Balgarianovinite.com Bulgaria is waiting for the news that Bolhrad will once again live in peace, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said in a speech marking the 205th anniversary of the Ukrainian city, home to one of the largest Bulgarian communities in Bessarabia.
Thanks to BTA’s national press club in Odesa, opened in the spring of 2023 and staffed by permanent correspondent Svetlana Dragneva, as well as the agency’s BG World desk, created five years ago to cover Bulgarians abroad, the number of BTA reports about Bolhrad has increased significantly: from two to 12 reports before 2020, to 673 in 2025. Over the past five years, BTA has published 1,631 reports mentioning Bolhrad, said Valchev.
“But we in Bulgaria are waiting for the news of peace,” Valchev said.
Since the beginning of the war, this was his 14th visit to the hundreds of thousands of Bessarabian Bulgarians in Ukraine, he said, adding that air raid sirens had accompanied him every time.
“At the end of the prayer service this morning in the Church of the Holy Transfiguration of the Lord, built by Bulgarian settlers, there was once again an air raid alert,” he said, making a contrast with the sirens paying tribute to Bulgarian revolutionaries every year on June 2.
For 205 years, the Bulgarians of Bolhrad have known better than most the value of living in peace, Valchev said. The first Bulgarian settlers arrived there from the Bulgarian lands under Ottoman rule during the Russo-Turkish wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
“We are commemorating today those Bulgarians who founded Bolhrad, the capital of the Bulgarians in Bessarabia, who even today make up 60% of the population of the ten municipalities centred on the city. It was the Bulgarians who turned Bolhrad into a city of abundance – another explanation of the name ‘Bolhrad’, besides ‘Bulgarian city’,” he said.
Reports of casualties from Bolhrad and the frequent air raid alerts in the city during Russia’s war against Ukraine have given Bulgarians in Bulgaria an opportunity to better appreciate their peaceful home and to empathise with the Bessarabian Bulgarians, whose home is under attack, Valchev said.
He noted that Bulgaria remembers Bolhrad’s contribution to Bulgarian freedom. On the occasion of the city’s present-day celebration, participants paid tribute to memorials dedicated to Bessarabian Bulgarians who fought at Shipka during the Russo-Turkish War and took part in the April Uprising exactly 150 years ago. The first issue of the Bulgarian Voice newspaper, printed at the Bolhrad Gymnasium on April 17, 1876, carried the words: “May God bless the uprising in our unfortunate Bulgaria!”
“Besides the monuments to General Inzov, the founder of Bolhrad, and to those who died for the liberation of Bolhrad during World War II, we also paid tribute at the monument to Georgi Rakovski, who was born in the year Bolhrad was founded, standing in front of the Bolhrad Gymnasium that bears his name,” Valchev said.
Bulgaria also remembers the contribution of the Bolhrad Gymnasium, whose alumni include Alexandar Malinov, the prime minister who declared Bulgaria’s Independence in 1908; another Bulgarian prime minister, Dimitar Grekov; the first rector of Sofia University, Academician Alexandar Teodorov-Balan; revolutionary Angel Kanchev; Generals Danail Nikolaev and Ivan Kolev; and many others.
“We also see the contribution of the Bessarabian Bulgarians to contemporary Bulgaria, where they come to work,” Valchev said.
Bulgaria, for its part, helps young Bessarabian Bulgarians pursue their education. It became known on Tuesday that 27 of the 36 graduates of the Bolhrad Gymnasium in the previous school year had gone on to study at universities in Bulgaria, said Valchev.
He recalled that BTA opened its 45th national press club at the Bolhrad Gymnasium on April 14, 2026. The initiative was carried out in partnership with Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bulgarian Consulate General in Odesa, which financed the establishment of the press centre through the Bulgarian government’s programme for supporting Bulgarian community organizations.
Valchev recalled that in 2024, BTA held one of the discussions of the 19th World Meeting of Bulgarian Media at the Bolhrad Gymnasium. The silhouette of the school building was also used as the logo of the event. During air raid alerts, participants from Bulgarian media outlets around the world spent several minutes in the school’s underground bomb shelter.
BTA also presented in Bolhrad an issue of LIK magazine dedicated to Bulgarians in Ukraine, published in Bulgarian and English in February 2023, one year after the start of the war.
Last year, to mark the Day of the Bessarabian Bulgarians at the end of October, BTA, with the support of the Bulgarian Consulate General in Bolhrad, organized one of the concerts by singer Iliya Lukov featuring local Bulgarian dance ensembles.
“Meetings, concerts, publications – all of them help us communicate as Bulgarians, regardless of the distance,” Valchev said.
He noted that the Bulgarian word for “communicate” was coined by Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, who was born in the Bolhrad village of Kubey. Teodorov-Balan wrote that “the mother tongue, our native speech, is that mysterious instrument which makes us … members of one people with a common spirit and common aspirations.”
“That is why you should preserve your Bulgarian language, speak Bulgarian to your children and teach them the language with Bulgaria’s help. That way, you will also be able to read the news from Bulgaria more easily, including in BTA, which preserves archives dating back 128 years,” Valchev said.
He recalled that one such piece of news in 1908 concerned the manifesto on the proclamation of Bulgaria’s Independence, written by Prime Minister Alexandar Malinov, who was born in the Bolhrad village of Pandakli.
“The manifesto ends with words that sound especially fitting on Bolhrad Day: ‘Long live the Bulgarian people!'” Valchev said in conclusion.
BTA Director General: Bulgaria Awaits the Day Bolhrad Will Live in Peace Again 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-08-25 17:14:00
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БЪЛГАРИЯ НОВИНИТЕ – ИНФОРМАЦИОННА АГЕНЦИЯ 2009-2026 2026-08-25 17:14:00