German Embassy

Germany's cultural presence in Bulgaria was fixed by a 1988 agreement between the two states on an exchange of cultural institutes, under which the Goethe-Institut opened in Sofia on 1 May 1989 — the first Western cultural institute in the country. The embassy works through it: concerts, exhibitions, film series, seminars and festivals, with touring German ensembles finding a large audience in the years right after 1989. Outside Sofia the mission also lends its name to municipal festive concerts, as it did in Rousse in October 2006.