From May 11 to 17, 2026, a group of 7 students from the Department of Social Anthropology and History, University of the Aegean, met with students from the Department of Social Anthropology of the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, in the context of the ERUA travelling seminar, which was funded by the Erasmus program for short-term studies abroad and organized by Evgenia Krasteva Blagoeva and Efi Plexousaki.
The topic of the research seminar was “Experiences of the Greek-Bulgarian border and ethnic questions in South-East Europe” and aimed at anthropological fieldwork training that focused on experiences of the Greek-Bulgarian border over time: from the closed borders of the “Cold War” to Bulgaria’s entry into the Schengen zone in 2025, with an emphasis on the border crossing at Chepinski-Dimario which officially opened in January 2026.
The team traveled from Sofia to the Smolian region and more specifically to Pomak villages at Rudozem-Chepinski on the Greek-Bulgarian border, met with residents of the area, visited public spaces and homes, crossed the Bulgarian-Greek border crossing and met with residents in the Pomak communities of Dimario, Melivoia and Echinos in Greece.
