Brazil President to Visit Her Father Hometown in Bulgaria in Oct

Brazil`s President, Dilma Rousseff, speaks during a rally to support the government`s plans to tackle poverty, in Brasilia, Brazil in August 2011. EPA/BGNES

Brazil's Bulgaria-descended President Dilma Rousseff will visit the architectural-ethnographic complex Etara, near the central city of Gabrovo, during her upcoming trip her father's native country.

The news was announced by the Mayor of Gabrovo, Nikolay Sirakov, cited by the Bulgarian Monitor daily.

Rousseff will be in Bulgaria on October 5th and 6th.

The Mayor further says the exact arrival time of the Brazilian President in Gabrovo would not be announced until the last moment over security reasons, while the trip to Etara, Bulgaria's only open-air museum would still depend on the decision of higher-ups. The Gabrovo City Hall is still searching for a gift for Rousseff, but they know they want to get "something symbolic, to take her away from her busy daily agenda and bring her back to Gabrovo."

The History Museum in the city is organizing an exhibit dedicated to Brazil's Head of State. Despite her short visit, while in Gabrovo, she will meet with relatives of her father Petar Rousseff and if there is time - with common people for a lunch with traditional Bulgarian food.

In Sofia, Rousseff has on her agenda official meetings with Bulgarian counterpart, Georgi Parvanov, on whose invitation she is travelling to Bulgaria and with Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, who secured her visit around New Years while in Brazil for her inauguration.

On September 2, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov met his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota and confirmed Rousseff will visit Bulgaria soon, but no official date was set then.

Dilma Vana Rousseff was born on December 14, 1947, in Belo Horizonte, in the family of Bulgarian immigrant Petar Rusev (1900-1962), aka Pedro Rousseff, a lawyer and construction entrepreneur, and Dilma Jane Silva, a school teacher whose parents were ranchers.

Her sister Zana Lucia died in 1977 at the age of 26. Dilma's brother Igor Rousseff is a lawyer. Dilma's Bulgarian father, Petar Rusev, died in 1962 when she was 15.

In 2003, Brazilian President Lula surprisingly chose Dilma for Minister of Energy. She became most famous for implementing a program called "Electricity for All" designed to bring electric power to households of Brazil's underdeveloped and remote regions, and was later picked to be his Chief of Staff.

Dilma has become the first female head of government in the history of Brazil, and the first de facto female head of state since the death of Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1816.

Even though her country's economy has slowed down after the boom in the years of her predecessor, Lula da Silva, Rousseff still enjoys a good deal of support and is considered to be one of the world's most influential women.

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