Years ago Hristo Iliev was on his way to becoming one of the young people who decided to flee Bulgaria and “save” himself. Instead of going to Western Europe, however, he decided he wanted to become a super hero and save his home city, instead. Christo came up with the idea, while he was a student in Spain. He returned home and together with his friends launched the "Save Sofia" citizens’ initiative a year ago. They are young and active. They do not like sitting around and just complaining about existing problems. Their mission is to fight problems in the capital city and they are determined to win. It all began in 2009 when enthusiasts create "Save the Metro" - an initiative specifically targeted at the third line of the underground railway system in Sofia. According to them, the route was not designed to be comfortable enough for passengers. The mission was successful and the project for the line was changed, providing links to the other metro lines. Hristo told us about other successful projects.

"One of our biggest successes was placing new visual information signs in the metro stations. Now they indicate the next stops in a given direction. Head of Metropolitan, Mr. Bratoev, agreed to put these signs and this is just the beginning. We are to update the rest of the visual information, too. Another of our successes are the coloured guiding lines at the airport showing travellers where they can reach the metro or bus or where they can take a taxi. The project was completed in the past summer. We actually offered 6 projects to the airport and one of them was selected, so we are proud to contribute to the development of urban environment in Sofia."

Currently the young people have been working on a number of other projects for creating more bus lanes, introduction of night bus services, electronic public transport tickets allowing people to change lines within a period of 90 minutes, etc. They have ideas for the construction of key intersections, and for saving public transport lines that may be closed.

Save Sofia also fights for the introduction of strict control over the quality of implementation of urban environment projects.

"This is one of the most visible problems in the capital city – newly finished projects that are already crumbling apart. A number of streets and boulevards that were repaired are already in bad condition and this is a problem that plagues all projects in the city. This is a complex problem that is also related to design, construction, supervision and maintenance. For example, the archaeological works around the Serdika metro station are done by the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality stands idly watching. We want it to take a more serious and responsible role and to protect the interests of local residents and restore the ancient ruins in a sensible way.”

The young man also says communication with the Sofia Municipality is difficult and the answers received are mixed. The enthusiasts devote a lot of their time to the cause and finance their activities independently. They resent inaction and overlooking surrounding problems. Hristo is not satisfied with the fact that Sofia is lagging behind in development not only in comparison to some European cities, but also to Bulgarian ones. According to the young man, cities like Plovdiv and Burgas pay more attention to protecting their cultural heritage. Anyone can join "Save Sofia" and learn about future projects on the Facebook page of the initiative or the web platform spasisofia.org.

Hristo believes that results will be greater if young people realised that they are the ones who bring change and that sometimes the rocky path might lead to a beautiful place.

English: Alexander Markov