Help Vitalize Nine Bulgarian Villages

This year's fest is over. The sky is blue, the rain has packed its bags for other geographic latitudes, and the villages in the Devetaki Plateau are quiet again. This quietness, though, is heavily loaded with emotions, with the memory of the fairy Saturday night - the night of the Jazz Under The Stars of The Devetaki Plateau. The evening when music and human warmth tamed the storm and overcame the rain. The evening when we were tramping in the mud but our souls were in Heaven. 

The seventh edition of our initiative Jazz Under The Stars of The Devetaki Plateau gathered over 2000 people from all around Bulgaria - music and nature lovers, local people, adventurers, families with their kids, youngsters, photographers, and... incredibly good musicians! When we started preparing for the event, we had a whole week of heavy rains. Our team had to adapt and plan for Jazz under the RAIN instead... So, we decided to organize the event in the yard of the former village school in Karpachevo, in order to secure some shelter for the audience. And we had to find a covered stage to shelter the musicians. Fast reactions, brave decisions were needed, and... more resoures. 

Thanks to all our GlobalGiving donors, we raised over USD 2400 that helped us cover these costs: we hired a professional, roofed stage, lights and sound, and we were able to invite the musicians on stage! As a result, we had 20 professional musicians - all of them stars, perform in our fest! And the greatest stars of all - the incredible, cosmopolitan, world-famous jazz-singer Yildiz Ibrahimova sang with all her enormous heart... in our little village!

This was undoubtedly the greatest, the most visited event ever organized in this part of the country! Music, dances, hugs and tears of joy regined all night in the old village schoolyard. Local people and guests to the region were sitting together, listening, talking, enjoying the magic of the athmosphere.

Hundreds of social media posts and photos, radio interviews and publications followed the spellbinding night; people from near and far were talking about our event, and more important, about our Devetaki Plateau villages! We are grateful to all our sponsors, friends, volunteers, to the musicians who dared step on the slippery stage and sang, and played their hearts out! 

Thanks to you all, life is slowly coming back to our tiny villages; Bulgaria and the Global world know more about them; new energy is being generated. We are firmly convinced we have started in the right direction to revive these Bulgarian villages and we hope we will continue on this way together, be it in sun or in rain!