Optimism for Bulgaria

Off the Beaten Path Chamber Music Festival in the Western Rhodope village of Kovachevitsa has had a positive impact on the local community.

Ambassador Zarra and her team are partners in the America for Bulgaria Foundation’s agritourism call for proposals.

Gergana Kabaivanova’s name is well known among small farmers and food producers around Bulgaria. For more than 15 years, she has worked to promote the consumption of sustainably grown local food and ensure better conditions for its producers. Recently, she launched #PendaraInTheVillage, a project to connect busy city dwellers with rural life and farming traditions.  

Snail derbies, a ride through bucolic scenery on the gourmet express, beehive-air therapy, a stroll through a nineteenth-century village that will make you feel like you just stepped out of a historic movie set: Northern Bulgaria has that and so much more to offer travelers looking for high-quality, authentic experiences.

The Old Mill, located in the village of Karpachevo, came back to life after a year-long restoration with the support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, Letnitsa Municipality, volunteers from the local community, and architecture students from across Bulgaria.

Natalia, or Nata, as everyone calls her, is an Odessa-born, Plovdiv-based entrepreneur with an economics and engineering background and a welcoming smile who has assumed the role of “an unofficial consul of her country in Plovdiv.”

Elina and other Bulgarian business leaders have been pulling twenty-hour days in an effort to help people fleeing the bombs in Ukraine — and using social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn to organize support and keep volunteers in Bulgaria apprised of relief activities.

The Media Literacy Coalition is a sort of Fellowship of Fact that fights the spread of falsehoods in the public space in Bulgaria. The coalition unites organizations and individuals working in media, education, IT, internet security, and civic education.

As early as 2013, Emiliyan and Teodor started commuting to Vratsa on weekends to give free programming classes to small groups. In 2015, with Iliyan on board, they took the plunge, and now as the team of Vratsa Software Community, they began building Vratsa’s nascent IT community in earnest.