The exhibition “The Bulgarian Lands and Modern Statistics” is jointly organised by the National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” and the National Statistical Institute (NSI). The exhibition displayed on 13 exhibition panels is tracing the development of statistics in Bulgaria before and after the Liberation by means of Ottoman archival documents, the official Ottoman press, and Bulgarian National Revival publications. According to Dr. Nevena Gramatikova, Archivist at the Oriental Collections Department of the National Library, these documents contain a wealth of statistical data and materials and testify to the importance attached to statistics both by the Ottoman administration and by Bulgarian National Revival leaders.
At the opening ceremony, Dr. Vanya Avramova, Deputy Director of the National Library, emphasized the fact that the statistics roots in the Bulgarian lands precede the Liberation of Bulgaria and can be traced in historical registers, inventories, and administrative records. Dr. Avramova highlighted the contribution of the Bulgarian National Revival intellectuals, who recognized the importance of statistical information for the development of society.
The President of the National Statistical Institute, Assoc. Prof. Atanas Atanasov, PhD, presented the valuable documents and publications from the collections of the National Library and the NSI featured in the exhibition. These include early population and property registers, statistical yearbooks of the Danube Vilayet, materials on agriculture, trade, and crafts, as well as Decree No. 296 of 25 June 1880, by which Prince Alexander I of Battenberg established the official statistical institution in Bulgaria.
The exhibition “The Bulgarian Lands and Modern Statistics” presents a curious fact that the rose oil was a strategic raw material in the foreign trade of the Principality of Bulgaria at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.
Prof. Senya Petrova Terzieva-Zhelyazkova, PhD, Eng., Deputy Minister of Education and Science, congratulated Bulgarian statisticians on the occasion of their professional holiday and addressed the participants in the European Statistics Competition with the words: “The truth lies in the numbers.”
The opening of the documentary exhibition was followed by the award ceremony for the winners of the 2026 European Statistics Competition, which was hosted in Bulgaria for the first time. The competition this year registered a record number of participants – more than 28 000 students from 22 countries; coming from over 2000 educational institutions were divided into 9000 teams. The winning team in the age category 14-16 was from Cyprus and the one in the age category 16-18 was from Greece.
Mrs. Mariana Kotzeva, Director-General of Eurostat, stressed the importance of statistical literacy for young people and expressed her gratitude to the National Library for hosting the event.
The European Statistics Competition was launched on the initiative of the National Statistics Institute of Spain. This year’s edition hosted by the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria is included in the Annual Activities Calendar of Eurostat.