The unprecedented case for Bulgaria with the six deaths near Petrohan and Okolchitsa continues to raise questions to which society expects answers. The names of donors to the association connected to Ivaylo Kalushev's group have also emerged in the public domain. One of them is the mayor of Sofia Vasil Terziev, who spoke on the show “120 minutes“ on bTV.
“No one has called yet“ – This is how the mayor of Sofia responded to a question about whether he had already been called to testify and explain the circumstances under which he made the donations to the association.
Even when the first bodies were discovered near the former “Petrohan” hut, Terziev publicly stated that he knew all three men.
“At that moment, it was also unclear what the fate of the other three was. I have met all six of them, some more often than others. We met in the fall of 2022 somewhat by chance - one evening I met a friend of mine in a large company, he saw that I was tired and suggested that we go up to the mountain and said that there were friends there, at the hut. That's basically how our acquaintance began,“ he said.
So he goes from Sofia to Petrohan for the weekend. Ivaylo Kalushev, Ivaylo Ivanov, Plamen Stattev and Decho Vassilev were there. There were no other guests.
„In order for me to join their cause of protecting the mountain and wild animals, they clearly made a good enough impression on me about how they came to do it, their life path, the story that was presented to me“, the Sofia mayor also says.
And he specified that everything he conveys are his personal impressions:
„I try not to build any hypotheses, there are authorities who have to give many answers, there are a lot of conspiracies that point towards both suicide and murder, I would not like to comment on these things, rather a personal perspective – what I saw“.
He described the group of three he met at the hut as “a well-knit team“.
“You could feel that Ivaylo Kalushev and Ivaylo Ivanov were like that, higher up in the hierarchy. You can feel it, I don't know how to describe it to you, the others listen to them. But what you could see was that they were very disciplined and organized – they were doing their job, making their rounds, making observations, everyone was dealing with what they had as maintenance tasks“, he said.
Asked if he had seen young men or children in their company, he said:
“I saw young men, children, much later. One of them was the aforementioned Alex, but first I saw Nikolay Zlatkov, who also made a very good impression on me. What I can say about all of them - extremely erudite, well-read, interesting interlocutors, very modest and humble. I was impressed by both Alex and Niki, what thick books they emphasized - classical literature in English, things related to science, philosophy, a very wide range of books“.
A year later, he was asked by the association to make the first donation - specifying the exact amount and the reason for the donation.
“They asked me, a year later I think it was. They explained to me what they needed. During that time, I went to the hut, we rode motorcycles, we made tours in their all-terrain jeep to show me the forests, the water catchment. I think we've met a total of 9-10 times since 2022 until the last time," he said.
“Over the years, I have donated millions of my money with taxes paid on it to all kinds of causes. For health, for education, for when there were natural disasters, for hospitals, for churches - the range of things I have supported is very large. It's just that right now it's in sight and the question that arises is “why did I only support this and not solve other problems“ -on the contrary, I have solved a lot, and I have also given specific examples of some of the many things I have supported“, Terziev explained.
“Both as a donor and as an investor, I have supported hundreds of people. Some of them I have not judged well, some of them have disappointed me. But when you make a donation, you have the conviction that what you have seen is good enough to deserve your attention“, he added.
According to him, he has donated funds to other NGOs that deal with nature conservation, but “there was no other organization that had the ambitions to introduce rangers in Bulgaria“.
However, a bTV investigation shows that Ivaylo Kalushev's organization declared significantly less money as donations - 59 thousand leva. This makes it clear that at least Vasil Terziev's donation was certainly not declared in its entirety.
„Most likely because it was transferred to Ivaylo Ivanov. That was the request. I asked them (why they want a donation to a personal bank account – ed.) and the answer was satisfactory. What can I tell you, you can't get back time“, explained the Sofia mayor.
He denied knowing about signals and inspections to fence off land that was state property and to limit tourists' access to the Petrokhan hut.
„What was visible was how they fenced it with what they fenced off sheep and cows with. Their property was fenced off like that, I suppose, so that animals and people who weren't invited wouldn't come in. But these things that are being talked about, how they were heavily armed to the teeth, I've never seen that. "I've never seen any of them with a weapon," he added.
See what else the Sofia mayor said in the video attached to the article.