bg Sofia

Dimitar Ilkov House

- Vasil Aprilov Street 17 -
The residential building, which was designed by the Bulgarian architect Kirov, was built in 1901. The construction was commissioned by the Bulgarian geographer and teacher Dimitar Nikolov Ilkov, who was born in 1868 in the town of . In 1899 he graduated in geography in Halle, and in the period between 1899 and 1904, he was a teacher of geography at the First Boys' High School in Sofia. Afterwards, he taught at the Cadet High School and at the Military School, which he did until 1920. He also works as a cartographer at the Military Geographical Institute in Sofia. He was also an author of geographical maps, atlases, and the history of a number of cities, including the first history of , which was published in 1908. In August 1894, he participated in 's first trip to Cherni Vrah, which is the highest peak of mountain. Dimitar Nikolov Ilkov died in 1954 at the age of 86.
Dimitar Ilkov seated and holding a hat on a trip to Cherni Vrah in August 1894
The most eye-catching part of the building, which is built in the styles of Eclectic and Art Nouveau, is the characteristic on the southwestern corner. The turret is topped with an octagonal roof, which is crowned with a . A cute little semi-circular is placed on the eastern side of the building. You can see a huge that's secured with a wooden railing and supported by wooden pillars, on the southern side of the building. One of the windows that can be seen on the southwestern corner contains a small cast iron . The building is lavishly decorated with all sorts of geometric shapes, like circles, squares, and rectangles.
An old photo from the 1970s shows the building