Kamelia

Kameliya Vladimirova Veskova (Камелия Владимирова Вескова; born 10 January 1971), better known mononymously as Kamelia, is a Bulgarian singer, actress and TV presenter.

Kamelia was born on 10 January 1971 in the town of Chiprovtsi.

Her musical debut was at the age of 11, as a soloist in the school choir with which she performed a Russian song.

She appeared in public for the first time, becoming the winner of the Miss Chiprovtsi and Miss Montana beauty pageants organized around that time.

At the same time, Kamelia took her first steps as a singer.

She started singing at weddings and baptisms in Northwestern Bulgaria as a soloist in a band led by Plamen Velinov.

In the spring of 1996, Kamelia was noticed by the conductor of the Vidin Orchestra, Veni Petkov, and became part of the orchestra.

Kamelia was seriously involved in singing from the start of 1997.

In August of that year, she signed a contract with the music company Payner in Dimitrovgrad.

Her popularity was growing significantly, and performances in clubs and discothèques were becoming an integral part of her daily life.

In 1998, preparation for her debut album was completed and, in September, the album Огън момиче was released on the music market.

She made videos for the songs "Огън момиче", "Грях ли е това", "Няма да те моля", "Разбери ме, мили", "Само тази нощ" and "Защо повярвах".

The hit "Защо повярвах" from the album was a great success.

The song was declared #1 by Payner and New Folk magazine in 1999.

The album Огън момиче reached a circulation of 90,000 copies.

These professional successes motivated Kamelia to make an even better album.

On 7 December 1999, the album Златна рибка appeared on the music market.

The first song was "Няма шега", better known as "Ya habibi".

The song occupied the top places in all charts.

The album sold in record numbers.

At the beginning of 2000, videos promoted some of the biggest hits of her career, "Луда по тебе" and "Ти си" (the first black-and-white video in pop-folk).

On her birthday, the singer was promoting her latest album, Златна рибка, which took place in the Prikazkite complex near Harmanli.

In April 2000, Payner and the Bulgarian Association of Music Producers (BAMP) certified Златна рибка gold for sales.

Its total circulation reached 200,000 copies.

30,000 of them are on CD and this makes it the best-selling for the year in the country, and at the end of the year, it even reached platinum circulation.

Kamelia recorded the song "Къде си ти", which appeared on the music market in the summer of 2001 and became a hit.

It was also the first music video to be broadcast on Planeta TV.

At the end of the year, the singer also participated in the 3-year-old Mustang festival in Varna.

She won three awards for "Къде си ти".

The singer also presented herself in the competition for a singer with the first recorded song for her upcoming album: the ballad "Няма те".

On 21 April 2002, Kamelia's third album, Нещо горещо, was massively promoted by Payner.

The album has a record speed of sales: in the first week alone more than 10,000 copies sold.

The success of the album's first hit was overshadowed by another song; "Залеза и зората" came out as a second song from Нещо горещо.

The hit became a folk emblem for 2002, remaining for a long time atop all music charts.

Kamelia said, "I'm really proud of 'Залеза и зората' because this song turned out to be the biggest hit of the year."

The album's third hit was the duet ballad "Искаш да се върна", in which Kamelia sings in Greek with Greek singer Sakis Coucos.

"Искаш да се върна" stayed in first place in the viewers' chart of Planeta TV for six weeks.

While filming the video for the song in Thessaloniki, a Greek TV journalist called Kamelia the "Bulgarian Anna Vissi".

On 17 November, Kamelia sang in the Oval Hall, London.

She turned out to be the most popular singer in a survey conducted among Bulgarian emigrants in the British capital.