“The rivers in the city await to be revived. And this is completely possible,” said Minister of Environment and Water Julian Popov today during the award ceremony of the “Water Harmony” photo contest, which is organized by the Bulgarian Water Association in the building of the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy (UACEG).

Minister Popov announced that he had already held meetings at the university to support the scientific and expert potential of the educational institution “to transform these rivers in a natural way.” “And now we are working in this direction, which is also the modern concept for the restoration and transformation of urban rivers. Therefore, I hope that in two or three years the photo contest will show fishermen by the Perlovska river. No matter how much you laugh at this idea, it is not completely unrealistic,” joked Minister Popov. He reminded about his appeal to Sofia residents to protect the cleanliness of rivers from the discharge of domestic wastewater, which he made during his last term as Minister of the Environment through the provocation for stocking fish in the city's rivers.

During the ceremony, Minister Julian Popov once again emphasized that the Ministry of Environment and Water is responsible for water resources and currently the volumes in the dams are very high, but unfortunately the water losses in the network are enormous. It is also a fact that the responsibilities for water are scattered among different institutions and very fragmented. Julian Popov also highlighted climate change as a very serious factor, which, although denied by many Bulgarian scientists, cannot be ignored.

Minister Popov awarded first prize in the BWA’s competition, which was received by Vyacheslav Popov for the photograph "Water, the Moon and the Ballet Soloist". The second prize was awarded to Nina Serafimova with the photograph "The Breath of Dew", and the third prize - to "Shiroka Polyana Dam" by Katrina Koleva, who received the prize from the chairman of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Ivan Ivanov. The partner award was presented by the rector of the Moscow State University "St. Ivan Rilski" Prof. Ivaylo Koprev to Kiril Penev for the work "Windows to the Depths". The public institution award was presented to Desislava Ignatova for "The Water Walker" by the rector of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Assoc. Prof. Gichka Kutova-Kamenova.