A birthing pool, a minister on the water, and 20.6% of the roads

The maternity unit at the MBAL hospital in Shumen has opened an individual delivery room built around a certified birthing pool. Both the pool and the room's furnishings were donated rather than bought.

The intention, to begin with, is that the pool serves the first stage of labour, the hours when contractions start, while the delivery itself happens on the ward's conventional beds. Dr Ivaylo Balabanov, who heads the obstetrics and gynaecology department, said the pool is certified for water births and that the unit expects to move towards them once it has built up experience. His stated ambition is for mothers in Shumen to feel they are in a central European state hospital.

Dr Svetoslava Zhivkova set out both the case and the limits. Warm water relaxes the muscles, eases the dilation phase and makes the transition gentler for the newborn, but the option is ruled out where infection is suspected, where the baby is expected to be very large, or where there is a disproportion.

Two practical points for British expats planning a birth here. The room is optional and used by request, and it will be charged for as an extra. The price has not been set. Our health guide covers how the state system and paid extras sit alongside each other.

The Stiliyan Chilingirov Regional Library has run its summer children's workshop for the twentieth year. This year's local-history strand took the children round the buildings they normally walk past without looking.

The historian Beta Haralanova led it, and said she wanted to show the children what Shumen can be proud of and which things happened here first. She took them to the monuments, the theatre, and the Court House, which she described as a modern building despite going back to the beginning of the century. The second half was practical: making objects tied to the city's history, and trying out how people wrote and kept in touch before any of it was electronic. The children came away having used a quill and a typewriter and having made a postcard.

For an expat family this is easy to miss, because it is advertised only in Bulgarian, and it is a gentle route into the history your neighbours grew up on.

Ivan Shishkov, the regional development and public works minister, will be in Shumen on Tuesday 18 August to discuss water supply, the VIK infrastructure and the condition of the region's republican roads.

The meeting starts at 9:00 at the regional administration building and brings together the regional governors, mayors from both the Shumen and Targovishte regions, VIK representatives and the Regional Road Administration, along with MPs from Progressive Bulgaria. A briefing for the media is scheduled for around 10:30.

The visit is the opening move in a ministry initiative called The Regions Speak, intended to get local authorities and institutions into a room with the ministry. Shishkov will be accompanied by Venelin Shakov, executive director of Bulgarian VIK Holding, and Ventsislav Angelov of the Road Infrastructure Agency's management board.

The figures Shishkov will be shown were published days before his visit. Road Infrastructure Agency data for the end of 2025, released under freedom-of-information rules, rates 20.6% of the republican network in Shumen municipality as being in good condition, which the agency defines as surface damage below 10%.

Shumen is not the worst of it. Kaspichan leads the region on 27.3%, with Novi Pazar and Smyadovo in the low twenties. Kaolinovo manages 3.1%, and in Venets not a single kilometre is recorded as good. No municipality in the region clears 30%, against a national figure of about 37%.

Two caveats. The assessment covers the road surface only, not crash barriers, signs or lighting, and municipal roads are excluded. And the report gives 32.196 km as both Shumen's total measured network and its good-condition length, which cannot both be true, so the percentages are what to rely on.