Orel neighborhood is comparatively distanced form the central part of the city of Razgrad and the access to it is additionally impeded of the fact that the neighborhood is located on a steep hill .

Ten years ago Razgrad Municipality in partnership with citizens and tradesmen established a market in the center of Orel neighborhood . It provided area for many new shops and provided for citizens opportunity to satisfy great part of their needs related to purchases of products without passing the long distance towards the center of the city .

In the course of many years the conditions in the area worsened for many reasons, the most important of them was the decrease in number of inhabitants in the neighborhood by half . Most of the current inhabitants are unemployed and their purchasing capacity is very low compared to the previous years . All this reflected the tradesmen and owners of shops in Orel neighborhood and a lot of them were enforced to stop their activities .

The idea was to create an area to improve business aiming at supporting local tradesmen in the process of self - assessment , and in partnership with the municipality and other partners to consider what kind of activities they would initiate in order to improve business conditions and the social climate as well as living conditions .

Soon after the signing of the agreement concrete steps were undertaken . An up - to - date list of all companies functioning on the territory was elaborated and their owners were invited to a meeting . The project coordinators clarified the idea at this meeting and outlined the future steps and activities to be undertaken . Important focus was put on the partnership between all stakeholders being a critical prerequisite for the success of the project .

First steps aimed at analyzing the site and the basic needs of the neighborhood . Two surveys were carried out among tradesmen at the market in Orel neighborhood and among all their customers . Through inquiries important information was provided related with similar issues , introduced by two different points of view . Extremely important of this case was the opportunity to compare opinions of tradesmen and customers on a given problem .

The summarized results and conclusions indicated possible future steps , which lead to the following statements :

• Establishing an association of tradesmen from Orel neighborhood ;
• Developing strategic and action plan referring to the newly-established organization ;
• Partnership Declaration signed between Razgrad Municipality , Municipal Markets razgrad and the newly established association Orel Ragrzad ;
• Developing and submitting an infrastructure project to the Social Investment Fund .

The main results are as follows :

- Clear identification of problems related to economic development in Orel neighborhood ;

- Motivating local inhabitants towards changes in the present situation ;

- Established and functioning association of tradesmen by the cooperative market in the neighborhood ;

- Infrastructure project of 105,000 BGN submitted to the Social Investment Fund ;

- Confidence built in the newly established association , in the Center for Economic Development and Municipality of Razgrad.