Cultural Realms - Rossitza Ohridska-Olson's blog about the business of cultural tourism

The Day of Cyrillic Alphabet, Slavonic Culture and Enlightenment

One of the oldest cultural holidays in Europe

The “Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius” is celebrated as an ecclesiastic observance since the 11th century A.D., accordingly to old church chronicles. This holiday commemorates the work of the brothers who created a writing system for the Slavonic languages, known now as Cyrillic alphabet. For many of the people living in Western countries, including the USA, this alphabet is known as “Russian” writing. In actuality, there is nothing Russian in its history, except that from the 11th century (2 centuries after its creation), the Cyrillic alphabet was adopted as the official ecclesiastic writing system in Kiev Russia. (See my article on the Cyrillic alphabet history and its importance now by clicking here).

To my knowledge, there is not a culture related Saint in any other Christian to be celebrated by both Eastern Orthodox believers, Catholic devotees, and atheists alike for more than 10 centuries and across so many countries. Literacy and culture were so important in Eastern Europe during all these years, that portraits of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Cyrillic alphabet were painted over and over again in churches and cathedrals. Their icons received the same devotion as the ones of St. Mary and St. George, and their life stories were told and retold in numerous books.

Even before Bulgaria was free from Turkish domination, Saints Cyril and Methodius celebrations were the major cultural event of the year. In 1851, on May 11, a Bulgarian teacher and revolutionary fighter against the Turkish domination of the Balkans, organized the first secular celebration of these Saints. Since then, all people in Russia, Slovakia, Macedonia, Serbia, Czech Republic, etc. venerate Saints Cyril and Methodius who gave them access to written culture, vast sources of knowledge and cultural independence from Muslim and other religious or social invasions. 

Now, because of changes in the ecclesiastic calendar, the “Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius” is marked on May 11 by Christian devotees, and on May 24, secularly.

In many countries May 24 is also an official national holiday. Festivities are accompanied by parades, local and national cultural events, culture award ceremonies and many other expressions of respect to the achievements of society in the field of arts, education and enlightenment. In many countries this day is also celebrated as a day of education. That is why on May 24, teachers, students and alumnae gather together for all kind of events.

Why do I care about this? First, because I come from a country where, even in communist times, these were the only Saints to be celebrated officially, publicly and nationally. Second, because, as an expat, I miss celebrating a day of culture or education. A day on which the entire nation gathers together, not in stadiums or around barbecues, but in theaters, operas, libraries and schools to celebrate literacy, arts, and education. Not a day to sit collectively around a televised sporting event. Not a day jumping, screaming and  mindlessly applauding a celebrity with dubious reputation, trying to overcome a deafening sound system in a 100,000-seats arena.

I dream of a day when everyone from every culture in the United States would show off their cultural achievements, their heritage and their modern glory in arts, architecture, education and culture. A day, which will be an official, publicly recognized, national holiday of culture. A day, when nobody works and everybody goes to the streets to display their love for all cultural accomplishments of this great country.

Until then, I will continue to celebrate May 24, the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Photography: first image: icon of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Pirin Mountain village church, Bulgaria. Photography: Rossitza Ohridska-Olson. Second image: Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius, sponsored by Bulgarian millionaires, brother Bobokovi, prepared to be sent to Odessa as a present to the Ukrainian city to remember the creators of the alphabet used in that country. Photography by Nedko Ivanov.

Cultural Tourism Promotion – the right way

The year 2009 is the Year of Bulgaria in Russia. The purpose behind this initiative is to promote Bulgarian business, and above all – the Bulgarian tourism in Russia. After the fall of the communism in Bulgaria and the government-contracted Soviet groups of blue collar workers crawling the Bulgarian beaches, the organized visits to the “sister” cities and all kind of other propaganda-in-mind designed tours, the Russian tourists forgot about Bulgaria. Now they are more interested in visiting the prohibited for them before 1990 resorts and cities in Turkey, France, Switzerland and Egypt. This lost for Bulgaria is calculated in millions of dollars, which are very hard to compensate with the budget travelers from UK, Germany and Sweden, counting their dimes to the next welfare check.

It is clear that the wealthy Russians cannot be attracted back to the already ruined Bulgarian beach resorts, to the concrete of Golden Sands, the crowded discos in Sunny Beach and the run-down hotels from communist times Albena. They will continue to relax on the French Riviera, to ski in the Swiss Alps, or to go shopping in the US malls.

