Town's Move to Lose 'Protected' Status Shocks Bulgarians

News that local councillors in Koprivshtitsa - a picturesque historic town in central Bulgaria - have dismissed its new management plan, which guaranteed its protected status, drew concerned reactions from Bulgarian leaders including the President.

The Mayor of the town, Gencho Gerdanov, from Bulgaria's leading party, Boyko Borissov's centre-right GERB, on Thursday said the 11-member council had surprisingly scrapped the plan, drafted over three years, at a meeting held on March 17 in his absence.

"I will do anything possible, while I am mayor, to keep Koprivshtitsa as it is," he said, adding that he had initiated a second vote on the plan, which will take place on Friday.

"Koprivshitsa does not belong to few councillors. Koprisvhitsa belongs to Bulgaria. Koprivshitsa is Bulgaria," President Rumen Radev wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

The President said any compromise with Koprivshtitsa's status as a "town-museum" would be an assault on Bulgaria's national memory and cultural heritage.

With its well-preserved 19th century heritage, Koprivhtitsa, a town of less than 2,500 people, is among Bulgaria's most popular historical and cultural attractions.

It boasts over 400 immobile cultural artefacts, 15 which are considered as having national significance.

The town was given the status of a cultural and architectural reserve in 1971 and since then construction activities there have been limited to designated areas.

Koprivshitsa's councillors, however, claim that since the latest changes to Bulgaria's Cultural Heritage Act, the term "cultural and architectural reserve" does not exist any longer and they therefore want the status of their town modernized.

They called the new town management plan, which was mainly funded...