site.btaCzech Centre Winds Up Operations in Sofia

The Czech Centre is about to end its operations in Sofia. "With great sadness, we inform you that, by a decision of the Director General of the Czech Centres network, the Czech Centre in Sofia will be closed and will bring its cultural and educational activities in Bulgaria to an end," the institution said on Monday.

The planned events will be carried out until the end of May.

On May 5, the Czech Centre in Sofia, which is the oldest Czech institution of its kind abroad, and one of the longest-running foreign cultural organizations in Bulgaria, marks its 77th anniversary, the Centre also said.

On May 5, 1949, under an intergovernmental cultural agreement between Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria (1947) and on the basis of a protocol (1948), an art and craft shop, Ceskoslovenska tvorba Orbis, opened at 100 Rakovski Street in Sofia, and Bulharska tvorba in Prague. After the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic emerged as independent states in January 1993, the Czech Republic established Czech Centres as the successors to the former Czechoslovak Centres abroad.