A concise history and evolution of the Bulgarian-Romanian website “The Bridge of Friendship”

1. The Beginning (2015): Experience, Language, and the Original “About the Blog” Text

I launched the website in September 2015, after returning to Ruse from Sofia. By that point, I was already fluent in Romanian and had gained significant practical experience through travelling in Romania. In my role as a journalist, I wrote analyses and conducted interviews with Romanian intellectuals and experts on political and social issues. I even reported from the ground during the Romanian elections in 2012 and 2014. Thanks to this work, I established personal contacts with Romanians of all ages.

When the platform was launched, I wrote the following text for the ‘About the Blog’ section, published on 20 September 2015, which outlined the project’s objectives (the original web address of the Bridge of Friendship was https://movafaq.wordpress.com/):

“During the Renaissance, young Bulgarians came of age by crossing the Danube and settling north of it. Staying true to this tradition, I have continued to explore Romania for years. I cross the Friendship Bridge near Ruse both as a tourist and for business purposes.

I worked as a journalist for nearly seven years, which gave me the opportunity to interview some of Romania’s leading intellectuals and experts on political and social issues. In the meantime, I have learned Romanian to a level that enables me to conduct interviews in the language. I’ve made friends — Romanians who are willing to help me without asking for anything in return. I now feel that bringing the two peoples closer together is an important cause for me.

I am aware that many Bulgarians know little about Romania and Romanians. Their knowledge and interest about Serbs, Greeks and Turks seem much stronger. Similarly, Romanians don’t know much about their southern neighbours, aside from the Black Sea resorts where they like to spend their holidays and Bansko.

Through this blog, I hope to promote mutual understanding between our two nations. I plan to translate interesting interviews and articles from one language to the other, as well as publishing original content. Over time, I hope that readers on both sides of the Danube will develop a curiosity about their neighbours’ personalities and fascinating stories. I also hope that the Romania-Bulgaria partnership will grow closer and accelerate along the highway of modernity.

The name ‘movafaq’ may bring good luck — in Persian, it means ‘success’, ‘agreement’, and ‘achievement’.” 

From the outset, the idea was to establish a direct channel of communication to promote mutual understanding, compensating for the lack of interest and depth in the media on both sides of the border. Now, almost 11 years later, I can say with certainty that the Bridge of Friendship has been instrumental in my personal growth and development. It has taken me to many places in the two countries (Romania and Bulgaria) and the EU. It has led to many professional contacts and personal friendships. It has also encouraged the development of a specific philosophy, which I call the ‘friendship bridge’ philosophy. More about it can be read here. 

2. Stages of the Blog’s Development

The platform’s development went through three or four main and clearly defined stages, which are closely linked to both personal events and the broader geopolitical context.

Stage One (2016–2019): Growth and Media Presence

During these years, the blog developed actively. This process coincided with my collaboration with a progressive at the time Bulgarian-Romanian-Polish platform. The period coincided with significant domestic political developments in Romania, related to the redefinition and gradual winding down of Romania’s fight against corruption. Since I was familiar with the subject in detail and followed Romanian sources, I was a frequent guest on Bulgarian National Radio, specifically on the international politics program “Saturday 150,” where I commented on these events for the Bulgarian audience.

The Second Phase (2019–2022): Crisis and Struggle

In 2019, I experienced a family tragedy that took a serious toll on me personally. This event led to a long period of uncertainty that lasted until 2022. During this phase, the website’s activity was largely one of inertia, even though it continued. However, the start of the large-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shifted the balance of power in the region and led to a complete redefinition of Bulgarian-Romanian relations. This external context prompted me to reevaluate some of the personal and professional relationships I had maintained until then. 

The 2022 events and the changes they brought to the region and to EU politics allowed for Bulgaria and Romania’s full entrance in the Schengen area in 2025, for Bulgaria’s entrance in the eurozone in 2026, for the two countries’ application to OECD. In other words, the two countries’ integration to the EU advanced and that is how ironically, the tragic war in Ukraine, the result of a strategic and ethical blunder of Mr. Vladimir Putin, influenced for the better Southeastern Europe. 

Phase Three (2022–present): Professional Development and a New Regional Context

In September 2022, I became an editor at Radio Bulgaria’s newly established Romanian-language newsroom, where I took on responsibility for Romanian-language news at the Bulgarian National Radio. A few months later—in February 2023—I was appointed Radio Romania’s correspondent for Bulgaria. This gave me a new professional role and strengthened the cross-border nature of my work.

