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Dispatch → Bulletin → News
Featured nation September 2019: Bulgenstaz
August has come and gone. Which means a new featured NOTM has come, and Metztlitlalio is gone. He explains his nomination as follows: "Although I haven't been able to interact with Bulgenstaz much in my short time on the forum and discord, I felt as though Bulgenstaz does deserve to have the spotlight for the month. After reading his Liberation News Network it is clear that over his time on Eurth he has greatly improved in writing from one or two paragraphs to over 6, as well as footnotes within pictures he uses (always a fun detail), incredible worldbuilding of a unique nation, not a copy-paste of a "Syria mid-civil war" or "Rome but modern", and realistic responses of his government. I'm honestly surprised Bulgenstaz hasn't been NOTM yet as his activity on the forum and discord is incredible, and although it has been a couple of weeks since his last post, before then he appears to be very consistent in his output on the forum."
The People's Republic of Bulgenstaz is a massive, efficient nation, ruled by Bavrov Krusken II with an even hand, and remarkable for its compulsory military service, avant-garde cinema, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 1.341 billion Bulgenstazi are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.
The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Khenkhourt. The average income tax rate is 69.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.
The thriving Bulgenstazi economy, worth 93.2 trillion Khourts a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Furniture Restoration, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is 69,533 Khourts, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.
Escargots have lost their charm ever since they started to be called 'cooked land snails', foreign policy is mostly just to smile and hope for the best, the parliament building has installed a revolving door, and the pursuit of wanted criminals ends at the entrance of the pay'n'spray garage as police refuse to enter any private property. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bulgenstaz's national animal is the Bulgenstazi Sparrow, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.