On the 24th of June 2011 the project was given a start with the holding of the first working meeting of the teams from the five partner institutions in Europe hall of the lead partner – University of Veliko Turnovo St. Cyril and St. Methodius. Parallel to the meeting a series of social events was organized in the old capital by the International Elias Canetti Society with the aim of popularizing Romanian culture in the country and establishing long lasting relationships between Romanian and Bulgarian artists and writers.
On the 24th of June in the conference hall of Panorama Hotel the director of The City Art Gallery Ruse Elena Velikova and Prof. Dr. Marian Neagu presented The Spirit of the Danube edition, created in a joint project between Ruse and Constanta. The video installation Tactile Interactivity by the young Bulgarian artist Atanas Totlyakov was also presented there. And the evening events ended with a literary reading with Kristin Dimitrova of excerpts of her novel Sabazius in Bulgarian and in Romanian translation.
On the morning of the 25th of June in the hall of Regional national library P. R. Slaveikov Prof. Dr. Marian Neagu presented volume XXIV of the yearbook of the museum in Calarasi Culture and Civilization of the Lower Danube Region and held a lecture on the cultural and archeological heritage common for the both countries. An exhibition of icons in the style of the Bulgarian National Revival by the artist Valentina Rasheva from Veliko Tarnovo was opened. Also in the library we presented a book exhibition Bulgaria in the German Culture.
Early in the evening in the inn Hadji Nikoli in the old town we opened an exhibition of paintings and sculptures of Prof. Konstantin Denev, Trifon Kalfov, Assoc. Prof. Georgi Minchev and Rumen Dimitrov – Popa. After the exhibition we presented the book Fairy Tales from the year of the Snake by the Romanian writer Ovidiu Dunareanu in Bulgarian translation, published by Elias Canetti publishing house and the translator Vanina Bojikova read excerpts from the book.