Who are the Bulgarians and what is our genetic heritage? Scientists have long been trying to find answers to these questions. According to recent studies by anthropologists, clues about the ancestors of the modern Bulgarians could be found in the valleys of the Pamir Mountains in Asia. It has turned out that people living in what are today Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan share a number of linguistic, anthropologic and genetic features with Bulgarians.

A scientific expedition in search or the origin of Bulgarians is close to finding a proof of the Indo-European origin of proto-Bulgarians. Scientists have visited a number of countries in Asia where thorough studies on culture and genetics were conducted. The results were much different than the widely accepted notion that modern Bulgarians are of predominantly Slavic origin. After the democratic changes in the beginning of the 90s scientists started looking for more facts related to the true origin of Bulgarians. “A people could change the name of its country, its culture, and religion but cannot change its genes,” one of the participants in the scientific expedition of 2008 Associate professor Alexander Iliev says. He is a film director and has created a number of documentaries on the discoveries of the Bulgarian scientists. According to him it is too early to make firm conclusions about the origin of Bulgarians. We have a lot of work to do and just one generation of scientists won’t be enough, he says.

Studies of the culture, language, music and customs in Pamir continue and scientists are often amazed by the number of similarities between Bulgarians and some ethnic groups in the region.

“What recent studies show is that most probably we are of Pamirian origin. We have similarities with the Ishkashim ethnic group, the Kalash, and others. We are talking here about true anthropologic similarities. There are many similarities in customs and traditions too, but of course there are differences, as Bulgarians left Central Asia some 2,000 years ago.”

So, it turns out Bulgarians are not of Turkic but of Indo-European origin. Such claims are much different than the theories of the proto-Bulgarians being nomadic tribes that merged with the Slavic population. We know that Bulgarians were not assimilated by the Slavs, as Slavs used to live in primitive settlements before the coming of Bulgarians. After that great construction started.

“Proto-Bulgarians brought here civilization and started building cities and developing agriculture, Associate professor Iliev says. According to scientists it was the Bulgarians who dominated and they brought important knowledge with themselves. Actually Bulgarians used to live settled lives and were not nomads. They had to leave their lands due to a great migration of peoples during that rime,” the scientist says.

English version: Alexander Markov