A rebuttal of sorts.

I made a video to celebrate the end of my two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bulgaria. When I posted it on YouTube I was surprised by all the negative comments I received from Bulgarians about the depiction of their country. I would like to have a turn to speak. First of all, I never set out to make a documentary film about the Bulgarian nation and all that it encompasses. Like the title and description of the video reads, I took video footage of the Bulgaria that I saw and knew best. And the Bulgaria I know best is the Muslim minority. For people to say that this is not Bulgaria, however, is to deny the fact that there is a vibrant minority population that holds Bulgarian citizenship and, yes, is therefore Bulgarian too. To be Bulgarian is not a singular thing. Bulgaria is not just Sofia. It is rural too. It Orthodox Christian, Muslim, and Roma.

Critics say that this video is not Bulgaria. What is not Bulgarian about it? People are eating banitza and dancing the horo. Kids are playing in the snow and celebrating the New Year. Men are slaughtering a sheep to celebrate a holiday. People are kuchecking at a wedding, playing football, and drinking rakia. There are huge blocks and houses with red roofs, mountains, sunflowers, roses, and the black sea. This is Bulgaria. And just because some women, in some shots, are wearing traditional muslim attire, does not make it any less Bulgarian. The critics are right that Bulgaria is more than footage from one village. My video is shot in Altimir, Gorno Dryanovo, Blagoevgrad, Sofia, Pavlikeni, Gotse Delchev, Kazanluk, Razlog, Ribnovo, Shiroka Luka, Bansko, Garmen, Rila, Sozopol, Ognianovo, Varna, Buzludzha, and Burgas. But they choose not to see the rest of Bulgaria because they are too focused on discriminating against the Bulgaria they don't approve of. My message to them: learn to embrace diversity.