site.btaLa Belle Rose Exhibition of Bulgarian Rose Production Traditions Opens in Kazanlak

The joint exhibition of the Kazanlak Iskra Museum of History and the National Museum of History (NMH) "La Belle Rose: The Mystical Power of the Little Flower", dedicated to the Bulgarian tradition of rose production, was officially opened at the Rose Museum here on Wednesday. Guests of the event were BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, a team from the NMH, deputy mayors, representatives of the local administration and the local Municipal Council, directors of cultural institutes, among others.

The exhibition was presented by Petranka Nedelcheva from NMH and the Director of the Iskra Museum, Momchil Marinov. 

During the opening Kiril Valchev presented the first copy of the latest issue of the BTA magazine LIK, which is entirely dedicated to the 120th Rose Festival in Kazanlak. He announced that the guests of the exhibition and the Rose Museum will include journalists from all over the world, who will be in Kazanlak on the occasion of the 18th World Meeting of Bulgarian Media. Valchev said that Bulgarian and foreign journalists working in media in different countries around the world will attend the event. "I hope this will restore an old tradition of Kazanlak to host international journalists' meetings during the Rose Festival," he said. 

The exhibition contains more than 150 exhibits from the Iskra Museum of History, while the rest are exhibits of the NMH, and the focus is on the development of rose production from the period of Bulgaria's national awakening [late 18th century] until WWII. The exhibition contains exhibits that reflect the activities of the first local merchant families such as the Papazov, Shipkov, Hristov and Orozov families. Attention is also paid to the rose-growers of Karlovo, who deserve to be mentioned when it comes to the trade and cultivation of roses. 

An interesting accent is the reconstruction of the wooden stand of one of the pioneers in rose production - Kancho Shipkov from Kazanlak, with which he presented his production at the exhibition in Chicago in 1893 - the exhibition about which famous Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov wrote. The stand was also shown in Paris, London and Kazanlak.