Karlovo, Bulgaria

Karlovo is a modern town, modernized during the communist period. Travelers interested in history must stop here to visit the house where Vasil Levski was raised. This is a very modest Balkan-style house with a ground floor and a basement that seems more like a stable than a residence as none of the interior spaces are interconnected. The ground floor consists of a kitchen/living space, a bedroom, and a room set up as a working place with a wool spinning machine. The basement has another bedroom/study. While it is fascinating to imagine Vasil Levski running in and out the house as a child or announcing to his family that he was leaving the priesthood to take part in the revolution, nothing is original. Following Levski’s death, the house deteriorated over the next half century; it was only in 1933 that it was built anew and furnished as a memorial. Even with this knowledge, the house is worth the visit and you get a sense as to how a modest family of the 18^th century lived. Adjacent to the house is a small modern museum with memorabilia related to and modern paintings of Levski. There is also a small chapel in the gardens with housed a glass container bearing a lock of hair of Levski. 

There are a small number of traditional Revival period houses as well as an abandoned mosque, the Kurshum Djami, constructed in 1485. The minaret was vandalized in recent times by idiot nationalists. 

(composed 2013 for blog of American Research Center in Sofia)

Garden of Vasil Levski's birth-home (photo Eric De Sena, 2013).