bg Sofia

Racho Petrov House

- Han Krum Street 3 -
The construction of the residential building, which was completed in 1925, was commissioned by the Bulgarian officer and politician Racho Petrov Stoyanov, who was born on February 19, 1861, in . In 1867 he was sent to school, and on August 30, 1878, he was enlisted in the army as a cadet, and in 1883 he graduated from the Military Academy of . He participated as a captain in the , which was declared by Serbia on November 14, 1885, because of the dissatisfaction with the completion of the of Bulgaria.

In 1887, he married Sultana Pantaleeva Minchovich with whom he had three children, Maria, Vlada, and Blagoi. He and his wife were personally close to Tsar of Bulgaria and in 1891 he was promoted by Ferdinand to the rank of colonel, the first officer to hold that rank in Bulgaria. He also attended Ferdinand's wedding to Princess of Bourbon-Parma in Italy in 1893. Ferdinand's decision in 1894 to place Racho Petrov in charge of the army completely, and thus outside the command of Prime Minister , precipitated the resignation of the latter. As a politician, he twice served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, initially as the non-party head of an interim administration in 1901, the only task of which was to organize the next election. He returned as Prime Minister for a longer period from 1903 until 1906, having been appointed for fear of war after a Bulgarian insurrection in Ottoman Macedonia.
Racho Petrov Stoyanov
After the start of the in October 1912, he was recalled to the army and appointed commander of the Simeonovgrad Fortress. Shortly after the start of the in June 1913, as commander of the Third Army, he mounted an attack on the Serbian town of . During the , he served as head of the newly established Macedonian Military Inspection Oblast from December 1915 until October 1916. Racho Petrov Stoyanov died on January 22, 1942, at Belovo station.

Sultana Racho Petrova was a Bulgarian memoirist who was born on July 15, 1869, in the city of . She graduated from the Royal College in and as a young woman, she was noticed by Queen who wished to help her to go to to become an opera singer. Her father objects to this, and when she was 16, the family moved to Sofia. At age 24, she met Racho Petrov whom she married but eventually divorce in 1919. The marriage was an unhappy one, compounded by an alleged affair that she had with Prince Ferdinand I of Bulgaria. During the , she was sent to a concentration camp, due to her condemnation of Bulgaria's support of Nazi Germany. It is also believed that she was the first woman in Bulgaria to undergo plastic surgery. She died in Sofia on 26 November 1946.
Sultana Racho Petrova
Another inhabitant was the Bulgarian poet Mara Ivanova Belcheva, who was born on September 8, 1868, in Sevlievo. She graduated from secondary school in and went on to study at a women's school in . In 1886, she married the Bulgarian poet and economist, , who served as minister of finance under Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov. In 1891, she became a widow at the age of 23, after the murder of her husband, in an assassination attempt against Stefan Stambolov. In 1903, she went to to study philology and after her return to Bulgaria, she began a relationship with the Bulgarian poet which lasted until his death in 1912. She began publishing verses in 1907 and she published three collections of poetry, and in 1925 she published a biography of Slaveykov. She died on March 16, 1937, in Sofia at the age of 68.

The building was also in use for some time by the Swedish Consulate and the Yugoslav chamber of commerce.
Mara Ivanova Belcheva
The most eye-catching feature of the Neo-Baroque building is the that's supported by four , which are all embellished with , , and foliage. A balcony is placed on top of the oriel window, which is secured with a cast iron railing. An is placed underneath the second floor windows, while above these same windows, you'll be able to see a . The ones that are placed on the oriel window differ from the other four, but they are all flanked by floral ornamentation. A straight is placed on top of the third floor windows, which are all supported by two corbels that are adorned with guttae.
The building shown in an old photo