Moscow Picks Bulgarian Communist ex-Official Heads TV at Black Sea Resort

Stanka Shopova, a close affiliate to Bulgaria's late Communist ruler Todor Zhivkov, is to run a Russian TV station that Moscow is launching at a Black Sea resort in the country, local media report.

Located some 25 km south of the city of Varna, The Sanatorium and Health Compound of Kamchiya (SOK Kamchiya) is owned by the administration of Moscow. Millions in investment have been poured into the project launched by then Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

Shopova is the CEO of Kamchiya TV, a channel which was given the green light by Bulgaria's media watchdog CEM in January and was reportedly launched in April 15, according to the decision of CEM.

Shopova, who after meeting Zhivkov in the early 1980s begins climbing quickly up the social ladder by first heading the communist youth movement and then being promoted to the head of a department at the BKP's central committee, announced the start of the TV station during an event dedicated to Russian poetry in Varna, Bulgarian newspaper Russia Today says.

Since the end of communism after 1989, Shopova has maintained her close ties with Russian business circles. She is on the board of directors of Russia Today, a bilingual daily published in Bulgarian and Russia.

Currently she is also the deputy head of the Bulgarian Anti-Fascist Union.

In February, Moscow announced it was calling a tender for the compound.