RETAIL PARK OPEN DOORS
Retail Park Veliko Turnovo was officially inaugurated on March 29 by Veliko Turnovo’s regional governor Toshko Nikiforov and local officials. The biggest retail park in the area features the first hypermarket of the CBA Asset Management chain in the city as well as Technomarket, Danish homeware retailer JYSK, Praktiker and a number of other retail chains. The park is on the Sofia-Varna road.

DIGITAL VELIKO TURNOVO
US company Tele Atlas will soon offer a digital map of Veliko Turnovo’s streets and sights. A company’s team has been taking visuals of the city for a week and the product will soon be offered to clients, local Borba daily said.

WAXING TSAREVETS
The Tsarevets fortress historical complex will have its own wax figures, in the spirit of those at Madam Tussauds museum, in an attmept to boost tourism in Veliko Turnovo. The figures will show how Bulgaria’s nobles looked 600 years ago.

NEW BUNGEE RECORD SET
A new national bungee jumping record was set on March 22 to 23 in Veliko Turnovo. A total of 661 bungee jumps were performed by 360 people over a period of 24 hours. The jumps were organised by Adrenaline Club. Last year the number of jumps completed was 434. Adrenaline has been organising the event for five consecutive years.

TELEPHONE SCAMS
Fourteen people who committed fraud through telephone calls were arrested on March 29. They acted from Veiko Turnovo, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Pavlikeni targeting people living in Plovdiv. Most of their victims were elderly people. The 14 presented themselves as lawyers and asked the elderly people for money so that their relatives could be bailed out. The “lawyers” made about 18 000 leva a day.

BUDGET 2008
The budget of Veliko Turnovo municipality for 2008 was set at 49 million leva, or 125 000 leva more than it was in 2007. All of the city’s 34 municipal councillors voted for the mayor’s draft budget.

STREET CIRCUIT
After a 30-year break, Veliko Turnovo had its first street race on March 30 when the Veliko Turnovo 2600-metre-long circuit was inaugurated. More than 60 teams took part in the race on the city’s streets, applauded by tens of thousands of spectators. Local team Etar Racing hosted the event, won by Georgi Tanev with Subaru Impreza, Iliya Tsarski with Mitsubishi Lancer EVO9 and Roumen Dounev with Renault Clio c160.