The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is hosting an official ceremony that commemorates Boyan Petrov, a leading Bulgarian alpine climber, speleologist and zoologist who disappeared last month under the eight-thousander Shishapangma in the Himalayas.

At the ceremony Prof. Nikolay Spassov, Director of the National Museum of Natural History where Boyan Petrov worked for 20 years, is giving a presentation about his achievements in research and his cause for the protection of Bulgarian nature.

Boyan Petrov is the only Bulgarian alpinist who climbed ten of the 14 highest peaks on the planet. He published 30 studies, 8 books and left large collections of invertebrates collected in the world’s highest places. In practice he is the only zoologist who has collected tens of animal species at a height above 5000 m (the upper boundary of life). They are yet to be studied.