ROADS to the Sustainable Tourism

The project is built over two major objectives: to improve capacity in the field of culture and tourism in the cross-border region through large investment in vital improvements of 2 key tourist sites, namely Fortress Rusokastro and Rock monastery St.Nicolas - Kıyıköy; to improve the public access to the common cultural-historical heritage on both sides of the border bearing common history.

The main project activities are Construction of an access road to the cultural historical heritage site Fortress Rusokastro in Bulgaria and reconstruction of an access road to the cultural historical heritage site St. Nikola Monastery, Kıyıköy, Turkey. Joint Promotional Event "Ancient Roads Leading to Nature, Culture and History" will be held in Kiyikoy.

As a result of the implementation of the project the common cultural heritage in the cross border region will be popularised and the tourist potential and knowledge of the two cultural heritage sites will be increased.

Project status: Finished

The project that established a close partnership between two small municipalities in the cross-border region Bulgaria – Turkey, whoworked together to increase and promote the tourist attractiveness of their two most important cultural heritage sites - the Medieval Fortress Rusokastro in Kameno Municipality and Rock Monastery St. Nicola in Kıyıköy.

The 18 months implementation time was marked by the COVID-19 crisis, which caused huge damages on the tourist sector worldwide. Nonetheless, the partners continued with the implementation of the activities. Kıyıköy managed to reconstruct the last 400 m road network and completed the whole connection from the fortress wall gates to the monastery providing pedestrian and vehicle access to it. Kameno Municipality built 1 082m long access road between the new recreation zone and the fortress Rusokastro. In the last months of the project the partners focused on the creation and promotion of a joint tourist product. They exchanged visits and advertisement materials when the restrictions ended.