site.btaPresident Radev, BTA Director General Present LIK's April Issue in Osaka

President Rumen Radev and the Director General of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Kiril Valchev presented in Osaka, Japan, on Sunday the April issue of LIK magazine, dedicated to Bulgaria's participation in the world Expos.

The head of State told the guests at the presentation of the LIK magazine that he was honoured to participate in this wonderful initiative of the national agency, which encourages Bulgaria's young friends in Japan to study Bulgarian language, to be interested in Bulgaria.

“I invite all of you, it will be a great pleasure for me to welcome you to Bulgaria,” Radev said to the Japanese students studying Bulgarian. “You give us great, incredible hope that Bulgaria and Japan will continue their extremely valuable friendship over the years and fruitful cooperation,” the President added.

Students studying in Bulgarian in Japanese universities and one of their teachers greeted the President and the BTA in Bulgarian and told them that in the biggest Japanese universities there are lectures on Bulgarian, Old Bulgarian and Balkan studies. Many of the young people said they were visiting the country for summer seminars and student exchanges. At the presentation they held the LIK magazine in their hands, the latest issue of which has been translated into Japanese.

The students said they love Bulgaria and the Bulgarian language very much, some of them will visit the country in the summer and plan to explore Sofia and Plovdiv. "I love ayran. Cheers!" said a third-year student from Osaka University in Bulgarian. The young people expressed their joy at the opportunity to attend the presentation of LIK magazine at the Osaka Expo, at the special Bulgarian stand representing the country.

The April issue of LIK magazine, titled Bulgaria at the World Expos and published in English and Japanese, was presented simultaneously in Osaka, Sofia and in 40 BTA national press clubs across Bulgaria and abroad.

The magazine, timed to Expo 2025’s 13 April opening and Bulgaria’s new type-A pavilion, blends on-site reporting by Ivan Lazarov with essays on how Bulgarian culture travels. It traces this journey from Aleko Konstantinov’s 19th-century world-fair diaries through the 1970 Osaka Expo—where yoghurt, the Children’s Radio Choir and a pyramid-shaped pavilion won Japan’s heart—to today’s drive, described by SME Agency head Boyko Takov, to make Bulgaria “a factor” in tourism, investment and science. The pavilion’s designers promise an “experience that leaves a mark,” while pieces on Bulgarian yoghurt, the Valley of Roses’ ties with Fukuyama and Munakata, and a chronology of global expos, all drawn from BTA’s expanding digital archives, show how national identity is forged in dialogue with the world.Since January 2024 LIK has been freely accessible. All issues since its revival in 2022 can be downloaded from the BTA website. The April issue Bulgaria and the World Expos is available in Bulgarian, English and Japanese.