At Least 97 000 Children Born to Bulgarian Families Abroad 2004-2013

As many as 96 653 children have been born into families of Bulgarian parents outside the country between 2004 and 2013, a recent "map" has shown.

On Monday Boyan Yurukov, a Bulgarian living in Germany since 2003, published online his "Map of Bulgarians Born Outside Bulgaria" according to which the abovementioned number represents that of expats' children who have been issued a Bulgarian birth certificate within that period of ten years.

Yurukov, who initially posted the map on his personal blog [BG], told the Bulgarian National Television on Wednesday that he felt the urge to create it after his daughter was born:

"I wanted to see how many children are like her - born abroad and than obtaining Bulgarian citizenship."

He had to make an inquiry into the Civil Registration and Administratives Services (GRAO) national database which contains a full registry of natural persons in Bulgaria, a costly step in which he was financially assisted by acquaintances.

The map shows there is a vast number of Bulgarians in Turkey, Germany, the US and Spain, but also in a number of African countries.

In 60 seconds, it offers a "timeline" of births, tracking places where they happened throughout the years.

Yurukov explains in his blog that he used a Twitter-based approach that the social network has adopted to help users find comments about important events like elections.

His map does not include figures for those families of Bulgarians abroad who decided their child does not need a Bulgarian certificate.

More than three million Bulgarians have left the country since pro-democratic changes in 1989 in search of better economic opportunities.