The story is about the preparation and inauguration of the museum exhibition dedicated to Hristo Kovachev-Maniikata – the man who creates the first factory for artificial flowers and wedding decoration in Asenovgrad and Bulgaria in 1900 and lays the foundations of the most developed industry in our town now. Telling more about his life and activities is important because he embodies ideas and values that we all share now. Thanks to his education and his travels in Europe he has the bravery to follow his dreams and to recreate the good examples and practices back in his country. We exhibited old photos, wedding accessories, one of the first artificial flowers, dresses, documents and work instruments related to him or his heirs. Trying to reach more numerous and younger public we made the inauguration more spectacular than ever – accompanying the exhibition with live open-aired concert and wedding fashion show of local contemporary wedding designers – and all that almost for free. The event was part of the European Heritage Days in 2020.  

     My name is Nadya Yankova I’m 30 years old and I work for the Museum of History in my home town Asenovgrad, Bulgaria. If you had asked the 20-years-old-Nadya where she was expecting to be in 10 years she would has given a really different answer. I’ve never thought that one day I would be very pleased with my job as a curator in a local museum in a small town where – like I was thinking before – nothing interesting happened. The truth is that every single place on the Earth has the power to inspire you if you are ready to reveal its secrets – its nature, history, traditions, people, language, music, cuisine, culture. And sometimes just like in my case we don’t even know well enough the places where we come from. 
    There are four facts that everybody in Bulgaria knows about Asenovgrad. The symbol of our town is the medieval fortress located 2 km away and it’s the most visited cultural object by the tourists. Asenovgrad is called “The Small Jerusalem” because of the numerous operating churches, chapels and monasteries in the city. Asenovgrad is a big winery region. Asenovgrad is also the wedding center of Bulgaria, “the city of the brides”, because here is super easy to find your dream wedding dress – there are dozens of shops and boutiques, more than any other city in the country. Beside those four well-known truths Asenovgrad is a just an ordinary provincial town. That’s what the majority thinks. But Asenovgrad has more to offer not only to the tourists but also to the locals and that’s the essence of our work in the museum.  
    Since I was hired as a curator I had organized lots of events – every one of it is a different adventure and it’s more interesting when is shared with my colleagues. Our team is a perfect combo – half of us are young, enthusiastic and emotional, the other half are experienced, organized and methodical. When we are organizing something we are trying to combine the traditional practices with the innovative and creative ideas in search of a bigger and younger audience. Because we have noticed that there is always a stable core of interested people attending to our events but is more difficult and stimulating to attract new visitors. 
    Keeping in mind that, I want to tell you the story about how we celebrated the 120 anniversary of the opening of the first factory for artificial flowers in Asenovgrad and Bulgaria by the entrepreneur Hristo Kovachev-Maniikata. That was one of our events for the European Heritage Days in 2020. After the lockdown in the springtime the opportunity to arrange an exhibition was like a breath of a fresh air – something that we expected so much and something that we wanted to be remembered. Of course we had to embrace two big difficulties – first of all (like always) the museum budget was insufficient for something really spectacular and second of all we had to observe the restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
    Before I tell you all the details about how we made it I would like to mention one thing. Why we have been chosen to pay attention exactly at that anniversary? On first place because Hristo Kovachev-Maniikata is a person who deserves better recognition. He grow up in a poor family and he is a small boy when Bulgaria acquires its freedom in 1878. He has to work for one of the richest winemakers in our town as a teenager to gain enough money to continue his studies. Then as an adult he has the opportunity to travel in Europe and to see with his eyes the European culture and economical achievements. During the first decades after The Liberation Bulgaria has to build up from the zero a modern administration, state structures, legislation and a new vision of its future development. People like Hristo Kovachev make that possible on local level. Thanks to his education and his travels in Europe he has the bravery to follow his dreams and to recreate the good examples and practices back in his country. He is a dreamer but he succeed to become also a great manufacturer and a mayor of Asenovgrad. And also he is the initiator of the most prosperous business nowadays in our town because his factory is the first that produce artificial flowers and other wedding decoration. All this make him a great example for a person that brings some of the most important European values. 
