📅 ON THIS DAY IN BULGARIA, Friday 3 July
A cerebral one today, for the chess players among you. Dejan Bojkov, a Bulgarian grandmaster who has spent his career both winning games and teaching other people to win them, was born on the third of July, 1977.
What happened on this day
Bojkov earned the international master title in 2001 and the grandmaster title, the top rank in the game, in 2008. The year after that he was Bulgarian champion, and in 2011 he travelled rather further afield to win the 48th Canadian Open. He is also a chess writer: his 2010 book A Course in Chess Tactics, published by Gambit, is the kind of thing that sits on a serious club player's shelf.
The detail that gives him real standing, though, is who he has coached. Bojkov worked as trainer to Antoaneta Stefanova, the tenth women's world chess champion, which is about as strong a line as a Bulgarian coaching CV can carry. These days his pupils are scattered across the world. He has been a regular trainer to, of all teams, New Zealand's.
A town celebrating today
Away from the chessboard, the small city of Kuklen marks its city day today, tucked into the Rhodope foothills south of Plovdiv. If you find yourself near Plovdiv on the third, it is a name worth knowing.
Why this matters for British expats
Bulgaria punches a long way above its weight at chess, and Bojkov's career is a tidy illustration of why: a strong domestic scene, a steady production line of grandmasters, and a coaching culture that exports both players and trainers around the world. If the game caught your interest after a certain Netflix series, you are living in one of the better countries in Europe to take it up properly. The clubs are real, the standard is high, and the tactics manual you are working through might well have been written just down the road.
If you want the practical companion read, the Shumen.UK guides hub sits next to this one.
Sources and further reading
Bojkov's titles, his championships and his coaching record here are drawn from his Bulgarian Wikipedia entry, the fuller of the two, with the English Wikipedia article covering the headline achievements and his bibliography.