site.btaGreek Oceanologists Conduct First Scientific Dive from Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base

Greek oceanologists Dionysia Rigatou and Eleni Kytinou on Wednesday conducted the first scientific dive from Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base on Livingston Island. Until now, scientists taking part in Bulgarian Antarctic expeditions had not dived in the waters off the island.

Rigatou and Kytinou are members of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. This season, they are studying the marine food web in Antarctic waters. Their research requires sampling at multiple sites and depths, including through scientific diving.

They carried out their first dive for sample collection and underwater documentation with support from a team of logisticians and the base doctor, Dr Atanas Peltekov.

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”.