Culture in Eternity

The CULET project aims to preserve, promote and develop the culture of the partnering municipalities and successfully pass it to future generations. To achieve the above, with focus on promotion of territories, the two partners decided to take the cross-border approach and cover the following challenge: To valorize and promote the cultural heritage on their territories and thus raise the tourist attractiveness in the cross border area. By assessing their strengths, weakness and opportunities for development, the two partners designed this project with a main objective: To improve the sustainable use of cultural heritage and encourage cultural tourism between partners in the CBC region, for the achievement of which the partners structured the following activities: Restoration of the monument of culture – the burned down school, by turning it into a tourist attraction for exhibition of the valuable collection of paintings and icons in Municipality of Elena;Organization of open space for culture exchange in Municipality of Elena;Organizing of planners, workshops and a festival for popularization of the cultural heritage of the partners;Creation and popularization of integrated tourism products - tourist packages - with main accent on culture and festival tourism;Creation of the innovative and interactive mechanism for presentation and popularizing the cultural heritage of the municipalities – a web based platform for culture promotion “Culture Corner” (an integrated tourism service);Promotional activities. In the long run, the successful implementation of the above will achieve the following results: Preserved cultural heritage in the CBC region;Promoted cultural and raised tourist attractiveness in the CBC region;Increased tourist flow and number of overnights in the CBC region. The activities are also contributing to the implementation of the result and output indicators under Priority Axis 2 of the Programme, as follows: Regarding the output indicator: “Number of integrated tourism products/services created” the project has envisaged the following tourist products and services: - creation of the art gallery as a tourist attraction; - organization of planners, workshops and festival; - creation of innovative integrated tourism service - Culture Corner. - creation of tourist packages. Regarding the output indicator: “Number of common strategies, policies or management plans for valorising (including raising awareness) the cultural and natural heritage through its restoration and promotion for sustainable ecenomic uses” the project has envisaged the following tourist products and services: - Valorizing and promoting the cultural heritage and raising the tourist attractiveness in the cross border area. Regarding the result indicator: “Number of tourist overnights in the region”, the tourist overnights will be increased through the following measures: - The created tourist packages will be with duration more than one day and this will require spending at least one night in the territory of the partner; - The festival, workshops and planners, which will be with duration more than one day will require spending at least one night in the territory of the partner; - The created tourist attraction art gallery in Municipality of Elena itself will attract visitors in the municipality, which in combination with seeing other attraction in the territory will require spending at least one night in the territory of the municipality. The suggested approach for the implementation of the project is based on the following strategy: Developing the opportunities for growth which the municipalities possess in the sphere of cultural heritage;Cooperation by using the strengths, capacities and experiences of the partners in the sphere;Promotion of the tourist potential in the sphere of cultural tourism;Including interactive and innovative elements for provoking the tourist interest, attracting them to the territories, and thus increasing the tourist overnights in the CBC area. The suggested strategy goes beyond the existing practices for culture promotion and applies new solutions and innovative measures, which are targeting the newest generation and the modern requirements of the contemporary tourist, as follows: Creation of the Culture Corner. This is an innovative and interactive mechanism (an integrated tourism service) for presentation and popularizing the cultural heritage not only among the partnering municipalities, but also among all people in Bulgaria and Romania and all over the world. It is a web-based platform, containing information on different level for the tangible and intangible culture in the partnering areas. Festival and planners – they are considered innovative mechanisms as they combine different arts, teaching, entertainment and retaining the tourist for a longer period in the regions. They are also a means to promote a permanent consideration of cultural heritage as an opportunity for development of the cross border area for the local population. CULET project is a hard project. The suggested budget for its implementation is EUR 1 490 000.

The following results were achieved: - The construction works for rehabilitation of the old school in Elena to be turned into new Picture Gallery were finalized, building was officially opened for the public on 03.09.2021; - The Common strategy for valorizing and promoting the cultural heritage and boosting of cultural tourism was elaborated in Bulgarian language and translated in Romanian and English languages; - 4 joint tourist packages for the destination Elena, Bulgaria - Medgidia, Romania: “Art”, “Cultural historical heritage”, “Festivals” and “Religious tourism” were prepared and the summaries of the tourist packages were translated in Romanian and English language; - The 1st edition of the Painting Camp was held in Elena, between 20-23.08.2019; - The 2nd edition of the Painting Camp was held in Elena, between 07-10.07.2021; - The 1st edition of the Painting Camp was held in Medgidia, between 26.07-04.08.2019; - The 2nd edition of the Painting Camp was held in Medgidia, between 19-28.08.2021; - The 1st edition of the Culture Festival was held in Medgidia, between 02-05.05.2019; - The 2nd edition of the Culture festival was held in Medgidia, between 09-12.09.2021; - Beneficiary 2 signed the contract for organizing of art workshops on the following themes: painting on water; cutting and painting on wood; cutting and painting on ceramics; cutting and painting on cardboard. 10 workshops (out of 12 workshops) were already held in Medigidia. Also, the contract for elaboration of the promotional materials was signed and the promotional materials were developed and delivered; - Audio guide system for the gallery was developed. There were prepared 200 texts for the paintings, which the gallery have, which were also translated in Romanian and English. The texts were recorded and presented to the Lead Beneficiary. Each device have recordings for the exponents in 3 languages - Bulgarian, Romanian and English. The recordings are available on the website of the gallery, section Culture corner, 360 virtual tour. The visitor can click on each painting and to hear the recorded information. The audio guide devices were delivered with the delivery–acceptance protocol from 22.07.2021; - Web based platform “Culture corner”, web-site and logo for the picture gallery were developed - the web site of the picture gallery is available at https://artelena-robg.eu/. The web site contains information about the tourist packages, the project and the activities, which were implemented, the gallery - 360 virtual tour, information movie, etc. The visitors of the gallery can reach the web site with the delivered kiosk. The platform Culture corner is part of the web site artelena-robg.eu. The platform contains 360 tour of the gallery, information movie, and the 4 tourist packages with short movie for each package. The service has been implemented and accepted with delivery-acceptance protocol from 06.08.2021 and delivery-acceptance protocol for stage "training" for the future work with the web-site, web based platform and logo from 06.08.2021; - Conference for popularizing the tourist packages among the tourist agencies was hold. The event was organized on 03.08.2021 in Elena. More than 20 representatives from tourist companies from the CBC region took part in the event; - The final press conference was organized by B2 on 26.11.2021 in Medgidia. 21 persons attended the event.

The activities of the project are designed with a main focus to improve the sustainable use of cultural heritage and encourage cultural tourism between partners in the CBC region The project has taken specific measures which are directly targeting the increase of the tourist overnights in the region, namely: - The created tourist packages will be with duration more than one day and this will require spending at least one night in the territory of the partner; - The festival, workshops and planners, which will be with duration more than one day will require spending at least one night in the territory of the partneр; - The created tourist attraction art gallery in Municipality of Elena itself will attract visitors in the municipality, which in combination with seeing other attraction in the territory will require spending at least one night in the territory of the municipality.