surelookbutnothingtoseehere.

So the most loyal followers of my blog (hey all three!) may know by now that I feel a love for writing a bit. Especially about politics, history, Europe and more specific, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. In this case, I want to write about a Bulgarian castle project. But before I do that, I want to point out some highlights of the Bulgarian history - for as far as I am capable of doing that, because I don’t have a deep knowledge about Bulgarian history.  I want to point out, that with this piece I don’t want to go into the big debates about the Macedonian Question. For the sake of easiness, I will consider things that happend in the Empire of Bulgaria an achievement of the Bulgarian culture and thus I may mention it here. 

I’ve never visited Bulgaria, but it must be a beautiful country. The Balkan is named after the Balkan-mountains that are for a big part in Bulgaria. And of course, they are simply beautiful. The Balkan Mountains actually divide Southeastern-Europe under Bulgaria from the rest of Europe, together with the Danube. That of course has had it’s impact on the history that followed. And also, the mountain area has of impact on the way a kingdom (or Empire) is governed and defended. Due to it’s location, Bulgaria has a very interesting population. A part of the population is islamic: perhaps surprisingly Bulgaria has the highest percentage of Islamic population in Europe, due to it’s link to the Ottoman Empire. And like this, there are many interesting things about Bulgaria.

Source: https://br.pinterest.com/pin/528891549960005303/ 

Bulgaria is nowadays a relatively small country in the EU. In the EU, it’s the country with the lowest avarage income. This was different however in the middle ages. At that time, it was founded and it existed in what actually was the richest part of Europe. The nineth and tenth century are even called the Golden Age of Bulgarian Culture. If one looks at the achievements of this nation, the conclusion that Bulgaria was way more developed than the Western European countries isn’t difficult to make. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_medieval_Bulgarian_culture 

That shows for example if we look at some examples of Bulgarian culture. Castle building in Bulgaria was on a much higher level than in Western Europe, where the medieval castles of the time were mostly built in wood and are in this age hardly recognizable as castles. You can hardly find them back. 

Source: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/tsarverets-castle-0013563 

Source: https://sofiaadventures.com/bulgarian-castles/ 

But also in the art of the time it’s visible. This drawing shows the Bulgarian emperor (Bulgaria had an emperor, not a king) at his table. Except the visual richness that is clearly shown, it’s also clear that the clothes were quite well developed. Admittedly, the painting is from the 14th century, but still. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Bulgarian_army 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_medieval_Bulgarian_culture

Compare this art, for example, with the art that we have about Charlemagne the Great. The clothes and crown are clearly inferior, the art style is clearly less developed (look at the throne!) and it is quite clear that the French Empire was less developed than the Bulgarian empire. It’s telling that one of the Emperors of Bulgaria was a renown writer - Charlemagne could hardly write his name. In this same time, a whole new writingsysystem was invited: the Cyrillic alphabet. It’s telling I think for the development. 

Source: https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/406520303848134622/

In short, the Bulgarian Middle Ages are definitely a period of time to be proud of. Bulgaria was a big country, a well-developed country and a country that had a leading role in some aspects of Medieval Europe. To be proud of. 

And this is where the modern era comes in. In the current times, Bulgaria is an EU-member, and the poorest of them all. The EU has a funding system for this, that, in which the richer countries of Europe give money (well, all countries give money, and get money back) that goes to the more poor regions in Europe. This regions can just as well be regions in the Netherlands (like for example Drenthe) or Germany, but most of these regions are of course in the more poor countries. These area’s get a chance to use EU-funding for proposed projects that this area’s can use to ‘improve.’ An important goal of that is of course to improve the economic situation of an area, for example by strenghtening tourism in a given area. In Holland, this could for example be by upgrading the old windmills we loved to build in the past. In France, it could be the palaces. And in Bulgaria? Of course, money should be spend on this magnificent medieval past. One could imagine that you could restore the old Medieval castles. Or make sure the ruins that are left, are protected better. One could point out this Medieval history, that is not so well-known in the West, or in the rest of the world. 

So, than why this answers? 

The Cohesion Policy is governed by the principle of shared management. National authorities select and implement the projects.

The Commission has been following media allegations about the Krakra fortress. According to the Bulgarian authorities, the project is compliant with the purpose of the grant scheme and the conditions defined by the Ministry of Culture.

According to the selection criteria all cultural and historical attractions restored with EU funds should have the status of immovable cultural property within the Bulgarian Law on Cultural Heritage.

Checks by the Managing Authority and the Ministry of Culture concluded that the project was executed in conformity with the requirements set out by the Ministry of Culture and had achieved its objectives.

