The Bolhrad region of Ukraine is considered the heart of the Bessarabian Bulgarian community, home to the largest and most concentrated population of ethnic Bulgarians outside of Bulgaria. More than 200 years ago, Bulgarian emigrants fled the Ottoman invasion and found refuge in Bessarabia, where they established their own villages. Despite being cut off from their homeland, these communities managed to preserve their language and culture over the centuries. It is only in recent decades that ethnographers and historians in Bulgaria have begun to discover the rich ethnographic heritage preserved by these communities.

Maria Nikolova, the central figure in this story, was born in Vinogradovka, one of the villages in the Bolhrad region. However, fate eventually brought her back to her ancestral homeland. Today, Maria lives in the village of Zaychino Oreshe, in the municipality of Novi Pazar, Bulgaria. Speaking to Hristina Dimitrova of BNR Shumen, Maria said that the people in her home village speak a unique form of Bulgarian, peppered with archaic and dialect words, although they do not write it that way. She also shared stories about the origins of Vinogradovka:

With a degree in engineering from the Academy of Food Industry in Odessa, Ukraine, our guest worked her way up from lab technician to head of two workshops - a confectionery shop and a tinning shop - at a factory in Artyz. Then, at the age of 33, she took a dramatic turn and decided to move to Bulgaria, driven by love. She had one condition: her new husband had to accept not only her child from her first marriage, but also, as it turned out, "her whole big Italian family". He agreed and welcomed them with open arms, says Maria, laughing.