Urban Project in Rural Crisis: Responding to Coronavirus in Bulgarian Villages

The unprecedented situation of COVID-19 has created a unique response from village-based projects in rural Bulgaria. My research 2019-2020 followed three that facilitate urban-rural intergenerational connection as form reinvestment. With project planning uncertain and interactions between generations discouraged due to the pandemic, my research, cultural work I am following, took an unexpected turn. Rather than fulfilling their core missions connecting young old, urban people together pass on culture, these transformed rhetoric practices support elderly time crisis. By drawing experiences field throughout Bulgaria’s early onset pandemic lockdown measures well “virtual ethnography” (being virtual spaces where communication online events are happening), explore how two aimed at heritage-based reinvestment Bulgaria have adapted organized fill different needs During coronavirus served well-poised mechanism for responding quickly shifting contexts.