9 November 2009 | The project to restore the ancient Thracian city of Sevtopolis from underneath the waters of the Koprinka Dam in central Bulgaria cannot proceed due to the lack of funds, Bulgarian Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, announced recently.

The project, created by architect Zheko Tilev, envisions the building of a well-like cylindrical structure in the middle of the dam, on the bottom of which the restored and conserved ancient Thracian city – flooded when the dam was built in the 1950s, would be visible.

“The Culture Ministry has never made a financial commitment to the project which relies on outside or private sponsorship,” Rashidov said. In spite of that, however, his team had analyzed the project, and had concluded that it was unrealizable for the time being. The opportunities for the project’s international financing are also limited, the Minister explained, since it does not respond to the conditions for the application to European programmes for the protection of cultural heritage.

The project might not be completely dead yet, as Rashidov pointed out that if the local community favored the Sevtopolis project, its development might be able to proceed in the future.

According to the initiative, the Valley of the Thracian kings, where the Koprinka Dam is located and which boasts a number of Thracian tombs, can not be presented at it’s full without it’s capital, the city of Sevtopolis – the only uncovered and preserved Thracian city of this scope. Tilev’s architectural project, which involves uncovering 50,510 square metres of the city by removing 3,700,000 cubic metres of water and building a circular form with an outside diameter of 420 meters, has an estimated value of between 80 and 85 million euro.

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