Description (EN): The common challenge: Тhe Euroregion Ruse-Giurgiu is a point of intersection of a part of the so called Cultural Corridors in South East Europe. The cultural corridor Russe-Giurgiu is an area with rich, internationally famous cultural, religious and historical heritage, including site which is a part of the UNESCO list of world heritage. The heritage of Euroregion Ruse-Giurgiu has crossborder dimenssions with very big undeveloped potential. Its valorization can gives new power for the development of tourism in the area.
The cultural corridor Russe-Giurgiu is a common spiritual area, because 4 common saints have their blessing on it: Saint Paraschiva (Sveta Petka), Saint George, Saint Dimitar Basarbovski and Saint Panteleymon.
Saint Paraschiva /Sv.Petka/ is considered to be protector of Romania and the most honoured saint throughout the country. The shroud covering the imperishable relics of St.Paraschiva is preserved in Sv.Petka Church which can attract many Romanian tourists as her relics are in Iasi (450km away).
Saint George is a common protector of Russe and Giurgiu. The name of Giurgiu town derives from the name of saint George. St.George’ Day is Russe official city holiday. In Giurgiu there are a church and a monastery named St.George. Many citizens from Giurgiu visit Sv.Georgi Church in Russe to worship in front of the tiny part of St.George relics, located in there.
St. Panteleymon - the patron of the church in Vedea is a patron of over 219 churches in Bulgaria.
The existing tourist routes comprise just some the most famous sites along the hinterland Russe-Giurgiu such as: Rocky churches of Ivanovo, Basarbovo Monastery, Cherven mediaeval fortress and town, Comana Monastery, historical site near Calugareni etc. In that cultural corridor there are 3 other churches with unique architectural and artistic ensembles with huge potential for tourism development - Sv. Petka Church, Sv.Georgi Church and Sfantul Pantelimon Church but they desperately need restoration.
The project proposes restoration of these churches and establishment of integrated cross border tourist products which will upgrade and diversify the existing routes and will present the cultural and religious heritage in its complexity and variety.
Sv.Petka Church in Russe is a monument of culture, having historical continuation with the name of its patron saint and its architectural style. The architectural design of the temple is the first daring and successful attempt of copying the Round Church (known also as the Golden Church) in the old Bulgarian capital of Preslav.
Sv.Georgi Church in Russe was constructed in the period 1841–1842 on the ruins of a wooden church burnt by the Ottomans during the Russian-Ottoman war in 1806-1812. The icons from the old iconostasis painted in 1842 by Zahari Tsanyov and Yoanikiy Papavitanov from the Painting Art School of Tryavna are preserved in the church. In 1958 the wall iconostasis was replaced by a new one, made by professor Nikolay Kozhuharov and the artist Tsanko Vasilev.
Sfantul Pantelimon Church is a monument of culture, located in the village of Vedea near the town of Giurgiu. The history of the temple has begun since 1720, when a wooden building was constructed. At the same place in 1845 the temple Sfantul Pantelimon was built by Apostol Asachi. The church is well-known with the iconostases in there – it was icon-painted by the famous Romanian artist Gheorghe Tattarescu, student of Nicolae Grigorescu and a pioneer of the neoclassicism in art painting in Romania.
The current bad condition of these 3 cultural monuments does not allow presenting their attractiveness to visitors. Restoration will provide also opportunities to integrate them into new tourist products. Thus the project will meet the increasing common interest towards cultural and religious sites in the area Russe - Giurgiu.
According to the official statistics overnights of foreigners in Russe district have increased for 5 years (2010/2016) with 25,2% and in Giurgiu with 16,4% for 1 year (2015/2016). 75,6% of the tourists visited the cross-border region of Ruse - Giurgiu with the purpose of visiting sites of cultural and historical heritage. The reason - alternative tourism gets more popular.