This third phase also coincided with efforts by the Bulgarian and Romanian governments to improve their bilateral relations at the political, economic, and cultural levels. In March 2023, the two countries signed a strategic partnership declaration, and in December 2025, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania signed a memorandum of understanding on the development of regional infrastructure corridors. In this new reality, the website began operating in step with the increasingly intense exchanges between the countries.

I am still contemplating whether the current state of activity on the Bridge of Friendship project (in 2026) should be considered the fourth stage of its development. The site’s design has been modernised. There are plans to launch a B-roll video podcast on the project’s topics. There is wide-ranging cooperation with several media outlets in Bulgaria and Romania, including leading TV channels, liberal media such as Mediapool in Bulgaria and The Liberal Community 1848 in Romania, and progressive media such as Cross-border Talks in Poland, as well as economic media. Most importantly, I am encouraged by the trust placed in me by my Romanian friends, colleagues, partners and interviewees. The establishment of the Greek section of the Bridge of Friendship in 2026, with the help of Dr Yorgos Christidis, a Greek scholar on Balkan affairs, is another sign that we are moving in the right direction.

I realise that a lot has happened since 2015. At the same time, I believe that I am still the same person as I was back then. My professional and social self may have developed further. But the driver, the engine and the essence of who I am remains unchanged.

3. The Evolution of the Philosophical Approach to Change in the Region

Conversely, my theory of change regarding Bulgarian-Romanian relations and how they should evolve has undergone significant development over the years. The first entry was written in 2022, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and set out my initial understanding of the concepts of ‘static identity’ and ‘dynamic identity’. Two years later, I expanded on these ideas by sharing my vision for a citizen-driven, non-hegemonic foreign policy that creates synchronization between the people in Southeastern Europe. The most recent essay in this series was published in December 2025, following the anti-corruption protests in Bulgaria that brought down the Rossen Zhelyazkov government.

Three years ago, I wrote a study titled “Romania’s Foreign Policy in the Geopolitical Context and Bulgaria,” which was published by the Bulgarian Diplomatic Institute. In it, I argued that the ability of politicians and businesspeople to transform Bulgarian-Romanian relations is limited, as they fail to build a sufficient level of trust in the neighbouring country. At the time, I believed—in a more idealistic way—that the solution lay in the widespread involvement of citizens, professionals, nongovernmental organizations, as well as cultural and academic elites.

I still believe that the people/citizens are the solution. However, my experience in recent years has changed this perspective a bit. Today I observe that ordinary people lack the experience, training, and basic skills necessary to communicate effectively and build trust with the other side. For this reason, I have come to the conclusion that real change requires the emergence of specific elites who have a genuine interest in the appearance of new experience in Bulgarian-Romanian and regional relations.

The “Bridge of Friendship” website itself is currently pursuing precisely this goal—generating new experience. This means deliberately moving beyond the nation-centric mindset characteristic of both countries, as well as overcoming mistrust, oversimplification, and the so-called “proxy identity” (in which local actors define themselves and others through their allegiance to local, national or foreign political influences, as well as oligarchical and security interests), which shape the specific character of our region.

4. The Complexity of Topics and Public Interests

The website’s thematic focus has shifted toward a higher level of pragmatism and economic substance. The “Bridge of Friendship” audience is interested in very specific and practical topics, including:

• The state and development of transportation infrastructure.
• Issues related to road traffic and border crossings regime.
• Romania’s foreign and domestic policy
• Romanian movies, books and other cultural issues
• Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone and Bulgaria’s role as the region’s leading exporter and stabilizing force in the electricity sector (“the Balkans’ battery”).

Two or three years ago, accession to the Schengen Area was the site’s main focus, but recently I’ve been writing much more extensively about the Romanian economy and energy sector. Since I regularly read the Romanian press and have direct access to renowned experts in these fields, the articles have taken on a more specialized character. My day-to-day professional life is organized in such a way that, in practice, I live in both countries simultaneously.

