site.btaLIK Magazine's April Issue on Bulgaria’s Participation in World Expos Presented in Osaka by President Radev, BTA Director General Valchev

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 BTA's LIK magazine, dedicated to Bulgaria's participation in the world Expos.

The magazine's issue, published in English and Japanese, was presented simultaneously in Osaka, Sofia and in 40 BTA national press clubs across Bulgaria and abroad. 

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. 

All of Bulgaria and Bulgarians around the world are participating through the BTA in Bulgaria's National Day at Expo 2025 in Osaka, said BTA Director General Kiril Valchev. "The design of the future society for our lives, which is the theme of EXPO 2025, goes through our mutual knowledge and this issue of LIK magazine for Bulgaria and the world exhibitions contributes to this knowledge through the editions in three languages, as the Japanese students studying Bulgarian received the issue in both Bulgarian and Japanese and can use it as a textbook," Valchev said.

LIK magazine serves as a platform for both Bulgarian culture and intercultural communication, editor-in-chief Georgi Lozanov said, speaking at BTA’s MaxiM Hall during the launch of the Magazine's April issue.

This issue reflects a trend in the editorial work of LIK, Lozanov said. Before 1989, the focus of intercultural communication was to introduce Bulgarian readers to foreign cultures, especially Western ones, which were not well known at the time. After the democratic changes, the direction changed, the editor-in-chief explained. "The magazine now looks at how Bulgarian culture is received and shared with audiences abroad," he said. "In this context, the topic of world expos and Bulgaria’s participation in them is important. World expos are significant venues for intercultural communication," Lozanov added.

Now not only architects and artists, but also specialists in digital and visual techniques create the images of the countries at the world EXPO exhibitions, said Prof. Bojidar Ionov, an artist, poster designer and former rector of the National Academy of Art.

"Starting in Chicago and going all the way to Osaka, all the exhibition spaces are obsessed with amazing ideas by artists - architects, artists and other specialists. In recent years, it has been impressive that all kinds of other specialists in spatial design, digital and lighting effects are now getting into the layouts of the spaces," Ionov said.

"I think what we seem to have yet to develop is a culture of debate about our achievements. Right now we are still at that stage where we need to be evaluated from abroad to realize what we have," said poet Yordan Eftimov. According to him, the issue of presenting the achievements of the Bulgarian society is a big one, with very specific dimensions over the years. Just one of those dimensions are those exhibitions like EXPO 2025.

“Everyone was looking for the yogurt,” said Desislava Petkova, Master's student in the programme Society and Culture of Japans. "For us it may be something trivial, but for them the taste of yoghurt is unique, it is also part of their daily diet because in Japan there is Bulgarian yoghurt. This is how something we use everyday can become a bridge between two cultures, creating a strong bond that lasts 50 years," she added. Petkova and Violeta Damari, Bachelor's student in the Department of Japanese Studies at Sofia University, spoke about the strong interest in the Bulgarian pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka. They have been working for the past month in the Bulgarian pavilion at the World Expo in the Japanese city. 

The Yogurt Fair and the Festival of Folk Traditions and Handicrafts are the largest events in the city, said Razgrad Mayor Dobrin Dobrev at the BTA National Press Club in Razgrad. Dobrev noted that the festival now boasts one of the largest craft exhibitions in the country, bringing together artisans from across Bulgaria at more than 100 booths, with growing public interest each year.

“There are many things we can present to the world, and they are not mutually exclusive. However, for me, Bulgarian culture is a key highlight among the diversity and richness that Bulgaria possesses,” sculptor Ivan Stoyanov told BTA during the presentation of LIK's April issue. Stoyanov is the author of the monumental artwork “Prayer for Peace,” which greets visitors at the Bulgarian pavilion of the World Expo 2025 in Osaka. The sculpture, standing 270 cm tall and weighing nearly five tons, depicts human hands pressed together in prayerful contemplation—a universal symbol understood across cultural boundaries.

The Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Varna and the Bulgarian research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) are among Bulgaria’s recognizable brands abroad, said the head of the Academy, Rear Admiral Prof. Kalin Kalinov, speaking at the BTA National Press Club onboard RSV 421, alongside Lieutenant Commander Hristo Hristov.

Rear Admiral Kalinov congratulated the Bulgarian News Agency for initiating an event that focuses on Bulgaria’s national brand. "For a long time, the image of Bulgaria was tied to culinary skills and agricultural products, but for us, the brand of our country is represented by the brave and intelligent men and women who study and work at the Naval Academy and who spread Bulgaria’s name across the world," the Admiral said. 

The symbol of Bulgaria to the world is the Kazanlak oil-bearing rose, said the 57th Rose Queen of Kazanlak, Maria Shamburova, and her runners-up Konstantina Kostadinova and Tanya Chipilska at the BTA National Press Club here Sunday. The three young women, selected from 33 contestants during a grand ceremony on May 15, were guests at the presentation of the April issue of LIK magazine dedicated to Bulgaria's participation in world expos. 

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.