bg Sofia

Former Yuchbunar Popular Bank

- Pirotska Street 20 -
The residential and commercial building was built around 1912, but it's unknown who commissioned its construction, nor who created the design. Since the 1920s, the headquarters of the Yuchbunar Popular Bank was housed in the building, which stayed there for almost a quarter of a century. It started its activities in January 1922, as one of the smaller banks in Sofia.

Built on a cooperative principle, the bank set the task of serving the needs of a city quarter, through which the wealthy citizens of Sofia passed with a scornful grimace, watching and disgusted by the wretched appearance of the streets and houses. It is typical of the bank's stated ambition, that in the late 1920s, branches were only opened in the then poor suburbs of Draz Mahala, Konyovitsa, and Malashevtsi.
An old section of a newspaper showing the building
After the adoption of the for the Protection of the Nation in 1941, it was forbidden for persons of Jewish origin to participate in credit companies with more than 49 percent of capital and votes and to hold any management functions. The Bulgarian Union of Popular Banks is undertaking a campaign on a national scale to save the savings and lending opportunities of Bulgarian Jews through the unification of Jewish banks with Bulgarian ones. On February 16, 1941, the Yuchbunar Popular Bank agrees to merge with the Jewish Bank called Geula and accept its capital and people so as to meet the requirement of the Law. Instead of being liquidated and its assets nationalized, Geula continues to exist as two autonomous branches with their own accounting and on the basis of their own methods, within the framework of the Yuchbunarska Popular Bank, which it merged with. Thanks to the solidarity shown by the Bulgarian free banking circles, not a single Jewish bank was liquidated.
The operating room of the bank
The bottom of the roof of the building, which is built in the style of Art Nouveau, shows a garland that flows over the , which are beautifully decorated with all kinds of floral ornaments, including . Between these corbels, you'll be able to admire a fragment that's embellished with four , as well as a , which is adorned with garlands. Some of the that are placed underneath the windows are adorned with guttae. Within some of these aprons, you can either see a , or a that's surrounded by laurel twigs. Above the third floor windows, you can see a , which is flanked by four cut-out fragments that are filled up with even more floral ornamentation.
Paper shares of the bank