5. Social Networks, Partnerships, and Practical Initiatives in 2026

The website is read by ordinary working people who use information as a tool to expand their knowledge of neighbouring countries. Important communication channels include the Bulgarian-language Viber community with over 220 subscribers and the English-language Substack newsletter with 175 subscribers. The Viber channel provides a constant stream of news, articles and opinions, making Romanian and Moldovan socio-political, economic and cultural life easier for Bulgarian readers to understand. The same applies to bilateral relations. Meanwhile, the Substack newsletter archives the website’s English content. The Bridge of Friendship’s Substack is popular in Romania (39% of subscribers), Bulgaria (20% of them), the United States (9%), the United Kingdom (5%), and Poland (4%). In total, people living in 25 countries around the world and nine American states subscribe to the Substack newsletter.

Our official media partners, with whom we collaborate at various levels, are listed publicly on the dedicated website page.

In recent years and especially in the current year (2026) I aim to transform the accumulated media capital into concrete actions on the ground. This includes:

• Conscious efforts to organize Bulgarian-Romanian cultural events and meetings to exchange experiences.
• Providing support to the Romanian media in producing their reports in and on Bulgaria and equal support to the Bulgarian media who want to prepare materials from and about Romania.
• Launching a Romanian-speaking club in Ruse, with the first meeting scheduled for the summer of 2026.

In connection with Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone, I have created a personal investment portfolio on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. My goal is for this portfolio to become the basis for a fund that will invest in organizing Bulgarian-Romanian events, translating books, and supporting my cross-border media projects.

6. Issues Related to Mindset and Social Capital

One of the serious problems I face, more on a personal level than in terms of the website’s operational activity, is related to Bulgaria’s specific social environment. My observations suggest that Bulgarians have low social capital. Bulgarian society is strongly divided into in-groups that constantly and blindly demonstrate their contempt for outsiders. In my experience, Bulgarians constantly suspect each other of being ‘somebody’s man’, of being proxies, and they simply cannot overcome their strongly peripheral mindset — even high-ranking academics, media figures and other elites are not immune to this.

Conversely, Romanians lack deep knowledge of Bulgarian affairs and seem to have no desire, curiosity or imagination to acquire it. While Bulgarians are inventive in the labels they put on you and the ways they reduce you to nothing, Romanians seem to have one universal reality to which they reduce Bulgarians – Russia.

The prejudices and distrust between Bulgarians and Romanians demonstrate that a lot of work needs to be done within both societies, both separately and together. Hopefully, this work will begin to be done at a larger scale, as currently the two countries simply don’t exploit their potential as neighbours.

By contrast, Greece and Bulgaria began to improve their relations even during the Cold War in the 1960s, when Bulgaria was in the Warsaw Pact and Greece was in NATO. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, processes unfolded which led to the intensification of economic relations, particularly between southern Bulgaria and northern Greece. Nothing similar can be observed between southern Romania and northern Bulgaria. The thaw in Bulgarian–Romanian relations only began in 2022 and is still too much led from above, without being taken on board by mid-level elites or ordinary people. 

A lot of precious time has been lost in bilateral and regional relations between Bulgarians and Romanians. Curiously, neither nation seems to be aware of this or caring about it. Meanwhile, the experience of the ’80s and ’90s still seems to be shaping the identity of both peoples’ relations with one another, and any new developments don’t appear to be visibly transforming it.

Conclusion

If we were to summarise the current state of Bulgarian–Romanian relations, it could be said that the two nations might know each other a little better than they did ten years ago. Nevertheless, mistrust, a lack of genuine interest and reserve persist, and in some cases there is even tacit hostility. Most people in the region continue to think in outdated categories, viewing the world through the lens of political, economic or security lobbies and concomitant conspiracies. This is a classic way of thinking that is specific to the periphery.

‘The Bridge of Friendship’ aims to challenge these outdated attitudes and offer an alternative way of thinking — one that is not based on a pro-or-anti mindset. Let us not hide behind countries, parties and causes. We must be able to see and appreciate the individual in the other beyond flags, labels, and cheap façades, so that we are also appreciated similarly in turn.

This is a long and complex process, the ultimate success of which is not guaranteed. The truth is that there is a tremendous amount of work to be done in improving Bulgarian–Romanian relations, and this is only just beginning to be achieved to a small extent. This website will continue to contribute to this process by relying on pragmatism and accurate information, as well as by building a network of knowledgeable individuals who look beyond the border.

Photo: The birth of the dynamic identity (source: a Gemini artwork, based on Salvador Dali, The Bridge of Friendship)