After mounting a staircase
of about 80 steps and struggling with the cobbled pavement
you find yourself in front of a small but long-lived building.
This is "Victoria and Kirkor Tiutiundgian" Primary
School in Plovdiv - a school where ethnical understanding
reigns. There are students of Armenian and Bulgarian parentage.
We have classes in our native language four times a week
but it is never enough for us.
We also have a newspaper - "Aip pen kim" (the
first three letters of our alphabet) where we put different
students' works, opinions and suggestions. We have a vocal
group with a rich repertoire of Armenian songs.
* * *
We are from the Balkan School where we study Balkan
languages, mainly Greek and Turkish. The different exchange
programs with other schools abroad expand our knowledge
of the other ethnos. In that way we trespass the boundary
of ethnical prejudice.
Talking about the Balkan School we have to say that
it is still a toddler- there are no people who have
graduated yet and we are just about 90 students. In
spite of that what distinguishes our school is its ethnical
variety -except the predominating Bulgarian students
there are also Greek, Turkish and Serbian ones, a Russian
and a Polish one.
* * *
A school building is situated in the heart of the little
town called Momchilgrad which is almost always sunny.
The name of our school is "Nikola Jonkov Vaptzarov".
There are more than 700 people studying in it. They
love their school and consider it their second home.
There is a language class in which you can enroll after
7th grade. There are also a mathematical and a biological
ones where students are accepted after their 8th grade.
Those who will soon graduate say that they will really
miss their "second home". Laughingly they
say it looks like "a small village" because
of the gossip which is getting about so fast.
* * *
We are students from the Technical school for Production
Technologies in Lom, founded two years ago. It is one
of the most preferred schools in the municipality because
of its range of subjects - appliances, clothing design,
auto mechanics etc. The school disposes of a well -
equipped base for training. There is a radio program
in our school. We recently opened a media center called
"Omega".
* * *
It is smiling in spite of its 90 years of age. It is
situated on "Pirotska" Street, one of the
oldest and most picturesque streets of Sofia. The school
is built in the year 1912 on the project of the architect
Kiril Marichkov.
In 1992 it was renovated with the support of "Ronald
Lauder" foundation, which is founded in 1987 in
Vienna. The foundation endorses projects concerning
Jewish education, history and traditions in 15 other
countries.
In Bulgaria it is only our school where the language
spoken in Israel - Jewish - is studied.
Here in "Dimcho Debelianov" 134 Primary School,
Sofia, we are from different ethnos and cultures. We
are Jewish, Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Jewish, Gipsy, Korean
and a black kid. We do not separate. When we work or
play nobody cares of the origin of the other.
It is five years now since there has been a newspaper
in our school - "Where, when, what". There
are school news, information about sports competitions,
about Jewish and Bulgarian holidays and customs, about
exciting events.
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