bg Ruse

Former Hotel London

- Tsarkovna Nezavisimost Street 1 -
The residential and commercial corner building was built in two stages after the . In 1901 the merchant Stoyan Hadjigenov bought a plot of land from his neighbor Stefan Stoyanov and built a building by a design of the Bulgarian engineer . In 1903, Stoyan Hadjigenov constructed the second stage on the plot of land of Stefan Stoyanov, who didn't have the law on his side, because of his long absence from Ruse. The second stage was designed by the Polish architect Edwin Petriczky.
An old photo showing the building
In 1919, the building was sold to Vasil Ralchev from Glozhevo village near . The new owner opened the London Hotel in the building, featuring 17 hotel rooms and the Nadezhda Confectionery. His son Bratan Ralchev graduated from the St. Joseph French Lyceum for Boys in Ruse and took a course in confectionery in . When he came back to Ruse, he helped his father with the confectionery, which was named after his sister Nadezhda. She was married to Vendo Milde, owner of the Shumensko Pivo brewery in Ruse, whose ancestors had been occupied in brewing for generations.

In later times, the hotel rooms were used by the Ruse City Radio, there was a bookshop on the ground floor, and an airline office called TABSO, which was transformed in 1968 into the Balkan Bulgarian Civil Airlines.
An advertisement of the Hotel London, 1924
The scaly sheet metal roof of the Neo-Classical building contains multiple dormers with either a segmental or a broken pointed on top of it. The , which are placed underneath the roof , are embellished with foliage. The pointed pediments that are placed above the windows on the second floor are in some cases supported by two . Some of the windows are flanked by , which are crowned with either a Doric or a Corinthian . Underneath some of the windows, you'll be able to see a , which contains . The railings of the two balconies, as well as the above one of the entrances, are created out of wrought iron.
One of the balconies