In late June, the US Embassy in Bulgaria announced the establishment of a bilateral Bulgarian-American Commission for the preservation of Bulgaria’s cultural heritage. Its main task will be to highlight the importance of cultural heritage for the development of tourism in this country and facilitate the exchange of expertise between specialists from both countries. "We hope that this committee will help awaken more Americans to the rich contemporary and ancient history of Bulgaria," said the Counselor for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Sofia, Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, in an interview for Radio Bulgaria.

Earlier this year the US embassy made its largest donation to date in Bulgaria outside the sphere of security to a project for the restoration and conservation of the 14th-century medieval church of St. John Aliturgetos in Nessebar, an ancient city that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983. The new commission will be part of the Bulgarian-American Fulbright Commission for Educational Exchange which successfully operates in Bulgaria for more than 20 years. The members of the new organization will be well-known specialists from the fields of history, architecture, ethnomusicology, directors of museums. The main task of the committee would be "to focus on the analysis of historical sites which are authentic and should be restored and preserved, and what is the best way to do this," explained Ms. Fitzsimmons.

Why does US embassy in Bulgaria undertake this new initiative? 

“We’ve worked closely for a long time with a number of Bulgarian heritage and conservation organizations, most notably the Bulgarian National Committee of ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites), and we’ve had great cooperation on individual projects. So when secretary Kerry decided to make a visit to Bulgaria in January this year, the team of the embassy got together and the ambassador suggested that we should look at a way to formalize and broaden our cooperation in this area, and he announced a number of areas in which the US and Bulgaria would be in strategic dialogue together. And education and cultural dialogue and people to people exchange was one of those. And this binational commission is an outgrowth of that visit.”

The new Commission already has long-term plans as the partner to one of its future initiatives will be the largest research and museum complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC, founded in 1846. Bulgaria is to be proposed as one of the featured countries at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2019, the same year in which Plovdiv has been designated European Capital of Culture.