The Japanese embassy in Bulgaria marked, on December 4 2008, the conclusion of a project it supported to preserve monuments of culture in the Old Town of Plovdiv. Funding came from a UNESCO-Japan custodial fund.

Present at the Thursday ceremony, held at the Balabanova Kushta, were Japanese ambassador to Bulgaria Tsuneharu Takeda, UNESCO Venice office head Marie-Paule Roudi, Plovdiv Regional Governor Todor Petkov and ICOMOS Bulgaria director Hristina Staneva, among others, a statement from the embassy read.

Preserving a nation's historical and cultural monuments is important for a nation's and a society's identity, the embassy wrote, yet their survival is in many cases threatened due to lack of care. It was such that led Japan to create the UNESCO-Japan custodial fund in 1989, which serves to help protect and care for monuments of culture in countries around the world, while also educating local populations in related methods and skills. Until October 2007, the fund had served to restore 32 projects in 25 countries, totalling more than US$51.4 million.

In Bulgaria, the first such initiative was the Old Plovdiv architectural-historic reserve, started in August 2003; the goal was  to research, restore and preserve seven houses in the Bulgarian Revival style - the Bakalova, the Georgiadi, the Klianti, the Nedkovich, the Hindelian, the Hishanyan and the Stambolian. Funding also went to the holding of expert-level seminars, the encouraging the interest of youth in cultural monuments and the publishing of findings.

From September 2003 to December 2007, $999 738 went into the project, which was managed by Plovdiv municipality's institute Starinen Plovdiv and by ICOMOS Japan-Bulgaria.

Japan has a history of supporting various cultural initiatives in the country, including the annual Weeks of Japanese Culture in Bulgaria, donating computer lab supplies and Japanese language curriculum to a Sofia high school, and donating medical equipment to hospitals.