Bulgarian Diplomats Evacuated from Russia to Arrive Home Sunday

A photograph made available on 06 August 2010 shows local residents and an Orthodox priest praying for an end to the forest fires in the village of Kriusha (270 km south-east of Moscow), Ryazan region, 05 August 2010. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The first group of employees of the Bulgarian Embassy in Moscow and their families will arrive back home in Bulgaria Sunday night.

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry announced earlier on Sunday that it was going to evacuate most of its staff from the Russian capital as a result of the environmental situation in Russia resulting from the raging wildfires.

The first group of 16 people is arriving in Sofia with a regular flight of Bulgaria Air in the evacuation, which was organized in just a few hours. A second group of 9 persons will come back to Bulgaria on Monday.

A minimal number of Bulgarian diplomatic staff will remain in Moscow including several persons who were eligible to be evacuated but decided to stay, announced Bulgaria's Ambassador to Russia, Plamen Grozdanov.

Grozdanov has told the Bulgarian National Radio that no Bulgarians working and living in Russia have asked the Embassy for help as a result of the situation with the forest fires.

95 top Bulgarian firemen have been sent to Russia to help putting out the forest and peat fires.

The press secretary of the diplomatic mission of Bulgaria to Russia Vera Shatilova, has announced that there is no improvement of the situation in Moscow yet.

Shatilova has explained that the Bulgarian firefighters have been divided in two groups, 30-40 km apart. One has been sent to Noginsk, and the other – to Orekhovo-Zuyevo.

Earlier, Poland, Austria and Canada have announced they have withdrawn a large number of their diplomats in Moscow because of the think smog caused by the wildfires in Russia.

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