The project was approved for funding by the Scientific Research Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science in 2024 and started in early 2025. The main organization and coordinator of the project is the Institute of Balkan Studies and Center of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBCT-BAS). The partner organizations, in addition to the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IICT-BAS), are the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (UACEG) and the Regional Historical Museum – Sofia (RHM-Sofia). The main goal of the project is to create and present new knowledge about the past of Sofia in the period from its declaration as the capital until World War II. The activities are divided into two stages that are interrelated.
During the first stage, original documentary materials from various archives are being collected and cataloged, guaranteeing the reliability and originality of the research.
In the second stage, in order to “revive” the history of the city, there will be presented not only iconic sites for the capital, but also the people and events associated with them. The task of the project is to synchronize and connect text, 3D model and images in an appropriate multimodal structure. A conceptual model will also be developed in which the various components will be connected in the Bulgarian Knowledge graph with the help of The BTB-Wordnet. The project ideologically emerged from the CLaDA-BG framework, extending further the integrated research of old Sofia. CLaDA-BG supports the project with the available language technologies and resources.
The project involves various types of specialists who reflect its interdisciplinary nature. From IICT-BAS the participants include: specialists dealing with language technologies and 3D modeling. The main architect of the Oborishte district – Vladimir Kolev – also takes part in the project.
