Bridge generations, building resilient communities

Hello, dear Baba Supporter!

Happy new Springtime and once again - I hope you read this letter in good health and abundance!

 

Our Baba Residence journey took a new experimental direction, as you know, the last year with the goal (until June 2025) to have formed:

a Platform for rural experiences (naselo.bg - not launched yet), tours and workshops, led by local people in the three Wallachian villages Deleyna, Koshava and Yasen, accompanied by beautifully designed (by Maria Valkova and Inna Pavlova) physical map;

BabaPhone with stories from the three villages - physical installations in these villages, from which one can actually listen to local stories, told by local inhabitants;

Tours and workshops related to our favourite jhugravels (colourful patterns from the interiors of Wallachian houses)

Chest for local stories and treasures - a physical mobile chest for exhibiting local treasures, related to the cultural heritage;

Children's playground with elements from local traditional dresses - in Deleyna village.

We spent a few days in February in community and personal meetings in the three villages Deleyna, Yasen and Koshava with many of the 2024 residents to present those ideas for experiences and artworks related to local cultural treasures that had already been formed and prototyped.

This stage was most pivotal and led to the natural selection determining the course of experiences and products that were truly meaningful to put into action. Those that have the potential to bring lasting good to local residents and, most importantly, have a leading role in them - by leading experiences, tours, telling their own story and sharing their local treasures. In addition to this they will earn an honest extra income. All of this can be summed up in categories such as community and creative tourism, community-led tourism... for us, the urge has evolved over time to assist locals to improve their quality of life and that of their village by sharing what they value most - their stories and their cultural heritage.

We have received constructive and immediate feedback, verbal and written, and many suggestions for improvements to some of the physical features of the sites. We received sincere questions and genuine bewilderment about some of the quirks.

 

If you want to be part of the first group of people which will experience all the mentioned above rural tours and wonders, let us know with an answer to this letter and we will get in touch with you in May!

You can also subscribe to our newsletter (in Bulgarian), by clicking HERE.

 

Thank you for your resilient support

Yours faithfully,

Yoana and Ideas Factory team