site.btaArt and Science Meet at Bulgaria’s Antarctic Base with New Icons and VR Project

New icons by icon painter Ganka Pavlova, modelled after the iconography of the Boyana Church near Sofia were hung on Sunday at Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Antarctic base.

The icons, which take up the walls of the old chapel depict the Virgin and the Child, St John of Rila, the patron saint of the Bulgarian Antarctic base, and St Nicholas, the patron saint of all travellers, Pavlova told the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) in an interview.

Photographs of the Boyana Church and a text, in Bulgarian and English, telling the history of the temple were hung in the chapel on Sunday, in addition to the new icons.

Director, screenwriter, and producer Yordan Mihaylovski, who is part of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic expedition told BTA about his project to create an immersive exhibition that can be viewed with virtual reality glasses and recreates the feeling of being in Antarctica. In an interview on Sunday, he said that the immersive exhibition can inspire curiosity in children and a desire to engage in science.

Most of the logistical and scientific operations planned for the day were canceled due to adverse weather conditions, and research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii remained anchored in the nearby bay in front of Spain’s Juan Carlos I Antarctic base.

The Bulgarian naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) departed for Antarctica from Varna (on the Black Sea) on November 7, 2025. After a month-long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the ship arrived at the Argentine naval base in Mar del Plata on December 13.

BTA has had a national press club on board the ship since 2022 and another on Livingston Island since February 2024. BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said they exist thanks to the generous support of RSV 421 and Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Base, which provide the necessary facilities. These two press clubs are added to the news agency’s other 41 national press clubs (33 in Bulgaria, seven abroad in neighbouring countries and in nations with large Bulgarian communities, and one mobile National Book Press Club).

The news items of BTA's special correspondents on RSV 421 and Antarctica are freely available in Bulgarian and English on the agency's website. They can be used free of charge by all media, with attribution to BTA. Valchev recalled that thanks to its correspondents, the news agency appears among the top results on Google when searching for the phrase “Antarctica correspondent”.