📅 ON THIS DAY IN BULGARIA, Wednesday 23 September
One of the biggest television stars in Turkey took Bulgarian citizenship last year. Çağatay Ulusoy was born on this date in 1990, and the route he used is the one a good many people reading this have looked into themselves.
What happened on this day
Ulusoy was born in Istanbul in 1990 to a Bosniak mother and a father whose family were Bulgarian emigrants to Turkey; his father made that journey as a ten year old. Bulgaria and Turkey have moved populations back and forth across that border for well over a century, and a very large number of Turkish families carry a Bulgarian line somewhere close behind them.
His own career started by accident. He was studying at Istanbul University, entered a modelling competition in 2010 and won it, and was offered an acting job the same night. The series was "Adını Feriha Koydum", which ran two seasons and made him famous. He took acting lessons from Ayla Algan, a considerable figure in Turkish theatre, while the show was going out. "Medcezir" followed from 2013, a Turkish remake of The O.C., then "İçerde" in 2016, and from 2018 the lead in "The Protector", the first Turkish series Netflix commissioned. He has a Golden Butterfly among his awards.
The part that concerns us is more recent and much less glamorous. In 2025 he was granted Bulgarian citizenship.
Towns celebrating today
Sredets in Burgas province marks its day. It sits near Lake Mandrensko on the northern slopes of the Strandzha, and the Roman fortress of Kaleto stands a couple of kilometres to the south-west, built around the turn of the sixth century and known under the First Bulgarian Empire as Potamukastel. There is also, improbably, a Sredets Point in Antarctica named after the town, which is the sort of detail the Bulgarian Antarctic programme has quietly scattered across the South Shetlands.
Why this matters for British expats
Citizenship by descent is the quiet Bulgarian story of the last decade, and it is not only a Turkish one. If you have a Bulgarian ancestor, or a spouse, or enough years of residence behind you, the routes exist and people use them. Ulusoy's case is simply the most visible version of something happening in registry offices every week. Our guide to Bulgarian citizenship sets out what the actual routes are and which of them are realistic for a British national now that the automatic EU route has gone.
The second point is smaller but more fun. His series carry Bulgarian titles because they were broadcast here: Огледален свят, Кварталът на богатите, Вътрешен човек, Защитникът. Turkish drama is a genuine fixture of Bulgarian television and one of the easier ways into the language, since the dubbing is slow and clear and the plots are not taxing. Our television guide covers what is worth finding.
If this is your kind of context, the Shumen.UK Bulgarian name-days guide is the natural next read.
Sources and further reading
The family background, the modelling contest and the series list come from the Bulgarian Wikipedia entry on Çağatay Ulusoy, which is also where the 2025 citizenship is recorded, and from the English entry. The details on Sredets and its Roman fortress are from the town's own English entry.