site.btaSeveral Research Projects Scheduled at Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base

Several research projects will be carried out at Bulgaria’s St Kliment Ohridski Antarctic Base on Livingston Island on Thursday.

Physicist Oleg Vasilev and geophysicist Kiril Velkovski are to complete a stage of a project mapping the coastline and seabed near the base.

Seismologist Gergana Georgieva will continue monitoring seismic activity on glaciers in the area, while microbiologist Snezhana Rusinova-Videva is set to collect samples near the base.

Greek oceanologists Dionysia Rigatou and Eleni Kytinou will conduct their second scientific dive with a logistics support team.

The naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) is also due to transport a group of members of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition, led by Prof. Christo Pimpirev, to King George Island. Later on Thursday, they are expected to fly to Punta Arenas, Chile, and then continue to Sofia.

RSV 421 will then take on board the expedition’s final group, including dermatologist Prof. Razvigor Darlenski, Dragomir Mateev, Deputy Director of the National Centre for Polar Studies at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski and head of logistics for the National Polar Research Programme, and icon painter Ganka Pavlova. The vessel will then sail back to Livingston Island, picking up another group from Deception Island en route.

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”.