BG Foreign Minister, Solomon Pasi, is going to open a monument to Captain Petko Voyvoda at the Garibaldi Hill in the centre of Rome. The idea such a monument to stand in Rome was totally Mr. Pasi's. Three weeks ago the bust-monument of the legendary Bulgarian freedom fighter, made by the sculptor Prof. Valentine Starchev, was sent to the Italian capital city. Organiser of erecting that monument in Rome is the Union of Thracian Associations in Bulgaria.
The legendary Bulgarian has devoted his life to the cause of Bulgarian Thracian territories liberation and their union with Bulgaria. Moreover, he ardently fought for the liberation of other deprived nation disregarding of their religion or ethnic origin - Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Egypt, France.
In 1866, Captain Petko Voyvoda met the great Italian Guiseppe Garibaldi and the two of them decided to organise together a 300-member fighting unit (consisting of 200 Italians and about 80 Bulgarians) to participate in the fights of yet another nation for its freedom - the Greeks, in the Crete Uprising...