The Commission follows up with the respective Managing Authorities on any allegations related to potential irregularities. For 2014-2020, more funding from the European Regional Development Fund is available for cultural heritage investments in Bulgaria. Projects have not been selected yet.

In the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage the Commission promotes the quality of conservation and contemporary interventions on cultural heritage to ensure a balance between quality in conservation and safeguarding, and dynamic approaches to restoration and maintenance, innovative reuse and enhancement of cultural heritage. A set of quality principles and guidelines for cultural heritage interventions in Europe will be presented by the end of 2018.

Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-8-2018-005035-ASW_EN.html

These are the answers to questions asked in 2018, by one Olaf Stuger. Stuger is a Dutchman that I had honestly never heard of. According to Dutch wiki, he wanted to keep the summer- and wintertime. Time will teach us if this will be something that ends up in the books. He seems to have been a MEP for the PVV, a far-right Dutch anti-immigration, anti-EU politician. But why these questions? Wasn’t the money invested in an underfunded castle? 

Source: http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/2017/01/18/bulgarias-best-preserved-medieval-castle-baba-vida-fortress-to-be-managed-by-vidin-municipality/

According to this site, this castle did not get any funding for months. Thus making it really hard to keep this historic site in a good state. The questions this Stuger asked were:  1. As the sole outcome has been to make the castles look far more ugly, and the intended objective, namely to attract more tourists, has in no way been achieved, does the Commission agree that the EUR 90 million in tax revenue has been spent so badly that the project has been a downright failure, while money levied from taxpayers in the Netherlands and elsewhere has been squandered? 2. Will the Commission take follow-up action on the basis of this failed project? 3. What other facelifts of historic buildings does it intend to sponsor? Can it provide a list of them?

Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-8-2018-005035_EN.html

So according to Stuger the castles were made more ugly. The intention was to get more tourists, which failed? And did it really cost 90 million? And, if this is the case, how comes it could go on? 

The answer is that in this case, the PVV was right. The project was a total failure. The castles did not get more beautiful and zero tourists were attracted. I am probbaly the only European who want to go there to see this sites - to see this failed project. Me, and the guy in this video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOxIvawKx54&t=4s 

What happened? I show you some pictures. 

for Source: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/09/03/bulgaria-s-fake-castles-fail-to-inspire-tourist-boom-08-31-2018/ 

Source: https://www.novinite.com/articles/192407/Bulgarian+Castle+Restoration+with+EU+Funds+Ridiculed+for+%E2%80%98Looking+Like+Cardboard%E2%80%99

Yes. We can clearly draw the conclusion that the project has failed. This castles have only become more ugly. The way this castles have been built, is ridiculous. You can clearly see that the original structures have been damaged. A ruin isn’t so straight as these lines are now (especially in the first picture it is clear to see original parts must have been removed to get it like this), and only with damage this can be done. Also, it has been installed, and removing it will have consequences for the structure. In general we can assume that irreversible damage has been done tot his ages old ruins. Which we can only call a huge shame. And than I did not even mention that it looks like cartboard. Though it must be said I’ve seen cartboard castles that looked better. 

Source: https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/300333868873850794/ 

Bulgarian news website described the project like this:  ‘Bulgaria’s ancient castles and fortresses have become a laughing stock after shoddy reconstruction work left the sites looking like they were made of “cheese and cardboard” and drove away tourists, it has been claimed.‘

So this project did not attract tourists and made the Bulgarian Medieval history into laughing stock. Why is that possible? Why did the EU fund 90 million (!) Euro for that?  The EU commissioner writes in her answers to the questions I showed before: ‘According to the Bulgarian authorities, the project is compliant with the purpose of the grant scheme and the conditions defined by the Ministry of Culture.’  In short: the money is given by the EU, and it’s not checked afterwards by the EU. If the local government said it was okay, than it was okay. The checks were also done by the Bulgarian government. Rules for the way this has to be done, don’t seem to be in place. 

So it’s a lost project. Bulgaria was according to it’s own media ‘laughing stock’, the EU spent a lot of money on a failed project and people learned that Bulgaria has cartboard castles instead of the beautiful the country has. We can learn from that, that it’s needed to spend EU money wise. It makes complete sense to give more money to Bulgaria than to The Netherlands. It’s good to invest in history and culture. It’s even good to invest in Bulgarian tourism I think, if that means tourists get spread and more people learn to appreciate the amazing culture you can find at the ‘Balkan’. (the term Balkan deserves another writing)  But it’s this kind of projects, local corruption and lack of EU rules (combined with sometimes loads of EU-rules…..) that make the EU less popular. And it’s this kind of history-treatment that makes history seem ridiculous. And both hurt me.