Bulgarian village milks Chinese thirst for yogurt
Hopes for tourist surge after locals embrace ‘Mosili’an’ effect
MOMCHILOVTSI, Bulgaria — The Bulgarian villagers hunker over their books, struggling with their Mandarin words and characters. But they are not going to China — China is coming to them. Because of yogurt.
“It’s difficult. You have to be quite tough not to give up,” said Tsvetka Radkova, 66, as she puffs and pants in the classroom in the village of Momchilovtsi in southern Bulgaria.
But her daughter Veselina, 37, accompanied in the lessons by her 9-year-old daughter, trots out whole sentences in Chinese, to the cheers of her classmates.
Few Europeans, and not many Bulgarians for that matter, have heard of Momchilovtsi, perched high on the slopes of the Rhodope mountains in southeastern Europe near the border with Greece.
But in China, Momchilovtsi conjures up images of mystery, wonder and longevity, having given its name to a kind of drinking yogurt that is all the rage for Chinese consumers.
This summer Momchilovtsi played host to hundreds of Chinese visitors attending the village’s third Chinese-Bulgarian yogurt festival.
Signs in Chinese are everywhere, directing visitors to the village hall for lectures on yogurt’s prodigious health benefits or to tastings.
Children run around chirping “ni hao” and giving out festival brochures and village maps in Bulgarian, Chinese and English.
A beauty pageant on the festival’s second day picked the new “Yogurt Queen” to adorn the Momchilovtsi packaging.
“There’s two things every Chinese knows about Bulgaria — yogurt and roses,” said one visitor, Lei Lin from Shanghai.
The people of Momchilovtsi have been used to the sight of Chinese visitors ever since Chinese company Bright Dairy took home the bacteria found in the local yogurt in 2009.
Crucially, the strain enabled Bright to develop drinking yogurt for Chinese consumers that doesn’t need to be chilled.
But Bright didn’t forget its roots, branding its product “Momchilovtsi”, its label featuring a Bulgarian maiden in traditional dress and cultivating links with the village.
Known in Chinese by the shorter name “Mosili’an”, it’s the top seller in this booming sector, with sales of $910 million last year, a Bright spokesman said.
Locals now hope there will be an increase in tourist numbers.
The 1,200 inhabitants of Momchilovtsi already host about 1,000 Chinese tourists annually out of a total of 5,000-6,000 visitors, mayor Siyka Surkova said.
“The numbers are growing every year and this is only normal considering the huge advertising campaign for the yogurt in China that also benefits us,” she said.
In 2014, the Chinese version of reality TV show “Survivor” was set in Momchilovtsi, with seven contestants thrown in with a local family armed only with a Chinese-Bulgarian dictionary.
With just 18,500 Chinese visitors last year, Bulgaria is seriously lagging in the Europe-wide drive to attract Chinese tourists.
Direct flights between the two countries are a long way off, experts said.
Visitors to Momchilovtsi have to take an internal flight within Europe to Sofia or Plovdiv. And from there it’s a long and winding journey of several hours up to the village. But it’s well worth it.
There’s two things every Chinese knows about Bulgaria — yogurt and roses.”
Lei Lin,