Tag #128025 - Interview #77994 (ester josifova)

My family on both my mother's and my father's side originally comes from Spain. My father's ancestors hadn't settled in Bulgaria straight away - they first lived in Western Europe. I know that my paternal great- grandfather, Iacov Pinkas, was born in the Netherlands but went to live in Germany later, and my grandfather, Naftali Pinkas, was born there in the 1860s. He was the one who came to Bulgaria, settled in Kovachevtsi village [50 km west of Sofia] and built a dairy there. He made kosher cheese and sold it to the Jews from Dupnitsa, Kjustendil and other nearby places. I suppose that his ancestors had also been in the dairy business. The village of Kovachevtsi was a relatively small one. Only a few hundred people lived there; they were stock-breeders and supplied my grandfather's dairy with milk.