Programme: Rural Development Programme

The idea of the project is to extend the activity of the community centre in the field of traditions and folklore, which has so far been an accent in its work. Folk dance and singing group has been created long ago by our villager the piper Nikola Ganchev. Now we are reviving this activity and again we have a functioning female folk singing group and a dance mix in the Community centre. With the money from the project we want to buy folk costumes, the lack of which greatly hinders our work. We really need our own sound system. The beauty of the Thracian costume with elements of the local authentic costume and a fine sound system will stimulate more young people to get enthusiastic and to join the unique Bulgarian traditions and folklore. We will focus on the local song art bequeathed to us by our ancestors. There will be songs on the stage that have been sung in the past by our mothers and grandmothers, wich recall rituals from the art. We will attract new audiences and new people seeking the scene of self - expression of their talents. We will provide better conditions for the development of the Cultural Centre. We will increase the quality and quantity of the events with such patriotic orientation, so we could leave to the generations behind us a revived and further developed indentity. After each event that is significant for the village we will be able to present as a present and remembrance from the village of our guests - a book with its past history and present time " Shishmantzi in the past and today ". It will become a calling card in our village. It is a good and patriotic work that the materials available for its story are to be arranged, collected and processed in such a book that will pass them onto the generations after us. Everything we do to preserve this local indentity is also important because we have an impressive minority of Roma people to whom this idea is foreign, and it is required hard work, if we want them to get more involved.