No, this is not the forth movie of the Star Wars saga! I'm here to tell you of a young Bulgarian person who I am very proud of!

His name is Vyacheslav Stoyanov (I know, it's hard to pronounce, blame it on the Slavic languages :P) and yesterday he completed his first ecomission.

In May he set off from Varna (town by the Black Sea), determined to ride through the whole Black Sea coast on his bicycle. He called this tour "a quest for garbage". He covered 5200 kilometres for 39 days, passing countries like Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia and Turkey.

Some times he was forced to travel by a ferry so that he can continue his tour. Actually, what he did wasn't quite legal because for EU citizens direct passing from Russia to Georgia is not allowed. On his way, he found more bike-riders who performed a similar eco activity. One of them was a German with whom Vyacheslav travelled through Ukraine and Georgia, both of them admiring the beauty of its wilderness but also witnessing an increasing amount of pollution. In Turkey he met a Greek guy who had the tradition of riding his bike and collecting trash in his handmade trailer. The Greek told him that, unfortunately, this job gets harder and harder as the amount of trash grows bigger.

Through his tour Vyacheslav saw places of amazing beauty, desolate beaches and grass that, as he says, grows little and you don't need to cut it, making your garden look like a well-cultivated lawn or like a Swiss mountain meadow. However, he also witness a great amount of people's neglect of the nature. He had a nasty experience with shattered glass from thrown bottles that made his tyre flat. He saw how in every country the sea coast was treated the same way - overbuilding and polluting with daily trash were taking their toll.

The saddest thing for me is that he says that the situation is worst not elsewhere but in Bulgaria. I don't know if he dared to say that just because he's a Bulgarian, and you know - it's always safer to critisize your own problems, but it made me feel bad about our culture that is so indifferent to environmental issues.

I am glad, though, he did that so that he can attract people's attention to these problems. Even if his message influenced just two or three people it's still something. I believe that the great things are accomplished through small but persistent steps.

This is a picture of him. If you are interested in his tour and want to learn more, the links below are to his official website that is, luckily, also translated in English.

http://www.vyacheslavstoyanov.com/en

In his Profile section there are some videos you can watch and also, there are some pictures of his tour in Gallery.

http://www.vyacheslavstoyanov.com/en/profile

http://www.vyacheslavstoyanov.com/en/gallery