Ruse students create board games about city history

Sixth-grade students from Friedrich Schiller Secondary School and Olimpi Panov Primary School in Ruse have developed two original board games focused on the city's history, architecture, and cultural heritage. The project, titled ‘Play Ruse’, was initiated by the Gradored association as part of the ‘Learning Together’ program by the ‘Zahead v chas’ Foundation.

As part of their elective ‘Ruse Studies’ course, students spent a school year researching historical figures, landmarks, and local legends. They worked alongside educators Denitsa Velikova and Aysel Bekirova, as well as board game specialist Deyan Georgiev, to master game mechanics, resource management, and rule creation.

The two resulting games are ‘Ruse Under the Waves of the Danube’, where players act as city guardians restoring heritage after natural disasters, and ‘Do You Know Ruse?’, a trivia-based game about local landmarks. The games are slated for integration into the educational curriculum for the 2026/2027 school year and will be available at the Lyuben Karavelov Regional Library and the ‘Board Games Ruse’ club starting in September.