Project overall objective: to promote the integrated development of the cross border area Russe-Giurgiu through development of cultural/religious tourism, based on sustainable use of the cultural, religious and historical heritage of the region. The project will allow all project partners to socialize, use and manage their cultural and historical heritage successfully, to integrate it into tourism products and to use current favorable conditions for the development of cultural tourism. This will lead sustainable development of the region.
The project will contribute to the following Programme outputs targeted:
- Number of integrated tourism products/services created: The project contribution will be relaized trough the elaboration of 3 numers joint integrated cross border products for cultural and religious tourism, based on the cultural and religious heritage in the cross border area Russe-Giurgiu and developed according to the identified needs of the target groups of tourists:
1.“The Christian cultural heritage along the spiritual space Russe-Giurgiu” .
2.“On the traces of the patron saints of Bulgarians and Romanians”.
3. “History and Civilization in the Cultural Corridor Russe-Giurgiu”.
- Number of common strategies, policies or management plans for valorizing (including raising awareness) the cultural and natural heritage through its restoration and promotion for sustainable economic uses: The project contribution will be realized trough the elaboration o af joint strategy for common preservation and use of the cultural and religious heritage as a base of sustainable development of cultural and religious tourism in the cross border area Russe-Giurgiu.
The project approach includes integrated joint activities for restoration, protection and sustainable use of cultural, religious and historical heritage in the cultural Corridor Russe-Giurgiu. The approach most important feature is valorisation of cross-border heritage dimensions. The region Rousse-Giurgiu is common spiritual and cultural area and this requires common solutions and close cross-border cooperation in order to achieve the project';s objectives.
The new moment in the approach of the project beyond existing practice is that the cultural and religious heritage of Russe and Giurgiu is considered as a whole and that the project will develop the crossborder dimensions of the common cultural and religious heritage in the crossborder area Russe-Giurgiu.
Total project net eligible budget: 1 499 991,09 EUR.
Read more Achievements (EN): The project implementation period ended on 11.01.2023.
Lead Beneficiary:
LB ("Sveta Petka Church") completed the works for the "Major overhaul and restoration of “Sveta Petka” Church and construction of a new building, a visitor center with a chapel” on 27.06.2022.
A thematic and specialized strategy was developed in the field of cultural and religious tourism. The final version of the joint strategy is available here Strategy-Christ-Heritage-ROBG-302-eng.pdf (christ-ro-bg.eu).
The digitized church literature and documentation are also available to visitors in the Tourist Exhibition Center with church artifacts, built according to the project in the courtyard of the church "Sveta Petka" in the city of Ruse.
Beneficiary 2:
B2 (TAU Vedea Commune) - completed the construction works for the "Saint Pantelimon" Church on 12.01.2023.
Beneficiary 3 :
B3 (“Sveti Georgi” Church) completed the construction works of the "Sveti Georgi" church on 14.10.2020.
More information is available on the project website: http://christ-ro-bg.eu/en, and on media links: //www.youtube.com/@robg-3028">https://www.youtube.com/@robg-3028>, and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064550807918.
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Expected Outputs (EN): The project implementation will contribute for the achievement of the values of the result indicator „Number of tourists overnights in the CBC region”.
Compared to total planned growth of 531 485 tourist overnights on the programme level, the contribution of our project is 35 000 or 6,6%.
This estimate is based on the results of a market survey conducted for the purpose of the project, based on an in-depth analysis of the market demand in the tourism sector in the cross-border region Rusee-Giurgiu.
The results of this serveys shows that 75,6% of the tourists visited the cross-border region of Ruse - Giurgiu with the purpose of visiting sites of cultural and historical heritage, 10,5% for visits to natural landmarks, 7,5% for event tourism (for example, for the March Music Days in Rousse, for theater productions, concerts, etc.) and 6.4% for shopping purposes.
In order to respod to that growing interest of tourists in visiting the region for cultural tourism purposes, under the project will be elaborated three separated thematic tourist products, developed according to the identified needs of the target groups of tourists.
They will contribute for the achievement of the values of the result indicator.
