📅 ON THIS DAY IN BULGARIA, Wednesday 26 August
Two things are true about today, and if you live in Shumen both of them belong to you. This city produced Todor Kolev, born here on 26 August 1939, who went on to be the funniest man in Bulgaria for the better part of half a century. It is also the name day of every Adrian and Natalia in the country, which, full disclosure, includes me.
What happened on this day
Kolev talked his way into the acting course at the Krastyo Sarafov academy in Sofia by a trick he was happy to own up to later: the panel had a weakness for imposing men with deep voices, so he turned up in high heels and pitched his voice down. It worked, he graduated in 1965, and the provincial circuit came first, Smolyan, then a season back home at the theatre in Shumen in 1966, then Plovdiv, before Sofia kept him. He gave eighteen years to the Sofia Theatre from 1972, and his handprints are set into the wall outside Teatar 199.
Then more than forty feature films, among them Tsar and General, The Goat Horn, The Double, King for a Day and Dangerous Charm. He had played violin since he was nine, took up saxophone and accordion, fell for jazz, and in 1972 landed a genuine hit with "Song about Coffee". His relationship with the old regime was complicated in both directions. The story everyone repeats: he was banished from Sofia to Sliven over a joke about the three Toshkos who made Bulgarians laugh: Party leader Todor Zhivkov, the clown Toshko Kozarev, and himself. Kolev denied ever saying it, including in his 1999 memoir, whose title translates as "The Varna Sofia-lad from Shumen". In 2007 the parliamentary dossier commission announced it held material indicating he had also been recruited by State Security, in 1987, under the alias Petrov. His home city honoured him regardless: honorary citizen in 2005, honorary doctor of the university here, and the Ikar award for his contribution to Bulgarian theatre in 2011.
Today's name days
The day belongs to Adrian and Natalia, a married couple in Nicomedia at the start of the fourth century. He was a senior imperial guard under Galerius Maximian, head of the praetorium at twenty-eight; she was a Christian in secret. Watching prisoners refuse to break under torture, he asked what reward they were expecting, got a line of scripture for an answer, and demanded his own name be added to the list of the condemned. He was executed in 306, and she died later, quietly, beside his tomb. The Orthodox calendar keeps the pair together on 26 August. For a famous Bulgarian bearer, Adriana Budevska has a theatre named after her in Burgas, which is not a bad way to be remembered.
Ten names are out celebrating: Адриан, Адриана, Ади, Адрианна, Адриян, Адрияна, Адриянна, Наталия, Натали and Наташа. Our Bulgarian name-days guide covers the rest of the calendar.
The etiquette is where Brits come unstuck. The celebrant does the hosting, not the guests, so the door stays open all day and nobody phones ahead: arriving unannounced is the custom, not an imposition. Turn up with something in your hands, and if it is flowers, count them, odd numbers for the living. Честит имен ден (chesh-TEET ee-MEN den) is the thing to say, and our Bulgarian phrasebook has the rest.
Why this matters for British expats
Name days outrank birthdays in plenty of Bulgarian families, and unlike a birthday they are public knowledge, so today a Natalia at your office or an Adriana behind a counter is expecting to be wished well by strangers. Kolev is the other half of the same literacy: his comedies are quoted here the way Only Fools and Horses is quoted at home, which is why a line of his will land in a conversation long before your grammar does. If you live in Shumen, you have the local claim on both, and thirteen years in I still find that the fastest way to make an old man in a cafe decide you are worth talking to.
Sources and further reading
Kolev's career, awards and the audition story come from his entry on Bulgarian Wikipedia, with the shorter English page adding the Sliven exile and his denial of it. The saints' lives are drawn from the Bulgarian Wikipedia article on Adrian and Natalia, and the day's full list of names from the Bulgarian name-day calendar.