site.btaFourth Group of 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition Departs from Sofia

The fourth and second-to-last group of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition departed from Sofia Vasil Levski Airport on Saturday.

The group includes the head of the expedition, Prof. Christo Pimpirev, Prof. Stoyan Georgiev of the Geological Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), Chief Assistant Prof. Snezhina Rusinova-Videva of the BAS Institute of Microbiology, Kiril Kandilarov, writer Vasil Popov, Bulgarian News Agency special correspondent Simona-Alex Mihaleva, and journalist Jivko Konstantinov.

In Rome, the group will split into two. One part, including Prof. Pimpirev, Kandilarov and Popov, will fly to Buenos Aires, where they will be joined by Flotilla Admiral Boyan Mednikarov and Capt. Prof. Miroslav Tsvetkov from the Naval Academy of Varna. The other part of the group will travel to Punta Arenas in Chile.

In Punta Arenas, the group will be joined by Chief Assistant Prof. Gergana Georgieva of the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University, Prof. Emil Stanev from Germany, as well as Greek scientists Dionysia Rigatou of the University of Athens and Eleni Kytinou of the Institute of Oceanography at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research. Journalists Maria Cherneva and Anna Andreeva from Bulgarian National Television are also expected to join the group.

The two groups are expected to reunite on King George Island in Antarctica, from where they will continue aboard the Bulgarian research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) to Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Base on Livingston Island.

Following the opening of the Bulgarian Antarctic base on Livingston Island in mid-November, the main fieldwork of the 34th expedition began. In the area of South Bay on Livingston Island, an international team of scientists, assisted by the expedition’s logistics team, is collecting samples for several research projects.

RSV 421 departed for Antarctica from Varna on November 7. The ship arrived at the Argentine naval base in the city of Mar del Plata on December 13, 2025, after a month-long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

"During the current expedition, we will also set foot on the Antarctic Peninsula," Pimpirev said in Varna during the send-off of the vessel.