The contribution of the Integrated tourist product 1 – tourist product “The Christian cultural heritage along the spiritual space Russe-Giurgiu” will be 15 000 tourist overnights, of Integrated tourist product 2 – tourist product “On the traces of the patron saints of Bulgarians and Romanians”: 9 000, and of Integrated tourist product 3 – tourist product “History and Civilization in the Cultural Corridor Rousse - Giurgiu”: 11 000.
In order to increase the tourist flow, the project will have several target groups of tourists, looking for cultural and religion tourism: organized groups and individual tourists visiting Ruse and Giurgiu for cultural tourism, tourists from cruise ships on the Danube River, landing in the cross-border region of Ruse - Giurgiu, Romanian tourists traveling for weekend and shopping tourism to Rousse, Romanian tourists (mainly from the capital Bucharest with millions citizens, which is only 65 km away from Giurgiu) stopping in Ruse and Giurgiu on the way to Bulgarian sea and mountain resorts and Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgarian tourists visiting Romania etc.
To achieve the set values of the project result indicator, there are many prerequisites.
Recent years, the tourism industry has changed a lot – as demands and as services offered. The tourist are looking for something more than a beach or mountain vacation, looking for an experience, an adventure that makes the holiday unforgettable. Cultural tourism responds to these needs and thus developed rapidly in recent years.
That's why it's no coincidence that in 2016 Rousse Municipality won a prize in the category "Municipality of 2016 for cultural and historical tourism" in the competition "Annual awards for tourism", organized for the first time by the Ministry of Tourism of Bulgaria.
At the 37th edition of the International Tourism Fair TRT held in February 2017 in Bucharest, it is concluded that, by choosing Bulgaria as a tourist destination, Romanians are mainly interested in summer holidays, religious, sports and cultural-historical tourism.
Our main target group of tourists are organized groups and individual tourists visiting Ruse and Giurgiu for cultural tourism, The orgnized tourist gropus visiting cross-border region Rusee-Giurgiu grew have steadily increased in recent years, with a record 15 percent growth in 2016 compared to 2015.
The second target group are tourists from cruise ships. The statistics show that the number of cruises along the Danube River, which land in the cross-border region of Rousse - Giurgiu, is increasing. In 2016 there was a record number of tourists - over 330 cruise ships with over 45 000 tourists landing in the cross-border region of Ruse - Giurgiu. The moorings in the port in Vidin are twice as low and in the ports in Svishtov and Silistra the number is negligible. The majority of tourists are American and English, followed by French, Austrians, Australians and Canadians.
One of the main objectives of the tourists from these cruise ships is cultural tourism. To these tourists an integrated tourist product has to be presented so that they can see the main attractions of the area within a day or two. For these tourists separate visit only in Ruse or only in Giurgiu is not enough. They are looking for an opportunity in the limited time of the cruiseto visit as many countries, regions and landmarks as possible. If within a few days you can visit as many countries as possible, meet different cultures, different cuisine, the advantages of cruise trips become a lot. Only as a common destination the cross-border region of Rousse - Giurgiu can meet the wide needs of cruise tourism.
For tourists arriving with Danube ships, excursions are made from Giurgiu to Bucharest and Sinaia and from Rousse to Veliko Tarnovo, Arbanassi and others.
According to the Institute for Analyzes and Assessments in Tourism in Bulgaria, in 2017 the ratio of cultural and maritime tourism will be 50 to 50%, compared to 15 to 85%. in the previous years.
The tourism of Romanian citizens in Rousse is also intensively developing. The foundation for these type of tourist visits was set during the boom of shopping tourists of Romanian tourists in Rousse years ago. According to the Regional Tourist Center in Rousse, the exceptional interest of both organized groups and individual tourists is manifested in places of cultural and religious tourism, especially around national and holiday days and during the active summer season.
The cross-border region Rousse - Giurgiu is also a stop for longer routes to Bulgarian sea and mountain resorts or Veliko Tarnovo.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, over 1 million Romanians have come to rest in Bulgaria in 2016, with a growth of 11.2 per cent a year earlier.
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