Background

For years, Varna collector Yaroslav Gochev has been publishing in the local newspapers parts of his collection of postcards, with short descriptions of events, memorable places and Varna s architecture. By doing this, he inspired the development of the Everything for Old Varna Project. The project was initiated in 1998, when hadzhi Lambrin Sotirov and the Bars Agency team published a 1999-2000 calendar. The calendar included photos of Varna in the past and of the same places in present day. Unusual were the format, the topic ( Varna sees off the 20th century in pictures ) and the cognitive ideas of the calendar.

The project is a joint effort of the Local History Department of the Pencho Slaveykov Library and a Bars Agency team, and is aimed at preserving the photo memories of the city.

Practice

The restored photos and post cards with views from Old Varna were presented at an exhibition on the last floor of the Pencho Slaveykov library. the exhibition was organized by Bars Agency and the Local History department of the library. The exhibition presented Varna in its full glory, as it was planned and developed after the Liberation. All images from the end of the 19th to the mid-20th century were archived and recorded on CD-ROM, using an unique technology developed by Bars Agency. The library s web-site at www.libvar.bg presented the project and appealed to Varna citizens to get involved in its implementation. Project participants and supporters fall into the following groups:
local government Municipality of Varna s Culture Directorate, the Committee on Culture and the mayor;
institutions Ms. Emilia Staneva-Milkova, library director; Mr. Alexander Minchev, director, Cultural and Historic Heritage Department; the National Archive; the Varna Museum of History; citizens Ms. Christiana Dimcheva of the Local History Department of the library; hadzhi Lambrin Sotirov, Everything for Old Varna publisher; the Bars Agency team; Ms. Elena Buchvarova; Ms. Krasimira Tomova; collectors Mr. Zdravko Tomov and Mr. Boris Kalinkov.

The Everything for Old Varna project will be completed in 2005. It is oriented to the future and has the following goals:
to support the formation of citizen awareness and active citizen participation in the identification of local government policies;
to assist the development of strong and effective partnerships for the promotion of cultural values preservation activities.

The project responded to collectors wishes to create a public collection. Ms. Emilia Staneva-Milkova and publisher Lambrin Sotirov convinced the Municipal Council standing committee on culture and the Municipality of Varna s Culture Directorate to provide adequate premises to host a permanent exhibition. Local government officials embraced the idea and allocated BGN 1,000 for the repair of the premises.

The project team has appealed to all institutions and collectors to provide access to significant collections and well as voluntary expert assistance. In order to collect as many exhibits as possible, different photos were bought, exchanged or scanned with owner s permission.

Results

More than 1,500 post cards and photos, two calendars with unique restored photos from the project s database, a permanent exhibition of restored photos, publications, meetings with youth audiences, book presentations.

More than 1,000 people have visited the exhibition. Visitors get a personal ticket in Bulgarian, English, German, French, Russian, etc.

Everything for Old Varna inspired the owners of different establishments to use retro elements in interior decoration and spurred the establishment of a photo column in the local newspaper, The Varna.

The permanent exhibition and the project s goals were presented many times by the Varna media, at meetings with official guests from Europe and the US, to historians and to the Union of Local History Experts in Bulgaria.

The public collection phenomenon unified the collections of the Varna Museum of History, the National Archive, the Pencho Slaveykov Library and private collectors. The collection is unique to Bulgaria and has inspired many new initiatives during the first stage of project implementation.