site.btaScientists and Logistics Staff from Spain’s Antarctic Base Visit Bulgaria’s St. Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base

Scientists and logistics personnel from Spain’s Antarctic base Juan Carlos I Antarctic Base visited Bulgaria’s polar base St. Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base on Sunday.

On a rest day at the Spanish base, 12 scientists and logistics staff paid a visit to the Bulgarian polar team. The Spanish guests were impressed by the new laboratory and jokingly asked to rent it.

The head of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition, Prof. Christo Pimpirev, presented the Spanish expedition with a jubilee medal of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute and the book The Antarctic Hitchhiker.

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. These 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). BTA's Director General Kiril Valchev announced ahead of the fourth voyage to Antarctica on November 7, 2025 that the national news agency would send a special correspondent in January-February 2026.

He said the press clubs exist thanks to the generous support of RSV 421 and Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Base, which provide the necessary facilities. 

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”.