Dormition of Saint Ivan of Rila. The name means "ore land", a nod to the area's mineral wealth, and since 1 January 2025 the town has had a new border crossing linking it directly to Xanthi in Greece.
Saint Ivan of Rila, patron saint of the Bulgarians and the man behind Rila Monastery, died on 18 August 946, and his dormition is commemorated on both 18 August and 19 October. He is also the face on the national side of the Bulgarian 1 euro coin, so there is a fair chance he has been riding around in your pocket since January.
Why this matters for British expats
For British expats, Rusalieva is the answer to a question every newcomer asks within a week: why does Bulgarian television talk over the original actors? Bulgaria dubs by voice-over, meaning a Bulgarian voice reads the translated lines while the original audio murmurs underneath, and a small guild of actors covers most of the shows. Once you know that, the odd sensation of the same woman turning up as a doctor in ER, a lawyer in Ally McBeal and a desperate housewife stops being eerie and starts being impressive. It is also, honestly, a decent language tool: Bulgarian on top, English underneath, subtitles for the brain.
And the saint in your pocket change ties the day together: Ivan of Rila died on this date eleven centuries ago, Rudozem parties in his honour today, and his face sits on the coin you hand over at the market. The Bulgarian cultural calendar is full of these quiet overlaps, and spotting them is rather the difference between living in Bulgaria and living next to it.
Sources and further reading
Today's piece draws on Elena Rusalieva's Bulgarian Wikipedia biography, with the town details from the English Wikipedia entries on Dolna Mitropoliya, Dospat and Rudozem, and the feast-day details from the English Wikipedia entry on John of Rila.