... In fact, the russian exchange btc-e is one of the top exchanges in the world by volume...
Last I checked it was Bulgarian
No, it is not, don't believe everything you see on the internet. Russian ops, servers around the world, cyprus and bulgaria at one point but it definitely has nothing bulgarian in it.
The servers are hosted mostly in Bulgaria but it's definitely a Russian operation. (Maybe Ukrainian, although unlikely. But most definitely not a Bulgarian one.) The company is registered in Cyprus.
I hear that it ain't easy getting US dollars out of it, though.