site.btaProf Pimpirev Launches "The Antarctic Hitchhiker" to Capacity Audience in Burgas

The explorer Prof Christo Pimpirev presented his book The Antarctic Hitchhiker, co-authored by journalist and photographer Iglika Trifonova, in Burgas on Friday. "Although the ship that took us to Livingston Island is in the Port of Varna, we have a strong connection with Burgas and the seafarers of this city, so I am happy to be here. I didn't expect to see so many fans of our Antarctic mission here," Pimpirev told a capacity audience at the city's Regional Library.

The event was organized by the Burgas branch of the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia.

The Antarctic Hitchhiker, published by Knigomania in 2022, is about the way Prof Pimpirev has turned his dream of reaching Antarctica into a state policy, all the while building a positive image of Bulgaria for decades. The explorer said that he had reservations at first as to whether he should be the focus of an entire book, but Iglika Trifonova, herself a participant in five expeditions to Antarctica, convinced him that it should be so.

"Until December 27, 2022, we were hitchhikers to Antarctica. We travelled to Livingston Island and built our base there as hitchhikers. The distance to it equals the circumference of the Equator. We used to travel aboard the ships of great countries that have conquered the seas and oceans such as Spain, Japan and South Korea. In the end, enough was enough. We had to become a real Antarctic country, to travel aboard a Bulgarian ship and prove that we were a seafaring nation," Pimpirev said.

Pimpirev, born in 1953, took part in the first Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition in 1987-88 and has been the leader of the annual expeditions since 1993. He is the founder and director of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute since 1993.

Commander Nikolay Danailov, the Commanding Officer of the Bulgarian naval research/survey vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) on its 127-day voyage to Antarctica, attended the event in his uniform. Pimpirev told the audience Danailov was "the first Bulgarian captain to have taken a vessel built in 1984 across the World Ocean to Livingston Island and back to Varna". In ten days, Commanding Officer Danailov is expected to take RSV 421 on the next, 32nd Bulgarian expedition to Antarctica.

RSV 421 is the first ever Bulgarian vessel to have sailed to Antarctica. Its first voyage started on December 27, 2022, and ended on May 2, 2023. BTA's Daily News editor Konstantin Karagyozov was the only journalist who travelled on board the ship to Livingston Island and back, covering the expedition on site in BTA's Bulgaria-Antarctica Log, which could be used by all media outlets for free.

The 31st Bulgarian Antarctic expedition supplied construction materials for the new laboratory unit of the St. Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian Antarctic Base, as well as 50 tonnes of cargo to Spain's Juan Carlos I and Gabriel de Castilla Bases on Deception Island. The first Bulgarian research studies in the Southern Ocean were also conducted on board RSV 421.