Royal Palace in Sofia

Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic, but it has a king. And the princess.

Now the princess lives in the country palace of Tsarska Bistritsa, and the king in the country palace of Vran, but in the center of Sofia there is a building that used to be a royal palace and to this day, sometimes, so called by the people. By old memory.

This is the building in which the National Museum of Fine Arts has been located since 1953.

How did that happen?

It's simple: in 1941 Sophia began to bomb and the royal family of Boris III was forced to go to their country palaces.

In 1943, Tsar Boris died, a year later (September 9, 1944) a communist coup took place in the country, the monarchy was abolished, little Prince Simeon emigrated abroad, and new rulers entered the palace: Georgi Dimitrov, Higher Party School and the Ministerial Council.

 The history of this building is quite rich. 

Initially, this place was a Turkish konak - the administration, with a prison in the basement. At the beginning of the 19th century, a fire occurred here and the building was empty until 1873, when a new two-story konak was built here. Five years later, Russia liberated Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke and the new Bulgarian prince Alexander Battenberg moved into this building. True, he lived here for only a year, after which the building had to be repaired, or rather completely rebuilt. Architects Lars and Mayber, Victor Rumpelmayer and Anton Kolar were engaged in this. It was then that he became similar to what we now see, only without the outstanding extension on the left.

It appeared already at the time of another Bulgarian king Ferdinand, approximately, in 1894. It was designed by Friedrich Grünanger - an architect who later built up almost the entire center of Sofia. In addition to the royal bedrooms, this extension was equipped with an elevator and a winter garden.

The palace is much more beautiful behind than in front - this is my personal opinion. Because behind it is a beautiful park with lawns, there are cafes, wrought-iron verandas and wonderful wisteria are visible. The interior decoration, unfortunately, has not survived. Party bosses preferred not stucco and silk wallpaper on the walls, but oil paint.

Century plane tree.

Thank you for your time and attention.

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All photos in this blog are taken by me unless otherwise attributed.

With love from Bulgaria @varya-davydova

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