Remains of Bulgaria’s Czar Samuel return ‘home’ after 1,000 years

More than 1,000 years after his death, the remains of medieval ruler Czar Samuel have arrived in Bulgaria. A symbol of Bulgarian national identity, Samuel was a warrior emperor who battled the Byzantine Empire to expand his kingdom before suffering defeat and dying soon after in 1014. His supposed remains were discovered in a Greek border area in the 1960s. The coffin and remains were flown on Saturday to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, on board a military aircraft that was surrounded by air force fighter jets. Thousands of people poured into a public square to honour the czar’s arrival, which capped years of fraught negotiations between Bulgaria and Greece until an accord was reached this week.