12 years after the mass protests in Varna, which ended with the self-immolation of Plamen Goranov and the resignation of the mayor Kiril Yordanov, a wave of discontent is rising again among the citizens of Varna. More than 200 people took part in a protest march that started from the Varna Municipality building and reached the trees cut down earlier this week on Alley One.
The protest today actually started in 2012 with the adoption of the General Development Plan of Varna, said Svilen Stoychev from “Varna Breathes” – organizer of the event. The proposed plan then envisaged that a large part of the Sea Garden would be built over. According to Stoychev, these intentions were thwarted only on paper. “13 years later, construction has started again on the promenade and in the Sea Garden. We want this to be stopped once and for all and for Varna to have a real Sea Garden by the sea,” said the civic activist.
One of the main demands of the organizers is that the promenade becomes part of the Sea Garden and that the mayor issues a construction ban on the territory of the park. Organizers also demand that cars on the promenade be stopped immediately and that inspections of construction in the park begin. Among their demands is that “the state should dissolve the sale of the Varna waterfront to TIM”.
On January 12, a project for the construction of a sewerage system on the promenade worth BGN 8 million was launched. The investor is “Holding Varna” – the company that in 2009 purchased 118 acres of coastal land from the state for the implementation of the project “Alley First”.
Two weeks after the start of the excavation work, several trees along the route were found with their trunks cut off. The sight, circulated on social media, caused a violent reaction of discontent. The Varna Municipality, which gave permission for the pruning, said it was fining the contractor 10,000 BGN “because of the condition of the trees along the promenade to the Third Buna”. From February 3, a municipal official was to supervise and order the execution of the basic pruning of the crowns of all pyramidal poplars on the Shocker Canal adjacent to the Zoo. According to the opinion circulated by the Directorate of Engineering Infrastructure and Public Works, “pyramidal poplars are a species of brittle wood and these are of marginal age, in poor plant health, encased in ivy and their crowns have a high percentage of dead lichen”. For this reason, according to the municipality, the trees are a danger to the new facilities under construction, as well as to passing citizens, residents and the zoo’s facilities.”
The fears of the residents of Varna are that the area is being cleared for larger-scale construction. In October Holding Varna filed an investment plan for the construction of a two-storey International Congress Centre in the area below the Meteorological Station. The building, as well as the sewage collector project, are part of the investor’s obligations to the state for the implementation of public-purpose facilities along the promenade, Holding Varna’s co-executive director Milcho Bliznakov announced before the start.
Photos : Svilena Velcheva
