Balgarianovinite.com Christo can give Bulgarians confidence that their success can make them world-famous, Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev said on Thursday. He was presenting the French-language edition of BTA’s LIK magazine issue Christo and Jeanne-Claude at 90 in Eternity at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute.
Last June, BTA’s literature, art and culture publication devoted a themed issue to the two artists to mark the 90th anniversary of their birth.
The Paris premiere was part of an evening dedicated to The Bulgarian Image of Christo, hosted by Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Paris (BCI) Director Desislava Bineva. Special guests included Culture Minister Evtim Miloshev and Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation Director Vladimir Yavachev. The event also revisited interviews with Christo Javacheff by journalists Evgenia Atanasova-Teneva, Daniel Nenchev and Georgi Lozanov.
Attendees included Bulgarian Ambassador Radka Balabanova-Ruleva, Laure Martin-Poulet, director of Christo’s L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped project, and Didi Yavasheva. The audience also included representatives of Bulgarian schools in France, artists, architects, lawyers and writers of Bulgarian origin, as well as French guests.
Valchev said the event celebrated Christo in the city most receptive to the art he created with Jeanne-Claude. He noted that it was taking place in the same week JR’s installation La Caverne du Pont Neuf (The Cave of Pont Neuf), inspired by the two artists, opened, in the month of their birth on June 13, 1935, and on the tenth anniversary of Christo’s last major project realized in his lifetime, The Floating Piers on Lake Iseo in Italy in 2016.
“This is a fitting moment to show French audiences and Bulgarians in France how Bulgarian media have presented Christo and continue to discuss his work,” he said.
“We are doing this through an issue of LIK, the magazine of BTA, Bulgaria’s national news agency, which was also published in French last year to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and 40 years since the wrapping of Pont Neuf in Paris. The issue was also published in German and has already been presented at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin to mark 30 years since the wrapping of the Reichstag, as well as in English to mark 20 years since The Gates in New York,” Valchev said.
He added that in Paris Bulgarian journalists paid tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude with excerpts from interviews with Christo by Evgenia Atanasova-Teneva, Daniel Nenchev and Georgi Lozanov.
“This event in Paris, with Culture Minister Evtim Miloshev’s participation, shows that Bulgaria has always been part of the common European cultural space of free people, and that Bulgarians and French people are linked by a shared cultural tradition,” Valchev added.
Valchev recalled moments from LIK magazine’s more than 60-year history, during which it was often described as “a window to the world”.
“Revived in 2022 after a decade-long hiatus, the magazine now has a thematic focus and draws on BTA’s archive. It presents highlights from reports carried in the agency’s bulletins and news services over the 128 years since the first bulletin in 1898, while offering a contemporary reading of archival topics related to a particular person, event or theme from cultural and public life, such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude,” Valchev said. He added that some LIK issues are now published in foreign languages, with editions in eight languages in all: Bulgarian, English, Spanish, German, Romanian, Turkish, French and Japanese.
“The fact that LIK magazine now ‘speaks’ foreign languages gives Bulgaria an opportunity to freely present the image of its culture, including through presentations of the magazine itself, such as this one in Paris,” Valchev said. He said media such as LIK carry out an even greater mission than the immediate presentation of culture today: they preserve its memory for tomorrow.
Valchev recalled a statement by Christo, who said of works such as Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris that it takes far greater courage to create things that will disappear than things that will remain. “But thanks to the media, memory for tomorrow is preserved not only of art such as that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which is temporary, but also of humanity’s intangible heritage,” Valchev said.
He said this memory shows that even under totalitarian rule, division and isolation, the Bulgarian people produced free individuals. That significance should be well understood in France, where people have more than once been divided by barricades, one of which Christo also represented on Rue Visconti in 1962, a year after the Berlin Wall was built.
“Christo was not only born in the Bulgarian city of Gabrovo 90 years ago, on June 13, 1935, but was also raised and educated in Bulgaria. This is not grounds for chest-thumping patriotism, but for a humble recognition that the talent capable of creating universal art can be born anywhere, including in Bulgaria. After attending schools in Gabrovo and Plovdiv, he enrolled in 1952 at the National Academy of Art, then the Nikolay Pavlovich Higher Institute of Fine Arts, in Sofia. He emigrated from there exactly 70 years ago, in 1956, first to Prague, then to Geneva and, from 1958, to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who was born on the same day as him and with whom he began making art,” Valchev said. He said it was paradoxical that the encounter between the free spirit in Christo’s family and the stifling restrictions of communist society gave the young Bulgarian an upbringing and education that enabled him to cross boundaries, not only in life but also in art.
“Events such as this one in Paris, where Bulgarians show how they preserve the memory of their distinguished compatriots, are important. Special thanks for hosting the event go to the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Paris, the Ministry of Culture and BCI Director Bineva personally, and to the Bulgarian Embassy in Paris and Ambassador Radka Balabanova-Ruleva personally,” Valchev said. He added that the square near Pont Neuf in Paris named after Christo makes it one of the “Bulgarian places around the world”.
BTA’s LIK magazine issue Christo and Jeanne-Claude at 90 in Eternity was published in three translated editions: English, German and French. The French edition was published with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Institute of Air Transport, Sts Constantine and Helena Holding, and INORCOAT.
Since January 2024, LIK magazine has been freely accessible. All issues published since its revival in 2022 can be downloaded in electronic format from BTA’s website. The French issue on Christo and Jeanne-Claude at 90 in Eternity is also available on BTA’s website. BTA Director General Valchev Says Christo Can Give Bulgarians Confidence to Succeed on the World Stage 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-06-18 22:19:56 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law