bg Sofia

Krastyo Petrov House

- Knyaz Boris I Street 131 -
The residential and commercial building was built around 1914 as a residence of a Jewish family. Subsequently, it was bought by the prominent Bulgarian theater actor, and second chairman of the Union of Artists in Bulgaria, Krastyo Petrov Sarafov. He was born on April 6, 1876, in the village of Libyahovo, nowadays , and is the son of the Bulgarian revivalist teacher and the grandchild of the Bulgarian revivalist church worker . His brothers are the officer , the engineer and the revolutionary , his sisters are the president of the Macedonian Women's Union, doctor and , a teacher who graduated from the Institute of Applied Arts in .
Krastyo Petrov Sarafov and his wife Donka Guzeleva-Sarafova
He studied in , , and after that, he studied and graduated from the First Boys' High School in Sofia. His parents were firmly against him becoming an artist and sent him to study in in order to tear him away from his love for the theater. In 1893, he graduated from the Edirne Bulgarian Boys' High School and returned to Bulgaria. In 1895, he participated in a competition for scholarships in dramatic art abroad. They accept only four out of sixty people and Krastyo Sarafov is among them. He went to where he enrolled in a private drama school. In 1895, disappointed with the teaching system, he moved to the Imperial Theater School, where in 1899 he graduated with honors. After his graduation, he returned to Bulgaria, where on October 3, 1899, he made his debut in the Sofia theater, and after that, he played in many plays. In 1901, he married the actress , daughter of the activist . He died on August 27, 1952, in Sofia, at the age of 76.
Krastyo Petrov staging "When Thunder Strikes" at the National Theatre in 1939
The building is built in the style of Neo-Baroque and contains some beautiful Art Nouveau elements. The building's most eye-catching feature is the in the center of the main facade with a small balcony on top of it. The pointed area of the top gable is adorned with a and a , which is surrounded by floral ornamentation. On both sides of the oriel window, you can admire two supportive within their midst a , and underneath it a . The and the fragments in the pointed are decorated with six each. Another richly decorated cartouche can be seen underneath the oriel window. A can be admired above each of the two entrances.
An old photo of the building made somewhere in the 1970s