    In our museum we conserve some of the first artificial flowers produced by the factory of Hristo Kovachev. We also keep old photos, wedding accessories, dresses, documents and instruments related to him or his heirs. We wanted to exhibit them and to demonstrate how the wedding industry was changing trough the time. Unfortunately the exposition by itself of different cultural artifacts in the display areas of the museum attracts mainly the people who are interested in history. We wanted to expand our publics, we wanted our message to be heard by more people. So we decided to organize a wedding fashion show of a local contemporary designers as part of the exposition's inauguration. And we made it! Almost for free! The exhibition and all the other initiatives costed only 60 leva (30 euros) – for the informative panel which we placed next to the cultural objects in the museum.
    The easiest part of the preparation was the structure of the thematic exhibition plan and the writing of the texts for the panel. Those are activities we make every time we organize some event in the museum. The real challenge was to convince the designers to take part of that improvised fashion show which would take place in front of the museum, on the central square of the town (because of COVID-19 restrictions of course) and also to find 20 girls to attend as a models for the catwalk. Gratis! 
    However, the second part of the plan was easier – we called our friends, told them what we had planned and asked them not only to be models but to participate in one very important initiative which would promote the cultural heritage and the history of our town. And just like that we found the girls. The situations with the designers was a little bit more delicate. But when you live in a small town where everybody knows each other sometimes that turns out in an advantage. We found out that one of our colleagues was a cousin of the most famous designer in Asenovgrad and she set a work meeting with him. The daughter of another colleague was a friend with other designer and so on. We arranged second meeting with the designers and the girls who would represent them to choose and try on the dresses and we were almost ready for the big day. 
    One of the museum activities is the musical school for children. The music teacher there is also a jazz singer and is always ready to help us with her powerful voice. So we invited her to open the event with some of her songs and other well-known covers to make the inauguration even more glamorous. We made also beautiful invitations, posters; we used our account in the social medias to engage more people with the upcoming event. During all that process we never stopped enjoying the preparation and we recorded some funny and some critical moments with our phones. Which leaded us to another idea – to open a museum vlog and to show the museum work from the inside especially to young people. Is that possible – we will see. 
    On the big day everything went well. All of us were exited, there were a lot of people in the public, some of them invited and some of them passing by accident but decided to stay and see the concert-fashion show-exhibition. So permit me to say that we had success – we showed that sometimes the museum events could be something unexpected and provocative but in the meantime educating. And all that in a small town where nothing really happens. Really?

    The project idea which we present is related to the persons like Hristo Kovachev. If we win the financial support we are ready to create a mobile application which will be something like an event calendar. Everyone who has downloaded the app will receive a notification on the day of birth of all historical figures that are included in the data base. We will include information about their life and achievements; we will represent local people who deserve our appreciation – people who are bearers of the European values, people that teach us to grow, to dream and to leave something to the next generations. We think this is important because in school the students learn a lot of national and world history but they know almost nothing about the historical persons and events at the local level. This application will encourage them to develop their knowledge and become proud European citizens no matter where they come from. 

As Bulgarians we are used to think that in our country is very difficult to chase your dreams; that we are always at the bottom of every ranking of well-being; that here is the place where Europe ends. But we forget that no matter all of the economic differences and difficulties we are all part of the same European family because we share something more important than the average wage. I thing that if we really believe and if we make everything possible to protect and spread out the European values like justice, equality, inclusion, solidarity we can transform our present and future. In my opinion, cultural heritage could be also all the information we keep about the life of the historical figures that were bearers of these values even in the past, even before the EU was established. Because in the end of the story we will realize that we all have been shared same worldview and our dreams haven’t been so different.