The prime minister of Bulgaria, Bulgaria's ambassador to the United States and four former U.S. ambassadors to Bulgaria will visit Pittsburgh tomorrow night to help the oldest Bulgarian-Macedonian fraternal and cultural organization in the United States celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Otets Paissii was founded in 1930 by Lambe Markoff, and the organization currently is led by Patricia "Panka" French.

Bulgarians flooded into Pittsburgh near the turn of the 20th century to work in the steel mills and mines and for the railroads, but often only for so long as it took to save enough money to open their own businesses, said French, who was born Panka Jordanoff.

"In the 1930s, there were 33 Bulgarian bakeries in Allegheny County," she said.

One of those was owned by her father, Zlate Jordanoff, who came to Pittsburgh in 1913 to work for the railroad. He went back to Bulgaria in 1929 to marry Patricia's mother, Danka, and to bring his bride back to the United States.

Otets Paisii, which began as a mutual assistance society for Bulgarian immigrants, played a vital role in those days since so few spoke English, French said.

"When I first went to school, the only English I knew was 'shut up,' " French recalled. "When the teacher would ask my name, I would answer, sweetly, 'shut up,' until she got mad and called my father."

The key event in a weekend of celebration will be dinner and dancing Saturday night at Soldiers & Sailor's Memorial Hall & Museum in Oakland. Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Bulgaria's prime minister, will be the guest of honor. Elena Poptodorova, Bulgaria's ambassador to the United States, will deliver the keynote address.

They will be joined at the head table by Sol Polansky, H. Kenneth Hill, Harvey Feldman and Avis Bohlen, all former U.S. ambassadors to Bulgaria, and local dignitaries.

On Sunday morning, a new facade resembling Bulgaria installed on the headquarters building of the Bulgarian-Macedonian National Education and Cultural Center, 449 W. Eighth Ave., West Homestead, will be dedicated. The center contains a library, museum and stage where the Bulgarian folk ensemble sometimes performs.

The easternmost of the Balkan countries, Bulgaria is about the size of Pennsylvania and has a population of 7.5 million. Macedonia, its neighbor to the west, was part of Bulgaria until 1878.

The Bulgars were a Turkic people in Central Asia who may have arrived in the land that is now Bulgaria in the forces of Attila the Hun. They intermarried with the local Slavs to produce modern day Bulgarians.

Bulgarians use the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet. More than 80 percent are Orthodox Christians, and most of the remainder are Muslims, though there is a sprinkling of Protestants and Roman Catholics.

There were only a few hundred Bulgarians in the United States when a massive migration began in 1905, spurred by their persecution by the Greeks in Macedonia and the Turks in Bulgaria.

More than 800 families belonged to Otets Paisii at its height in the 1930s. It established the cultural center to promote Bulgarian language and customs. The center had a school that taught Bulgarian language and history that met after American school got out, Bulgarian plays, music and a dance troupe.

Membership has declined to about 250 families, as the children of the original immigrants married outside the culture and moved away, French said. The center, which used to be open seven days a week, in recent years has been open only for special occasions.

But interest is reviving, she said. The dance troupe sponsored by the center, with its colorful costumes and lively music, is attracting children from outside the Bulgarian community. Two months ago, the long dormant school was reopened, though now it meets only on Saturday mornings.

The revival has been boosted by a new group of immigrants who have come to the Pittsburgh area to work in high tech industries, chiefly in computer services, French said.

Among them is Tony Dremsizov, 30, who came to America in 1998 to study business at the University of Pittsburgh. He's now a research specialist for the department of critical care medicine at UPMC.

Dremsizov and his wife, Rosie, have a 9-year-old girl and 4-year-old twin boys. They joined Odets Paisii to meet other Bulgarians in the area, and to make certain their children didn't lose touch with the homeland.

"It's good for their development to keep up with their roots," Dremsizov said.

Saturday's dinner at Soldiers & Sailors will begin at 7:30 p.m. after a reception at 6. There will be a silent auction and dancing until 11 p.m. Music will be provided by musicians associated with the center.

The Most Rev. Kiril Yonchov, archbishop of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Orthodox Church in America, will preside over the blessing of the new headquarters facade at 11 Sunday morning.