The story of the Eco festival Koprinka started as a fairytale- because its first organizer, Raminta Krischinaite from Lithuania, was like a fairy. She came to us as a miracle during the project “Ëcology development” under Youth in Action programe. This is a person who everyone should know, and actually in Kazanlak she was famous with her good spirit. She was the main organizer of the festival. She asked us to organize it, and we gave her green light, and then we even did not understand how important and big it will become throughout the years.

It was the spring of  2011, and we started with cleaning the river Stara reka in the town. Then the festival continued in Koprinka near the dam lake. The fest was full of activities that she organized together with her mentor, the volunteer Megan Lueneburg, who was working with us during that time and was a volunteer from Peace corps from the USA.

Both Raminta and Megan organized everything completely alone without any help. The activities were a lot- workshops how to make things from nothing, riding a horse, etc; and everything was organized without any financial expenses. The participants came because they love ecology, and both Raminta and Megan attracted them for the cause.

The main idea of all activities was to attract people and to make them clean the waste from Koprinka lake. At that time the waste was in an imaginable big amount. In the course of time, the waste was less and less. Another thing: Raminta is a musician, so she was thinking as well for the people who will come to make fun during the night, and she invited some DJs to have a concert during the night. It was great event.

After that we decided to organize it every year with something new.  We received every year 12 EVS volunteers to organize the festival, and that happened during the projects “Ecology development” II and III and “Eco festival Koprinka 2015”. During the project “Ecology development II” Raminta came back from Lithiuania to help us as a mentor and organize the festival together with us. She came by her own expenses because of the festival and because of her love for Bulgaria. It was incredible! The same happened with another volunteer, Ladislav Bodnar from Slovakia, who was a volunteer during the project “A new begging” and came as a mentor of “Ecology development III“ project.

Every EVS volunteer during the years offered some ideas about how to make eco festival different than the previous ones. But the cause remained the same- to clean the dam lake and attract people to do it.

The Municipality of Kazanlak has helped us every year with support in the form of money and transportation of the collected waste. We have a common goal: to take care of nature which we help to be always clean. We want to live without any waste there. And we will do it for it every year thanks to the volunteers.