Volleyball
In 2009, after a ten-year break in Gabrovo’s volleyball tradition, Corporate Commercial Bank AD’s majority proprietor Tzvetan Vassilev supported the idea of a strong volleyball club emerging in his native city. He underwrote the expenditure of the KVK Gabrovo Volleyball Club, which had come together three years earlier. At its establishment in 2006, the men’s representative team took part in the national championships Third Echelon. In just four years, the club climbed from the lowest rung of the ladder to the elite of Bulgarian men’s volleyball. To a large degree, this rapid rise is owed to the support of the businessman Tzvetan Vassilev.
Since 2010, KVK Gabrovo is part of the Bulgarian Superleague, attaining its best ranking in the 2012/2013 season — second place. "Currently, with more stability and good athletes we achieve what we want — to enter the Final Four for the first time, as well as to participate in the European club tournaments next year, of course. Our goal is to stabilize a team with a good perspective. With the support of our major sponsor — Corporate Commercial Bank represented by Tzvetan Vassilev, who comes from Gabrovo and supports the idea of having a stable team, I believe that we will succeed," said men’s Head Coach over the past three years, Lyubomir Gerasimov, in an interview for the Bulgarian Volleyball Federation website.
The club notched up three consecutive participations in the CEV Challenge Cup European tournament. During the 2012/2013 season, KVK Gabrovo reached the 1/8 finals there after eliminating the Czech club Volejbal Brno and the Swiss champions Chênois Genève.
Thanks to the support it receives from Tzvetan Vassilev, since 2010 KVK Gabrovo has held three consecutive annual international volleyball tournaments at the Orlovets Hall. The competitions are in late September, before the new season starts. So far, it has attracted the Apollon Kalamarias (Thessaloniki, Greece), C.S.M. Agronomia Bucaresti (Bucharest, Romania), Vojvodina (Novi Sad, Serbia), Mladi Radnik (Požarevac, Serbia) and Bulgarian clubs Neftohimik 2010 and Marek Union Ivkoni.
Similar to the approach Tzvetan Vassilev has applied to the PFC Botev Plovdiv soccer club, the KVK Gabrovo volleyball club is very keen to develop young talents at the children and youth academy. The club currently trains some 80 children, having trained altogether over 200 of them since its establishment.
One of the club’s major aims is to provide social benefits to its home city. The idea is to have the maximum number of children committed to training and to developing sporting ambitions, thus contributing to boosting their willpower, spirit, and health, while at the same time keeping them away from contemporary vices like drugs, smoking, and drinking. Naturally, high sportsmanship is also sought. Dreams of medals, cups, and titles encourage trainees to pursue advancement step by step.