"We start with the alphabet because most of Europe does not write in Cyrillic. Our children are actually learning a completely different alphabet. They are very proud of this fact and we encourage them. Bulgarian belongs to the Slavic language group, and if the children live in the UK, Germany, Spain or Italy, they belong to different language groups, speaking languages with different grammar and pronunciation, which makes learning Bulgarian more difficult. No matter how hard the children try, you can still tell that they grew up somewhere else, not in Bulgaria," explains Deyana Zheleva.

According to her, holding this competition is important for several reasons - it is an opportunity for the students to have an experience, it is an effort to preserve a tradition, and last but not least, when parents and children from different cities and countries get together, there is a spontaneous exchange between them, without any prior preparation or set scenario. 

"Each school working under our Ministry of Education programmes is allowed to enrol two first and two second graders, and the competition is held in three rounds. In the first round, the children read familiar texts that we send them in advance after they have applied to enter the competition. In the second round, they read an unfamiliar literary text, and in the third round, which is not open to all, they recite a poem. Believe me, this is not easy for first and second graders". 

The competition will take place on 8 June at 11:30 local time at the Hermann-Höfer-Vereinshaus in Koblenz. The event's partners are the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad (EABA), Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), the public news agency Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA), the AzBuki publishing house of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, two private publishing houses and Tatkovina online radio. The prize fund is provided by the Prosveta publishing house, the EABA and the Bulgarian Consulate in Frankfurt am Main.