Along Slaveykov Street

Along Slaveykov Street there are several Revival houses connected with Petko R. Slaveykov’s stay in Plovdiv in 1881 – 1883, when Plovdiv was the capital Eastern Ru- malia. He lived in the asymmetrical Revival house of Bedros Basmajyan, now housing the Home of the Teacher and bearing the name of the great public figure, poet and writer. Close by is the so-called Slaveyk- ov School, established in the distinguished- looking house of Georgi Panchev, where Petko Slaveykov taught. Another place is Slaveykov Cafe or Georgi Moraliyata’s Tavern frequented by the elderly teacher for his morning coffee. At the corner of Kiril Nektariev and Architect Hristo Peev Streets there stands an asymmetrical house from the end of the 18th c. the home for many years of the renowned artist Georgi Dan- chov Zografina.

He was a revolutionary, an associate of Vasil Levski’s, an exile in Anatolia and a volunteer in the Russo-Turkish Liberation War. The house has been recently reconstructed by the Chamber of Crafts in Koblents – Germany and now houses a vocational school. At the upper end of Dr. St. Chomakov Street is the home of the first mayor of Plovdiv after the Liberation, Atanas Samokovets bulgaria private tours, a prominent public and political figure, brother of the Revival artist Stanislav Dospevski.

Artin Gidikov

The corner of Artin Gidikov and 4th January Streets is occupied by the entirely renovated large symmetrical house of Artin Gidikov, an Armenian social figure and benefactor to Armenians and Bulgarians alike. On Saborna Sreet opposite the imposing building of the Girls’ Secondary School there is a memorial plaque reading that the Russian Consulate lay on this site before the Liberation. It was headed in 1957 – 1877 by the Revival figure and man of letters Naiden Gerov and on several occasions visited by Vasil Levski. A very small section of the historic consulate has survived to our time.

One of the most remarkable historic buildings in the Old Town is the Yellow School, called thus because of the colour of its walls. Actually this is the first Bulgarian secondary school to be opened in Plovdiv in 1868, a successor to the well-established diocesan SS. Cyril and Methodius School. The solid building was designed and erected by the well-known Bratsigovo master-builder Todor Dimov. The school is two-storey with an elevated ground floor and sparingly decorated but dignified facades.

On the corner of the building on Tsar Ivaylo and T.Samodumov Streets stand the well-preserved inscriptions in Bulgarian and Osmanli Turkish engraved on a commemorative tablet stating that ‘this public secondary school’ was built in 1868 by the good will of Sultan Abdul Azzis Khan. The yellow school or the SS. Cyril and Methodius First Bulgarian Secondary School is unique in Bulgaria for being still used as an educational establishment. It houses the folklore department of the Music Academy in Plovdiv.