The overall objective of project “Welcome to the middle ages” is to improve the sustainable use of natural and cultural heritage of Mezdra and Dobrosloveni municipalities by establishing two important festivals – roman and medieval, reconstructing the life and traditions of the time, bringing together stakeholders able to contribute from all cross-border region and promoting the culture and history of the region.

495,103.46 euro, out of which 420,837.93 euro ERDF

Lead Beneficiary (LB):Mezdra Municipality (Bulgaria)

Beneficiary 2 (B2): Dobrosloveni Municipality (Romania)

Start date: 28.09.2018

End date: 10.05.2020, following suspension of the project implementation period between the period from 17.03.2021 - 30.04.2020.

Duration: 18 months

Vratsa in Bulgaria

Olt in Romania

• Research of festivals, events and groups, presenting middle ages and roman traditions of RO and BG
• Conference for adoption of common strategy for promotion of ancient and medieval traditions
• Purchase of equipment necessary for the organization of the festivals
• Organization of medieval festival in Mezdra at the “Kaleto” archeological complex and of a roman festival in Dobrosloveni
• Promotion of both integrated tourism products at tourism fair in Sofia and in Bucharest

Programme outputs: 1100 more visits to supported sites of cultural and natural heritage and attraction, 2 integrated tourism products/services created, 1 common strategy, policy or management plan for valorising (including raising awareness) the cultural and natural heritage through its restoration and promotion for sustainable economic uses

Programme results: 1000 tourist overnights in the CBC region

The project implementation period ended on 10.05.2020, following requested and approved suspension of the project implementation period between 17.03.2020 - 30.04.2020. The main results achieved are as follows:

LB – Mezdra Municipality has completed the “Research of festivals, events and groups, presenting middle ages and roman traditions” and subsequently within Activity T3 “Organisation of medieval and roman festivals”, organized and performed the Festival of the medieval traditions, manners and culture in the period 16 and 19 May 2019, having more than 300 guests. The related necessary equipment for performing the main event as a Bulgarian yurta - the mobile home of Bulgarian nomad tribes, clothing and armory for 2 warriors, heavily armed warriors, archer, noble chief and medieval saddle, 3 pagoda tents and 1 professional sound system, were also purchased and delivered to LB and used during the event.

B2 – Dobrosloveni Municipality, the main Roman festival “Romula Fest” was also organized in the period 22 – 25 August 2019, in Dobrosloveni. B2 acquisitioned the necessary equipment and goods. 16 Roman soldiers costumes and 1 professional sound system were purchased.

The two researches represented an important step towards the development of the common strategy for promotion of ancient and medieval traditions for sustainable tourism development in the cross-border region. The strategy was prepared by the project team members with the full support of the beneficiaries presented and adopted on a two day conference performed in Mezdra with 100 stakeholders from the cross-border area representing groups for historical reconstructions, tourism companies and stakeholders. The Strategy for promotion of the medieval traditions was developed from the BG part from the PMT team and is available on the project web site: https://mezdrafest-robg.eu/en/assets/files/Common_tourism_Strategy_Fin.pdf . On on the project web site could be found a Memorandum of understating for cooperation in the tourism sector signed between the mayors of Mezdra and Dobrosloveni.

In order to promote both integrated tourism products created at project level, on one hand LB has participated in the Sofia Tourism Fair on 14-16.02.2019 and on the other B2 have taken participation in the tourism fair in Bucharest (14-17.11.2019). As a result of the presentation at both tourism fairs, the visits to the supported cultural sites in Mezdra and Dobrosloveni, increased with at least 400 persons.

In order to increase further the interest over the achieved projects results, LB developed a Catalogue of Festival and Events and a Catalogue of Medieval and Roman groups, both available in BG, RO and EN . In addition, a 50 minutes movies for Roman and Medieval traditions was produced and further published in Youtube and on the project web site of the project – www.mezdrafest-robg.eu/en/ .