The snow did not stop about four thousand people to gather late in the evening of December 31 on Alexander Batenberg Square in Sofia to see the New Year in together. Famous Bulgarian pop singers performed at the concert, aired live on the Bulgarian National Television and organized by the Sofia City Council. Some 120 policemen and two ambulances were engaged in maintaining the order. Fortunately no incidents necessitating their intervention happened. At midnight five-minute sparkling fireworks lit up the sky over the capital’s Central Square.

Sofia Opera offered to its guests a New Year gala concert presented with a glass of champagne. The program of the concert included fragments of operas, ballets and operettas by Gounod, Donizetti, Giordano, Cilea, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Cordillo, Kalman, Khachaturian, Minkus.

The participants in the traditional long-distance race Sofia – 21 century marked the beginning of the New Year in a much more competitive mood, crossing the final line of the race twenty minutes after midnight.

Hilton Sofia’s New Year’s Eve Program met the demands of all those who wanted to celebrate in style. Local elite businessmen and expatriates saw the New Year in surrounded by the glittering atmosphere of the hotel, all with a golden touch in the interior and table decoration. After midnight the Artists Bar guests enjoyed the live performance of the high-energy Latino band Latino Partizani.

Many Bulgarian sailors celebrated the New Year abroad. The sailors on ships in the Far East were the first Bulgarians to see 2002 in. Sailors on the Malyovitsa in the Pacific saw the New Year in around four p.m. Bulgarian time on December 31. The crew of the Perelik at the Port of San Francisco was the last to celebrate New Year – at ten o’clock in the morning of January 1.

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