The National Museum of Natural History, Sofia takes part in the European Night of Museums

On 13 May 2023, from 18:00 to 23:30, the National Museum of Natural History in Sofia (NMNHS) traditionally took part in the European Night of Museums.

In the museum premises at 1, Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd, visitors could see the permanent exhibition displaying representative collections of the Earth’s biological and mineralogical diversity, as well as the only samples in Bulgaria taken from the Moon and meteorite findings from Mars. The highlight of the event was the temporary exhibition in the series #SEETHEUNSEEN: The Dawn of Humanity, which dwells on a new hypothesis, according to which the humankind took its first steps in the Balkans.

This year, the branch of NMNHS in Asenovgrad — Dimitar Kovachev Palaeontological Museum, took part in the European Night of Museums for the first time. The museum was open from 16:00 to 22:00 and visitors could see the unique finds of fossil fauna found in Bulgaria and dating back to more than 8 million years ago — Proboscidea, Carnivora, Miohippus (three-toed horses) and other animal specimens in the permanent exhibition. For the youngest nature lovers there was a meeting organised with the main character of Emilia Zafiraki’s book “Vitan the Frog”. Ms Slavena Shekerletova read the story — which is in rhymes and prose, full of scientific facts and illustrations — instilling her presentation with humour and kindness.

Every visitor of the two museums in Sofia and Asenovgrad got a free collection of COSMOS magazine issues, kindly provided by the magazine’s editorial office.

For the first time, NMNHS, together with the Society of Animalists, Florists and Scientific Illustrators (SAFSI), took part in the European Night of Museums with a guest event. On 12 May 2023, in the Archaeological Department of the Historical Museum in Karnobat Vladimir Nikolov’s palaeoart exhibition Moments in Time: Walking with Dinosaurs was presented. It included 16 large-format prints of works created over the past 9 years and realised with different artistic techniques. After the official opening of the exhibition, Vladimir Nikolov gave a lecture on Dinosaurs in Bulgaria: Significance and History of Research as part of the activities under NMNHS’s project From Dinosaurs to the Earliest Human Ancestors: Fundamental Studies of Milestones in the History of Fauna and the Past of the Humankind, financed by the Scientific Research Fund.

Denitsa Peneva from SAFSI held a workshop called How to Create a Scientific Illustration. Bird Drawing.

The guest event took place at the initiative of Dr Rossitsa Hristova, director of the Historical Museum — Karnobat, with the support of Karnobat Municipality.