site.btaMuseums Across Bulgaria Open Their Doors for the 21st European Night of Museums

Cultural venues in 25 regions will stay open late on Saturday as Bulgaria marks the 21st European Night of Museums. More than 70 sites in Sofia alone are offering free entry, among them the National Archaeological Institute’s “Bulgarian Archaeology 2024” display, the National Museum of History’s airship exhibition and a new “Guerrilla Girls” installation in the Largo.

Major regional highlights include Blagoevgrad’s “Mission Bulgarian Design,” a torchlit procession and rare Vladimir Dimitrov canvases in Kyustendil, field-medicine demonstrations in Varna, and Plovdiv’s first public showing of the marble head of Philippopolis’s city goddess. Vratsa stages an authentic costume parade, Petrich offers a night tour of ancient Heraclea Sintica, while Razgrad pupils become “junior archaeologists” at Abritus.

Elsewhere, visitors can see the Panagyurishte gold treasure replica in Yambol, centuries-old medical artefacts in Veliki Preslav, and the long-lost “Golden Book of Haskovo.” Concerts, workshops and outdoor performances round out programmes from Ruse (on the Danube) to Samokov (Southwestern Bulgaria).

Coinciding with the European Night of Museums, museum and gallery employees staged symbolic protests nationwide on Saturday, pinning protest ribbons to their jackets and posting their demands at entrances. Staff call monthly pay of BGN 1,200–1,300 "a cynicism" and seek a stage salary hike to 125% of Bulgaria’s average wage, along with a sector-wide collective bargaining agreement. Organizers say the action will remain symbolic for now, with no full strike planned.