It was very late one night my freshman year, several years ago. I was in my dorm room in my college in New England doing a bit of research for a presentation on my native country, Bulgaria, that I was about to give in class.

The presentation was supposed to feature some basic stuff about Bulgaria's post-communist transition, and I was surfing the Internet trying to find some decent materials in English. This was the first time I discovered Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) – a Bulgarian English-language online media!

Back then Novinite.com had been around for a couple of years – but I do remember the moment I came across it because I was pretty startled to find out that Bulgaria has come as far ahead in its integration into the global economy as to have a quality online news agency in English.

I had been struggling for a few months with explaining to my American and international classmates all kinds of things about Bulgaria and I was truly delighted and pleasantly surprised to discover that someone in Sofia had started a Bulgarian online news agency in English, with online newspapers, The Sofia Morning News and The Sofia Weekly, which was created later, and that there was a team of journalists and web support guys out there committed to explaining and presenting Bulgaria to the world!

That night I subscribed for The Sofia Morning News and started to follow on and off, as much as my busy curriculum allowed me, the Bulgarian news and developments and world and regional headlines on Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency).

Little did I know at the time that in a few years I would be so lucky and honored as to become a part of the Novinite.com team and of its tradition, and to work every day and every minute to present Bulgarian and global news and views to readers from around the world!

When I joined the team of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) three years ago, I was incredibly excited because I realized how amazingly interesting, and, what is more, how truly important is the service that this media provides.

Today, as Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) is celebrating its 10th birthday, on March 11, 2011, I am even more excited as now I do know for sure how appreciated and important our work is for many thousands of people around the world, and for Bulgaria as a whole: in a nutshell, because we constantly strive to be a bridge between Bulgaria and its region, and the rest of the world.

Bulgaria nowadays still remains much of an island, figuratively speaking, in the globalization whirlpool. It is still fairly unknown globally, and its economic, political, and cultural life is not as integrated in Europe and in the global context yet as it is supposed to be for the benefit of its people and people from the entire region and the world.

Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and its structures, the COMECON and the Warsaw Pact, Bulgaria's borders – and the borders in the Balkans, for that matter – remain fairly closed and impenetrable – there aren't even enough border crossings, roads, highways, railways, and ports, to say the least.

However, in the past decade – the first decade of the 21st century and of the third millennium, Bulgaria and Southeast Europe have made some pretty amazing progress towards being a lot more opened to the world, and towards democracy, civil society, and prosperity driven by a market economy; among other things, Bulgaria first joined NATO and then made it into the EU. Ten years ago, in 2001, when Novinite.com was born, it was still hard to imagine that in 2011 Bulgaria will be where it is today.

And Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) has covered for you every minute of this crucial decade!

Yet, exciting as the past 10 years have been, I am now even more excited about our work at Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) than ever before. Why?

It is because I do believe that Bulgaria does have the potential to be an European and international hub of economic progress and sustainable development, democracy, education, and science, a country whose unique culture, heritage, and history are yet to made known to the world, and that can stand up as an advocate of a peace, international cooperation, and a just world order.

I do think that Sofia will be an increasingly important city as Southeast Europe is becoming more and more integrated in a win-win situation for all people and nations in the region and beyond. And I am convinced it is crucial for us to continue to provide for you even more in-depth coverage from the heart of the Balkans the exciting developments yet to come.

In doing this, Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) has strived – and will strive to be as objective as possible and to be "subjective" in the best way possible – that is, by bringing to your attention unique Bulgarian and international points of view, and leaving it up to you to make your own mind.

Being an online English-language media does give us a global reach but it also places in the toughest spot of the cut-throat competition of the global media environment. In this new Global Age era when everyone is online and everyone is a journalist, more or less, this obliges us to strive to live up to the top media standards – in the very least because the moment we commit a mistake, we will be exposed by our tireless and watchful readers.

We take pride in what we do – in the service that we provide for you – because thanks to you, our readers, wherever you might be, we have been breaking news and making opinions for 10 years now! And thanks to you we have emerged as one of the most important Bulgarian media.

In the past three years since I started presiding over the team of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) we have managed to double the number of unique visits on our real-time news website, and to more than double the number of page views. I am convinced that is due both to the deepening commitment on part of our Publishing and Editorial Team, and to the fact that Bulgaria and Southeast Europe are become more and more interesting and attractive for the rest of the world. I like to think that our media has contributed a bit to this development!

None of this would have been possible without you – our readers – whose support and criticism we appreciate more than anything else in the world! Please stay committed to us the way we are committed to you! Always feel free to share with us what you think of our work, and to share with everyone your views on the news!

None of this would have been possible without our team – the incredibly energetic founder and publisher of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) Maxim Behar, the teacher of scores of Bulgarian journalists in the environment of free and democratic media, who back in 2001, an entire decade ago, had the wit and the courage to start a Bulgarian English-language real-time online media;

Milena Hristova, who has been with Novinite.com since its start, and who welcomed me to the team, and has generously taught me so much!; our senior editor Maria Guineva with her selfless commitment, not unlike our editors and staff writers Valeriya Krasteva, Nikola Petrov, and Ognyan Kassabov; our tireless and omnipotent Web Director Milena Trapcheva, and web developers Zdravko Siderov and Martin Tsanchev; our ingenious web designer Todor Andonov; our accountant and legal advisor Ivanka Puncheva; our media group executives Michael Behar and Nikolay Nikolov, among others.

This is me saying my sincere thanks to all of you!

As we are celebrating the 10th birthday of our media, we are truly saddened that the first Editor-in-Chief of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency), Martina Iovcheva, who passed away in 2008, is not with us. May she rest in peace!

As we are looking into the future, in the weeks and months to come we are going to present to you current stories and selections from our archives to look deeper into where we stand today and into what the past decade was like.

As a truly international civil society is taking shape in Europe and around the world, we will strive to live up to its expectations to be best of our abilities! Stay with us during the second decade of Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) which we hope will be even more exciting and filled with good news! We are going to be with you every minute of it!

Ivan Dikov

Editor-in-Chief

Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency)

The Sofia Morning News

The Sofia Weekly