Today, the Bulgarian National Radio celebrates its 87th anniversary. Traditionally, on Radio Day - January 25, the winners of the "Sirak Skitnik" award are announced. The annual award of the Bulgarian National Radio was established in 2001 and is presented for contribution to the development of the Bulgarian National Radio as a public media. The award is named after the first director of the media Sirak Skitnik - a talented artist, critic, poet, and public figure.

The daily podcast "Bulgaria Today", which Radio Bulgaria presents on its website in 9 languages, has been nominated for the award for significant contribution to the development of the Bulgarian National Radio.

The Bulgaria Today podcast is a unique product in the digital space not only with the variety of languages used, but also with its content - a mix of news, hot topics and music from Bulgaria. The topics cover all spheres of life in this country - politics, economics, culture, sports, folklore, traditions, history, tourism, etc. A team of talented reporters and editors are working on its creation, selecting the most current and interesting topics related to Bulgaria, adapting them for foreign language audiences and presenting high-quality products that meet the highest professional standards of objectivity, completeness and reliability of information.

• Radio Bulgaria and the vicissitudes of time

The other two nominations for the "Sirak Skitnik" Grand Prize are for the program "Horizont" of the BNR, for its coverage of the elections in 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic. Galya Trayanova, who was Chief Producer and Acting Director of the BNR Music House Directorate and whose love and dedication to the Radio's music ensembles led to the successful realization of hundreds of concerts, recordings and awards, was also nominated posthumously for the award.

This year, in February, the multilingual program of the public radio will mark its 86^th anniversary. Creating a high-quality journalistic product in text, sound and picture with information about and from Bulgaria in ten languages /Bulgarian, English, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, Serbian, Albanian/, Radio Bulgaria is a unique media phenomenon. Proof of this are the nominations for the annual media awards. One of the ten people nominated for the individual award for radio journalism this year is Veneta Nikolova - author of some of the most widely read articles of Radio Bulgaria on tourism, innovation, unique archaeological discoveries and human destinies. Veneta has a special affinity for exploring little-known places and curious phenomena, which she describes in her audio and video reports on our pages.

There are 12 nominations for the collective award "Sirak Skitnik" for a radio show, multimedia or music project of the Bulgarian National Radio. One of them is for "Homeland Abroad", in which Radio Bulgaria has a significant contribution. The joint podcast of the Horizont Program and Radio Bulgaria has been designed as a public forum for meetings with representatives of Bulgarian communities abroad and foreigners who have chosen Bulgaria as their temporary or permanent home.

The winners of the "Sirak Skitnik" awards will be announced at a solemn ceremony tonight at the First Studio of the Bulgarian National Radio. You can learn more about the start of radio broadcasting in Bulgaria from the article "Fascinating stories told by the Museum of Radio History" from the collection of Radio Bulgaria.

• “Fascinating stories told by the Museum of Radio History"

Editor: Elena Karkalanova

English: Alexander Markov