The Renaissance
town of Old Plovdiv was built during the 19th
century. Today it has survived as a unique architectural
ensemble on the three hills. Its houses reveal
the remarkable urban culture of Bulgarian builders,
as well as their sense of harmony and their creative
power. The brilliant architecture with its noble,
stylish simplicity could be called rightfully
the Baroque of Plovdiv. The Bulgarian people have
always been proud that Old Plovdiv was restored
and preserved as a large open museum in order
to stay for future generations. Today Old Plovdiv
is an autonomous area within the modern town with
a municipality of its own. It is declared an architectural
museum reserve with over 150 monuments of culture
- houses from the National Revival period. Its
magnificent houses are turned into museums, galleries,
workshops, restaurants, and pubs, such as "Puldin",
"Trakijski Stan" , "Alafrangite",
"The House of Ritora", "The Old
House". There are also parlors and studios
of painters and wood-carvers. The most distinguished
examples of the Baroque of Plovdiv are the house
of Koiumjioglu (now an ethnographic museum), the
house of Georgiadi (now the Renaissance museum
of the national struggle), the house of Nedkovich
(the municipality), the house of Chomaka (the
gallery of the renowned Bulgarian painter Zlatyo
Boyajiev), the house of Balabanov (now a gallery
of modern painting, as well as a concert hall),
the house of Lamartine (the house of writers)
where the French poet Alfonse de Lamartine stayed
during his diplomatic mission in Turkey... The
famous painting "Old Plovdiv" by Tzanko
Lavrenov is probably the deepest revelation of
the spirit, the excitement and the atmosphere
of that fateful Bulgarian Renaissance.
The wooden
ceilings inside the houses of Plovdiv are carved,
as if there is a sun in every room. Walls are
decorated. They have painted niches and fine,
stylish European furniture. There is a kind of
magic, some fine, fairly innocence in the spirit
of Plovdiv.
No wonder
why UNESCO awarded Plovdiv a or architecture in
1979.
Walking
around Old Plovdiv, visitors enjoy the steep,
cobbled streets and lanes with bow-windows and
eaves above them.
Facades
are colored in harmonious combinations, with stylish
patterns of white and blue. Windows have either
wooden shuttles, or iron nets. Lovely gardens
with plenty of green and flowers, fruit trees,
old vines and figs, evergreen shrubs and roses
under the shadows of old trees are hidden behind
solid walls and heavy gates. Fancily colored pots
of gillyflowers stand prominently behind windowpanes
and upon sills. Wells are now only an exotic adornment.
The babble of water running from old little fountains
and taps breaks the silence. Tiny doors hidden
within the thick walls lead to the neighbors yards.
All those beautiful colours of the narrow, patriarchal
world of the past helped the Bulgarian ancestors
to survive during the long decades of the yoke.