The Winners in the Second Edition of NTG Contest „Eastern Rhodopes – taste the wild nature“

Kichka Dyankova and Yassena Popova are the winners in the second edition of the Competition „Eastern Rhodopes – taste the wild nature“. They submitted the most interesting travel story  and the best photo, according to the jury of New Thracian Gold.

The number of participants submitting journey notes and photos in the 2012 contest exceeded the numbers of the  2011 competition. The juries are pleased to announce that this year’s quality is also higher.

The photo jury consisted of Bulgarian and Dutch experts; the jury for travel itineraries  of Bulgarian experts only. Both juries had long discussions before selecting the best of the 12 travel notes and the best of the 82 pictures of the Eastern Rhodopes.

Kichka Dyankova won the first place with her notes "Arda flows under our balcony!" “The travel story meets the given theme "Taste the Wild" - the travel (tourism), the biodiversity, the river, the rocks, even a piece of organic farming  with the beer from organic einkorn. The style, the spelling and the grammar are sound. The story has an unique style, lots of personal impressions and positive thinking”, according to the Chair of the jury for the itinerary contest, Michaela Kircheva. She emphasized that the travel stories from Alexander Karadzhov, Vyara Guneva and Veneta Nikolova are also very good. "All member of the jury liked them, but  we could not qualify because they did not meet the criterium: the text to be up to 4,000 characters”, she added.

The winning photo of Yassena Popova is titled "Freedom". " Evaluating 82 photos of 26 contestors we can summarize that the  photos were very interesting and diverse, representing the nature, the history and the most interesting inhabitants of the Eastern Rhodopes”, said the Chairman of the photo jury, Stefan Avramov.

Yassena’s award is a weekend in “Studen Kladenets” Reserve and Kichka’s award is a weekend in Ivaylovgrad. New Thracian Gold hopes they will enjoy and return with plenty of wonderful memories which they present again in texts and photos.

The second prize in the travel story contest is given to Rumen Stoichkov  for "Madzharovo" and the third prize to Budinka Kolarova for "A bouquet of orchids and history." Second prize in the photo contest goes to Inko Burgelov for the photo "Yumrukkaya - like a scene from "The Lost World" and the third prize to Veronica Bozhilova for the picture of a Long-legged Buzzard near Madzharovo. The second and third prizes in both disciplines  are rewarded with organic products from the Eastern Rhodopes.

The winning travel stories  and winning photos are published on the project website www.newthraciangold.eu and will be used for the NTG Calendar 2013 and other NTG promotional materials.

In 2013, the NTG team is planning to organize the third edition of the competition. We hope to inspire more people to visit the Eastern Rhodopes and discover their new Thracian gold.

Read here about the winners in NTG Competition 2011