Why does Bulgaria write in Cyrillic — and will that stay?

The Cyrillic script is Bulgarian cultural heritage of the first order: the disciples of Cyril and Methodius — Kliment of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav — developed the alphabet in Bulgaria at the end of the 9th century and named it after their teacher. 24 May, the Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture and the Slavonic Alphabet, is one of the country's most emotional holidays. With EU accession in 2007, Bulgaria made Cyrillic the third official script of the EU alongside the Latin and Greek alphabets. Bulgarians are decidedly proud of their script — a switch to Latin letters is not up for debate and foreseeably never will be. In practice: road signs and documents are in Cyrillic, often shown in both scripts in tourist areas; once you have learnt the roughly 30 letters, you will read place names fluently within a few days.