On August 15 the world famous folk singer Yanka Rupkina celebrates her 85th birthday. She was born in 1938 in the village of Bogdanovo, Burgas region. Yanka Rupkina graduated from a college for nurses in Burgas, but fate had other plans for her. In 1960 she earned her first prize - at the folklore festival in Gramatikovo. She was noticed by folklorists who invited her to Sofia to participate in a contest to join the Bulgarian National Radio Folk Song Ensemble. Yanka Rupkina won the contest and from 1960, in the space of three decades, she was a soloist of the Bulgarian National Radio Folk Song Ensemble that was later known as the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices. 

• Yanka Rupkina: Strandja songs are my life, salvation, the symbol of Bulgaria

Over the years she made many recordings for the Bulgarian National Radio's archives, released gramophone records and made films for the Bulgarian National Television. At the end of the 1970s Yanka Rupkina, together with Eva Georgieva and Stoyanka Boneva teamed up for Trio Bulgarka. The leading singer was hugely successful with both the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices and Trio Bulgarka across the world. 

Yanka Rupkina collaborated with many world celebrities such as Kate Bush, Chris de Burgh, George Harrison, Linda Ronstadt, Transglobal Underground, etc. She received a number of awards during her long career.

• Trio Bulgarka - first chamber folk formation to conquer the world

Her song "Kalimanku, Denku", arranged by Krassimir Kyurkchiyski, impressed the Swiss producer Marcel Cellier, who ranked it among his favourite titles in the "Mystery of Bulgarian Voices" album series.