The Ministry of Tourism has reported that so far 2016 has been very successful for Bulgarian tourism. Despite the optimistic figures about the growth in the number of tourists and services provided to them, there are still problems that should not be neglected. One of them is the insufficient and inaccurate information about Bulgaria in foreign languages, but also in Bulgarian. Many guides, maps and advertising brochures that tourists can buy are often outdated. Brothers Dimitar Ignatov and Ivailo Ignatov have found a solution of this problem. They have created an interactive 3Dmap of historical sites in the country. More about the project Iwalk and the difficulties surrounding it, from Dimitar Ignatov:

“We are from the town of Belogradchik and we originally wanted to do something about the town to attract more tourists. Then the idea expanded to the whole of Bulgaria. Our main difficulties have to do with the purely technological development of the Bulgaria map, as it is for the first time worldwide that someone has tried to map out a whole country with its tourist and heritage sights, monuments and traditions. It is a challenge to recreate a tourist site in 3D: it takes a long time and requires the commitment of top class specialists.”

The objective of Dimitar and Ivailo to present the nature and historical sites in Bulgaria in a captivating way, though for the time being in Bulgarian only. To every site or monument available on the website, an audio file has been attached that recounts a legend about it. With the help of consultants the two brothers from Belogradchik have recovered many legends about various corners of Bulgaria. The Cruciform Barracks in the city of Vidin on the Danube are such a site. Here is the legend about the origin of the structure:

“A Turkish landlord invited French engineers to build his new residence in Vidin. He arranged alavish dinner for them. But he also drank a lot and when already high took away the shroud of a Christian priest who was among the guests, and started dancing a drunken dance with the shroud. On the next day the Turkish landlord fell terribly ill. Many local healers tried to cure him in vain. Then a girl came to him and offered to cure him. On the next day he summoned the French engineers again, tore their draft in four identical parts and arranged the parts into a cross. This was his symbolic apology to God for having jeered Christian faith. According to legend, this was the origin of the Cruciform Barracks in Vidin.”

Besides legends and amusing stories, the site will also discuss the Bulgarian cuisine, traditions and great personalities that we know little about. An example of such a person is Viden Tabakov from Stakevtsy village in the region of Vidin who developed a technology for the launch of shuttles into outer space. In 1969 he was the only Bulgarian admitted to the ground crew that sent the first man to the Moon, Neil Armstrong. In 2015 Tabakov died aged 95 in the United States.

Work on such a project is challenging, but its success is guaranteed. Bulgaria is full of exceptional places and people, the source of justified national pride. We should be ready to assist in every way anybody who writes history for posterity, like the two brothers Dimitar and Ivailo from Belogradchik.

English Daniela Konstantinova