Bulgaria Awards Citizenship to Macedonian Rescuer in Hellish Crash

Macedonian driver Vasko Risteski (right) received Saturday his Bulgarian ID documents from Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (left) in Varna. Photo by BGNES

Vasko Risteski, the 38 year-old Macedonian truck driver, who saved five Bulgarians injured in a hellish bus crash on Wednesday, has formally been granted Bulgarian citizenship as a gesture of gratitude.

The bus crash on the Trakiya Highway earlier Wednesday morning killed 8 Bulgarians. Risteski happened to be on the spot, and immediately started helping injured people to get out of the burning bus.

The Macedonian truck driver, a native of Bitolja, received his Bulgarian ID documents personally from Prime Minister Boyko Borisov in Varna on Saturday.

Upon receiving Bulgarian citizenship, Risteski, who had already submitted an application for Bulgarian citizenship as dozens of thousands of Macedonians, said he did not intend to move to Bulgaria. He explained that his main motivation to seek a Bulgarian passport was that it would allow him to travel in the EU, and that he also did so because he liked Bulgaria and the Bulgarians.

Speaking before Bulgarian media after the bus crash, the Macedonian revealed he had been traveling to the country frequently and had been waiting for Bulgarian citizenship for three years now.

Risteski was also awarded with a free summer vacation stay for him and his family in Burgas, courtesy of the city's Mayor Dimitar Nikolov.

In the recent years, a large number of people from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have been applying for Bulgarian citizenship. Macedonians are granted Bulgarian passports if they can provide evidence of their ethnic Bulgarian origin as until the first half of the 20^th century the Slavic population of Macedonia was deemed an integral part of the Bulgarian nation.

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