site.btaUPDATED BTA Opens Press Club in Smolyan

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Thursday opened a National Press Club in Smolyan. The ribbon was cut by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, Smolyan Regional Governor Stefan Sabrutev and Smolyan Mayor Nikolay Melemov. BTA has a new "home" in Smolyan after five decades of covering life in Smolyan and the Rhodope mountains by its correspondents.

The BTA National Press Club is a venue for press conferences, discussions, exhibitions, for communication between media and representatives of business, politics, culture, sports.

The opening ceremony was attended by representatives of local and state authorities, heads of institutions, journalists, personalities from BTA news.

BTA has had correspondents in Smolyan for nearly half a century. The town of Smolyan and Smolyan District are also present in the photo archive of BTA with the pictures of two photo journalists who have worked for the news agency for the last 20 years.

The current BTA correspondent is Hristina Georgieva.

The BTA National Press Club uses municipal offices provided free of charge to BTA by the Smolyan Town Hall for a 10-year period. The media centre has state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, allowing live streaming of news conferences and events.

In his remarks at the opening event, the BTA Director General spoke about the “signs” about the new press club, including its location in a former journalists’ club, on Freedom Square. He said that the press clubs of the national news agency are a sign of the presence of the Bulgarian State.

Valchev said that BTA will seek to recruit one more photo journalist for its Smolyan press club so that it can also cover the municipalities of Banite, Borino, Devin, Dospat, Zlatograd, Madan, Nedelino, Rudozem, Chepelare – as well as one of the country’s largest skiing resorts, Pamporovo. The journalists working at the Smolyan press club will get an electric car.

The BTA Director General pointed out that the press club opens just ahead of the start of the Rozhen Folklore Festival, which held its first edition 125 years ago. BTA is also 125-year-old and has always covered the Rozhen Festival, he pointed out. “This festival has brought together Bulgarian people from the time when this was not Bulgarian land, and the singing contests started later. It is a proof that Bulgarian people can stick together and want to hear everybody’s voice loud - rather than try to silence the others,” said Valchev.

He said that it is the BTA mission to report the plurality of voices in the Bulgarian society without giving some a preferential treatment at the expense of others. “BTA will continue to do that in this new press club, on the backdrop of the flags of Bulgaria and the EU, setting a good example of flying the national and the EU flags, as all Bulgarian homes should do – sending a message that it is good to fly the Bulgarian flag anywhere in peaceful Bulgaria where we don’t raise our flag against anybody.”

Regional Governor Sabrutev mentioned in his remarks at the opening ceremony the 125-year history of BTA. He said that the news agency has established itself as an independent news provider and expressed hope that the new BTA press club will make sure information about local events reach a wider audience.

Smolyan Mayor Melemov was pleased with having his town joining BTA's family, which operates both in Bulgaria and abroad. Melemov pointed out that with its 125-year history BTA has accumulated a lot of capacity, power and authority, which can help with the task of reporting on the region objectively.

BTA currently has 23 press clubs in regional capitals and three in municipal centres - Kazanlak, Samokov and Svishtov. BTA has six national press clubs outside the country: Ankara (Turkiye), Bosilegrad (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Odessa (Ukraine), Skopje (Republic of North Macedonia) and Taraclia (Moldova). The opening of press offices outside the country is part of the BTA plan to open media centres in all neighbouring countries as well as in countries with large Bulgarian communities. A BTA press club was also opened on board the first Bulgarian naval research ship Sv. Sv. Kiril I Metodii during its voyage to Antarctica and back from December 27, 2022 to May 2, 2023.