site.btaBelogradchik Municipality Has Ambitious Plans about Unique Magoura Cave UNESCO Future

Belogradchik Municipality Has Ambitious Plans about Unique Magoura Cave  UNESCO Future


Belogradchik, Northwestern Bulgaria, January 16 (BTA) -
Belogradchik Municipality has ambitious plans regarding the
unique Magoura Cave in the vicinity, Mayor Boris Nikolov said in
 an interview for BTA. These include work on infrastructure in
and around the cave as well as advertisement.

During a working meeting in Sofia this week, Culture Minister
Vezhdi Rashidov and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova
concurred that the Magoura Cave, with its unique and mysterious
drawings of rituals and hunting scenes dating back 7,000 years,
is totally eligible to be proclaimed a World Heritage Site.

The Magoura Cave was included in the preliminary list of
national heritage sites in 1984.

Magoura had 22,543 visitors in 2014, including 19,376 Bulgarians
 and 3,167 foreigners, a drop from the over 28,000 visitors to
the unique cave registered in 2013, Nikolov said.

In 2012 over 1 million Bulgarians said with their votes that
they want the Magoura cave on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The rock paintings it contains are unique for Bulgaria, with
similar ones found only in Italy, France and Spain.

In addition to the paintings and the beautiful natural cave
formations, Magoura is home to eight species of bats.