Bulgaria hopes although, that both wealthy and curious intellectuals, might return to the country to see the remains of 7 civilizations, which left precious artifacts and impressive buildings across the country. At least, this is the idea of promoting the cultural tourism with the events and exhibitions during the Year of Bulgaria in Russia.

One of these events is the opening today exhibition in the State Museum of the East “Rescued treasures of Ancient Thrace from the Vassil Bojkov collection”. In the most expensive city in the world, few things can impress the local petroleum oligarchs and the visitors from around the world to the ancient capital of Russia. A feast for the eye, the exhibition is featuring treasures of gold, silver, marble and bronze, which visualize mystic rites and secret Orphic rituals. I believe this is the right way to promote cultural tourism among the affluent and well-educated Russians.

For those who don’t read Russian, I have prepared a brief article in English about the exhibition in the context of the history of Thracian Civilization.

Note: All pictures are from the website of the State Museum of the East, Moscow and from the Bojkov Collection catalog. Copyright belongs to “Thrace Foundation” and photographs are published with the kind permission of Mr. Bojkov.

Plovdiv Museum Night – a wonderful experience and a lesson on domestic cultural tourism

All my pessimism about the end of Bulgarian domestic cultural tourism, about the indifference of the young people to classical culture and arts totally evaporated in the night of 26th of September. In Plovdiv, more than 35 galleries and museums opened their doors till 3 AM. Free events – music concerts, dances, art presentations attracted thousands of people. To the point there were more people on the streets during the night than the next morning. The Old Town of Plovdiv became an endless art crawl and most of the visitors were young – less than 30 years old. They were making pictures in museums, where normally this is prohibited, laying on the floor of the Ethnographic museum, arguing about art in pubs and restaurants. Some of them came from other cities and stayed for the night at friends’ houses or inexpensive hotels. Some of them didn’t even sleep and took the back bus to their cities the next morning.

I kept asking myself why was such a big attendance to the event. And the answer is very clear – smart event date choice (on the weekend before the Plovdiv International Fair opening) and great advertising – mainly on the Internet. Hence the young public from all over Bulgaria. How the municipality of Plovdiv made advertising to the tour operators so there were a lot of foreign tourists in the streets speaking English, German, Russian and Spanish, I don’t know, but they did it right.

Once again, congratulations for the great event and keep the good work.

Should the Bulgarian Private Business Invest in Cultural Tourism?

Notes from the Second Congress of Investors in the Tourism

The Second Congress of Investors in the Tourism was held in Hilton, Sofia on September 26, 2008 - just before the Day of the Tourism celebrated by the UNWTO. My presence there was only informative – to see what are the directions that will take both investors and governing bodies in the tourism.

The wishes of the Congress were clear – to work towards changing the product of the Bulgarian tourism. To create a new, appealing travel products, outside of the recreational ones (sea, sun, ski), in spite their 20% growth forecasted for this year.

As per Ms. Krushkova, the President of the Bulgarian Agency for Tourism, the highlights of this new product should be on cultural tourism – in its broad sense: creating new emotions and experiencing the pleasure of life: wine, spa, wellness, events and small towns/rural tourism.

The President of the Republic, Mr. Georgi Purvanov and the entire panel of Mr. Roumen Draganov from the Institute for Research in the Tourism have highlighted the difficulties to create a historic heritage cultural tourism – lack legislation defining the ownership of cultural heritage sites and monuments leading to lack of interest in creating tourist infrastructure around them. 

Other problems that exist since the time I was student in the Sofia University, such as lack of trained personnel in hotels, tour operators, restaurants, etc., bad infrastructure outside the super resorts, and the total disregard of the ecology, were highlighted again, without any clear solution.

So, when all of private investors and the representative bodies of the government appealed for the creation of new tourism strategy for the country and a new image of Bulgaria as tourist destination, I was asking myself – should we really invest time and money on positioning planning and new branding, when, at this point, we don’t have the ability to create the product we wish to advertise?

And the answer is yes, we should. We should invest first in a proper legislation regarding the ownership and marketing of the cultural heritage (historic and living ones) of Bulgaria (See my position on the Cultural Heritage law – in Bulgarian only). Then, we should invest in creating a workforce, from the bottom to the top level, able to create and manage alternative types of tourism. Only then a new strategy for tourism development can work, and a new branding can be implemented. And finally, we should create a legislative framework to finance the tourism advertising globally, and target emerging markets smartly, using the latest trends in promotion.

In the meantime, we only can create, manage, service and advertise on small scale niche products (special interests, small spa and wellness programs, wine tours, events, festivals), mainly through Internet and the social networks, which are perfect for this type of tourism.