It is not easy to cement your immunity and stay healthy the whole year. This is the mission of Kalin Vasilev, organizer of TarnovoRUNs, a movement that has gained in popularity of late. It seeks to create an active health promoting environment with the mission of helping play down Bulgaria's negative health statistics.

Who is Kalin and how the idea of the RUNs occurred? He has graduated the High School of Mathematics & Natural Sciences in Veliko Tarnovo and has a BA in biology and chemistry. Kalin continued his studies with a PhD in genetic engineering from the Carnegie Mellon University and with a specialization in Cambridge. At that point Kalin was to make his next step - take the road to a career of excellence, or venturea surprising move getting back to his roots. He did the latter, and was back to Bulgaria.

„Bulgaria has always been in my thoughts. I was following the situation in the country and was waiting for the right moment to take a break and come back. In 2014 I decided to return for 6-7 months. Back at that time I was keeping in touch with many youth organizations and because I'm an amateur runner I had many friends with the same passion. I then got inspired for some new ideas.”

For the past eight years Kalin has been keen on jogging, yoga and healthy lifestyles. His friends in California keep him informed of the latest trends in this regard. When he returned to his home country he found out that the philosophy and practices of healthy living had a potential to benefit the local community. Kalin comes from a family of medics and helping people is part of his upbringing. However he is also aware that the key to good health is prevention, not modern medicine making people dependent on pharma companies.

„In early 2014 I launched a group for physical exercise and health in Veliko Tarnovo. The first eight months were tough - almost no one was interested. I was doing the job on my own: printing flyers to promote the idea and touring the city of attract followers. In the meantime, I was wondering what to do with my life - stay here or go abroad. In the end, I decided I had to give more to the community. I started writing to the media, distributed posters in town, and little by little things got rolling. In a couple of months my followers were already hundreds. In the beginning anybody would say this was a nine days' wonder but we have survived for 2 long years.”

The whole project is a non-profit effort but it also costs plenty of time and hard work. All training sessions are held in the open and no special fitness facilities are required. Workouts are designed in a way that suggests using the body as training equipment. Kalin's ultimate goal is to help raise the health level of people. For this reason one of his priorities is to inspire participants for the larger idea. This is a way to add new events and activities to the campaign and to include various health seminars, yoga get-togethers etc. Does however TarnovoRUNsstand any chance of getting into something bigger?

„I have coined an aphorism - Veliko Tarnovo is the new capital of health. My dream is to organize a health information center in the city offering free services. There people will be consulted on how to improve their health. The mission of better health should be an absolute priority, and this requires much more than a few workouts in the park. I hope that our initiative will expand reaching every town and city with such centers that will interact in a national network. This is the way to tip the balance to the benefit of health.”

Currently Kalin Vasilev and his followers have been developing their project and are confident that based on the good example they provide other towns and cities are likely to follow suit soon.

English Daniela Konstantinova