Eleven handmade rafts with individual messages from children from the town of Kozloduy travelled down the Danube River together with the hope of their authors that they would reach their random recipients along the river and provoke them into feedback. The initiative was the culmination of the programme of State Enterprise Radioactive Waste on the occasion of this year’s celebration of the International Danube Day. The fisherman, with whose help the rafts made out of pine cones sailed with the strongest stream of the Danube waters, Valentin Stoykov, heightened the children’s hopes by assuring them that the fleet had a real chance of reaching the point where the river flows into the Black Sea.
While the young artists were making their rafts from natural materials, employees from the Specialized Divisions of the Enterprise in the Danube city traditionally got involved in the cleaning and beautification of green spaces in Botev’s Park, paying special attention to the rock gardens around the memorial plaque of Captain Dagobert Englander, at the protected area south of the museum corner “The New Station of Bulgaria” and on the eco-path to the conifer initials Hr. B. (Hristo Botev).
Days before the Danube’s Day was celebrated, the team which created the video “Danube – this is life”, ranked first in the Video category among participants from 14 other countries in the international Danube Art Master competition 2021, organized by the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE) and the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), was also awarded. Last year, as part of the Danube Day celebration initiative, the team consisting of: Elaine Manasieva, Svetoslava Stoykova, Lyudmila Ivanova, Viktoria Nikolaeva and their mentor Teodor Pironkov created the concept and shoot the frames for creating a one-minute video, which subsequently impressed the international jury.
More than 30 children and more than 40 adults participated in this year’s eighth consecutive celebration of the International Danube Day, which took place on 1st July, as the trend of increasing the number of volunteers with each passing year, gets confirmed for another year in a row.
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‘The Danube Day’ is annually celebrated on 29th June – the date on which the international Danube River Protection Convention was signed by eleven countries and the European Community. The mission of the initiative is to draw attention to the protection of the river and its tributaries. The Day of one of the largest riverine ecosystems in Europe, of people and wildlife located in its region, was first celebrated in 2004.
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