The project “Panorama of Romani Culture” presents fourteen emblematic persons of the ethnic group

The project “Panorama of Roma culture” presents in a book and video portraits of fourteen emblematic persons of the ethnic group. This was said today at the closing press conference for the project at the press club of BTA in Sliven, Stella Kostova, chairman of the “Roma Academy for Culture and Education” Association.

In the nearly ten-minute videos published on YouTube, as well as in the book, interviews were published with the actress Natalia Tsekova, the linguist academician Hristo Kichukov, the singer Bonnie, the clarinetist Mladen Mladenov, associate professor Stoyan Chaprazov, a teacher of English literature at a state university, the sculptor Vasko Vasilev , the violinist and benefactor maestro Georgi Kalaidzhiev, the “Karandila” orchestra, Associate Professor Yosif Nunev, teacher of pedagogy, the accordionist Martin Ljubenov, Dr. Lili Kovacheva, the author of books on Roma culture, the violinist Atanas Slavov – Mravcho, the clarinetist Orlin Pamukov and a tandem Deyan Kolev and Teodora Krumova from the Amalipe Center.

“This is an innovative project aimed at the true face of Roma culture and art. Such a thing has not been done before, and in this way their contribution to world culture is strengthened,” Kostova said. According to her, the goal is to attract a wide audience to Roma culture and art through the example of emblematic Roma artists and artists. She said that the interviews were the work of four young people who jokingly called themselves “traveling punks” – Ivan Georgiev, Hans Dimitrov, Krasimira Dineva and Radoslava Kuzmanova with cameraman and editor Garo Bohosyan. They have collected biographical data about these popular artists, how their interest in their profession arose, the difficulties that accompanied their life paths, their dreams, their goals and their messages to the Roma community.

The youth were trained by our project partners from the Norwegian College for Green Development (Høgskulen for grøn utvikling), said Antonia Zaharieva, project manager. The project lasted 14 months – from February 2023 to April 2024, financed under the program “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage and Cooperation”. It is worth BGN 146,674. The videos and the book with a circulation of 500 copies are distributed in Bulgaria and Norway.