Bulgarian orthography > Bulgaria

The Bulgarian orthography rules are composed of a mix of phonetic and etymological principles. Generally speaking, most words are spelled phonetically, that is to say the way that they are heard. However, some words are spelled etymologically, that is to say somewhat differently than they are pronounced and heard.
The first major reason why that is done is in order to preserve and clearly indicate the root which a specific word came from. The second major reason for non-phonetic spelling is that some words are still spelled the way that they were pronounced centuries ago. Even though the pronunciation changed in modern times, tradition has preserved the original spelling.