Page 69 - bne_May magazine 2023_20230503 BRICS

bne May 2023
Opinion 69
Ukrainian army. Several went even further – fighting for Ukraine as part of the international legion there. The name of only one of them, Ivan Kalchev, is publicly known.
Kalchev, an IT expert, member of the Green Movement party and prominent civic activist, decided to go and fight for Ukraine days after the Russians invaded. He said he was fighting for Bulgaria’s and Europe’s freedom.
While in Ukraine, Kalchev occasionally posted on Facebook through trusted people in Bulgaria, inspiring his supporters. However, his posts also attracted a lot of comments from the other side of Bulgarian society wishing for his death at the front.
Bulgarian IT expert and civic activist Ivan Kalchev went to fight for Ukraine after the Russian invasion. Source: Ivan Kalchev via Facebook.
In July, Kalchev returned to Bulgaria for a ten-day leave and launched a campaign to gather funds and buy much-needed equipment for the international legion in Ukraine. The campaign was so successful that Kalchev gathered double the funds needed in just a few hours. He used the extra money to buy more equipment and launched another campaign
to raise funds for the construction of a special drone for Ukraine. That one was also successful.
Although he was running in the upcoming election as a candidate for Democratic Bulgaria, Kalchev chose to stay in Ukraine in September and participate in the liberation of Kharkiv.
At the end of September, he returned to Bulgaria, saying he is continuing the same fight in another way. While campaigning, Kalchev is also still actively helping Ukraine and fighting for other causes in Bulgaria.
The fundraisers
While few Bulgarians chose to fight in Ukraine, thousands have supported the country with funds and campaigns to buy equipment. One of them, publisher Manol Peykov, was particularly successful, inspiring thousands of people and
gathering more funds than anyone had expected. As soon as the war in Ukraine began, Peykov established contacts with people there through Ukrainian writer Khrystia Vengryniuk, who is married to a Bulgarian and went to Ukraine to help after the start of the war. Vengryniuk is part of a group that is securing equipment for soldiers. Peykov was the one gathering funds and buying the equipment in Bulgaria, as well as arranging its transportation to Ukraine.
After Russia attacked key energy infrastructure in Ukraine, leaving most of the country in the dark during the winter, it was Peykov who decided to gather funds for a few generators, after being asked for one by the theatre director Yordan Slaveykov for his friends from Ukrainian theatre. What followed was beyond any expectations – in just a few days, Peykov gathered more than half million levs for hundreds of generators, which he found a way to buy and transport to Ukraine.
Peykov claims that he was so successful because many Bulgarians have woken up and realised that it is in their power to change things. He believes that the huge donations are a signal of the birth of a strong civil society in Bulgaria.
After the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, Peykov started another campaign to gather funds and quickly acquire and send essentials to victims of the quake. He was the first to find a way to send aid to Syria in the days when transferring anything to the country was almost impossible.
That campaign was again beyond any expectations. According to Peykov, people were coming by his office all the time to leave money, clothes, tents and other equipment. After just two days, the publisher had to find a warehouse to store all the donations.
A candidate for Democratic Bulgaria in the election, Peykov is so busy with his humanitarian work he says he has no time to campaign ahead of the vote.
Publisher Manol Peykov (right) with one of the thousands of Bulgarians who supported his fundraising efforts for Ukraine. Source: Manol Peykov via Facebook.
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