Burgas mayor Dimitar Nikolov picked up three awards at this year's "Mayor of the Year" ceremony, winning in the "Investment and growth", "Smart city" and "Health and demographic policy" categories. Organisers handed out the awards at a ceremony in Sofia on September 29.

The contest, now in its 14th year, is run by the platform Kmeta.bg through the site Kmetnagodinata.bg and covers all 265 municipal mayors in Bulgaria. Voting ran from September 14 to 24, and more than 54,000 people cast votes across eight categories. Burgas competes among towns with more than 100,000 residents and won all three categories it entered.

The "Smart city" award recognises the digital services a town has rolled out for residents; the mayors of Pavel Banya and Pomorie also won in that category. "Investment and growth" honours towns that turn economic opportunities into real benefits for people, while "Health and demographic policy" looks at how well a town looks after people's health and safety and supports families raising children.

On stage in Sofia, Nikolov spoke about Burgas's investments, saying: "Be bold, take risks, and don't read the negative comments on social media." On demographic policy, he said Burgas needs more people and wished the town "positive net migration, because that's the only way we'll be able to save our beloved municipality."

The overall "Mayor of the Year" title for 2026 doesn't go to a single winner - it's given out by town size, small, medium and large. This year's winners were engineer Stoyko Stefanov of Belovo, architect Anastas Karchev of Svilengrad and Stanislav Vladimirov of Pernik.

Bulgarian National Television (BNT) will broadcast the ceremony with all the winners on October 4 at 3:30pm.