site.btaBulgarians Have Built Wonderful Things in Braila, Mayor Says

Bulgarians have built wonderful things in Braila, the cosmopolitan city in the east of Romania which has been home to various ethnic communities over the centuries, Mayor Viorel Dragomir said on Wednesday. He played host to a celebration of the 155th anniversary of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS, originally Bulgarian Literary Society), which was established in Braila in 1869.

At the local Church of the Ascension, Archbishop Casian of the Lower Danube and Archpriest Kiril Sinev, who represents the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in Romania, officiated at a prayer service conducted in Romanian and Bulgarian. Flowers were laid at the plaque in the church yard commemorating the BAS' establishment.

In addition to Mayor Dragomir, the celebration was attended by Bulgarian Ambassador to Romania Radko Vlaykov, Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev and representatives of the Hristo Botev Association of Bulgarians in Braila, the municipal government and the Romanian Academy, which signed a new cooperation agreement with the BAS in Bucharest on Tuesday.

Dragomir noted that, historically, the foreigners who settled in Braila were usually people who wanted to engage in trade, but there were also exiles seeking shelter. "We may be speaking about them in the past tense, recalling that Braila provided a home for them, but I would suggest that we speak about today and tomorrow as we commemorate them, and throw bridges to connect us with them," the host said.

Earlier in the day, Mayor Dragomir, BAS President Julian Revalski, Ambassador Vlaykov and BTA chief Valchev discussed Braila's cooperation with the Bulgarian cities of Pleven and Shumen and possible joint projects with Bulgarian government institutions.