On the eve of World Radio Day, the Bulgarian National Radio is awarding its annual awards Siral Skitnik, named after its first director. This year the BNR’s multilingual programme – Radio Bulgaria – has nominations in three categories.

Radio Bulgaria in a bid for the Sirak Skitnik Grand Prix

The nomination is for Radio Bulgaria’s contribution to the assertion of Bulgarian culture and identity around the world, and the special occasion is the 85^th anniversary since the first world service broadcasts of the BNR (Radio Sofia) went on the air.

It all began on 16 February, 1936. One year after the Bulgarian radio was officially launched, what is now Radio Bulgaria went on the air. It was a Sunday when Radio Sofia’s morning programme was launched, to reach Europe, North America and North Africa. To begin with the programmes were only in Esperanto, but a year later, it was broadcasting in French, German, English and Italian. Now, 85 years later Radio Bulgaria is an essential element of the Bulgarian National Radio’s multimedia product.  Radio Bulgaria’s website with news and stories from and about the country is now in 10 languages. Radio Bulgaria also broadcasts on-air programmes specifically targeted at the Bulgarian citizens whose mother tongue is Turkish.

“For 85 years Radio Bulgaria has been talking to the world in its own language,” says Krasimir Martinov, Radio Bulgaria’s senior editor.

“With this nomination we honour the people who have shaped the face of Radio Bulgaria through the years. Dozens of intellectuals, diplomats, journalists, translators, editors, sound engineers, musicians, actors have all helped shape the development of the BNR’s foreign language broadcasts. The nomination is also a way to acknowledge the ambition of the current members of Radio Bulgaria’s team to draw on past experience to transform our message while offering a media product of the highest quality.”

Yoan Kolev is Radio Bulgaria’s nomination for the radio journalism award

He may not have years of professional experience but he is a talented and enthusiastic young professional capable of breathing a new kind of energy into a broadcaster that is 85 years old.

“Working at the BNR is a pleasure because it enables me to meet all kinds of intriguing people. But most of all it is a responsibility because our information has to be checked and then checked again, it has to be reliable and useful to our listeners and online users,” Yoan Kolev says. “I am extremely grateful to the entire Radio Bulgaria team from whom I have learnt so much, and I am still learning. I am happy to have been able to offer stories which, even though we have the Internet, have not received a sufficient amount of coverage.”

Radio Bulgaria’s Turkish-language programmes with nomination for “radio project” for 2020

The third Radio Bulgaria nomination is for its Turkish-language programme, whose team members excelled professionally, displaying a high sense of responsibility in their work in the grueling conditions of Covid-19.

“Our one-hour live broadcasts were what listeners looked forward to most last year,” says Sevda Dükkancı​, one of the Turkish service’s anchors. “During a difficult and challenging year, we mobilized our efforts so as to bring our listenership the most up-to-date information, advice from medical experts, to offer explanatory information.
The human stories were particularly emotional – every day we had encounters with our listeners on the air and they were able to share with us their worries, their pain and their joys.”

Compiled by Veneta Nikolova