The design suggested the construction of four VVER-1000/320 units. Between 1988 and 1990 40% of the construction work on Unit 1 was finished and 80% of the equipment was supplied. The project was abandoned in 1990 due to the fall of communism in Bulgaria and only conservation work was done thereafter. Since then, measures have been continuously undertaken to preserve the supplied equipment, the construction site and the buildings; various investigations and assessments have been carried out with respect to the site suitability and the equipment status, all of which yielded positive conclusions. New investigations have been performed in relation to site safety and its compliance with international requirements. There has been particularly extensive research on the seismic safety of the chosen site. A number of missions were carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other bodies of authority. All these came up with positive conclusions and confirmations that the Belene site is suitable for the construction of a nuclear power plant. The majority of the heavy equipment supplied for Belene's Unit 1 in the late 1980s, including the reactor vessel, was bought back by Atomstroyexport in 2007 and installed at Unit 4 of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, which was connected to the grid on 24 November 2011. Restart In 2002 the Government decided in-principle for a restart of the Belene Project. Fulfillment of all legislative requirements allowed the Government to approve the construction of a nuclear power plant on the Belene site with total rated capacity of 2000 megawatts. The Ministry of Energy began to renew the available equipment and examine the possible construction of the new nuclear plant. In February 2003 Minister Milko Kovachev sent letters to six leading companies in the sphere of nuclear energy asking them to provide up-to-date technical, economic and financial information regarding the project. A working group of experts was formed by an order of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Resources of 27 May 2003, which included experts from the Ministry of Energy and Energy Resources, the Ministry of Environment and Waters, the Ministry of Transport and Communication, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Health, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, the State Agency for Civil Protection, the National Electric Company and BulAtom. A programme for the expert commission's work was approved on 4 July 2003. Pursuant to the above-mentioned decision,