bg Shumen

Veliko Dyukmedzhiev House

- Tzar Osvoboditel Street 146 -
The residential and commercial building was built somewhere at the end of the 19th century by a design of the Czech engineer . It was inhabited by the family of the wealthy Bulgarian merchant and musician Dimitar Velikov Dyugmedzhiev, who was born in 1832. He was the first violinist in the First Bulgarian Orchestra, which was founded in 1850 by the Hungarian emigrant . Dimitar's son, the Bulgarian teacher, musician, conductor and composer, creator of the first operetta performance in Bulgaria, Veliko Dyukmedzhiev, who also lived in the building, was born in Shumen on April 5, 1877. He studied violin with as a student at the Pedagogical School, with whom he worked for two years and played first violin in the school orchestra.
Dimitar Velikov Dyukmedzhiev
He completed his secondary education at the Shumen District Pedagogical School in 1894. The following year he went to , where he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Theater, majoring in violin. After he returned to Shumen in 1898, he became the founder and first conductor of the choir at the music and singing society called Native Sounds. In the academic year, which lasted from 1898 until 1899, he was a music teacher at the Bulgarian High School in .

One of the most significant events in the musician's life was the Shumen Operetta Society founded by him in 1914. From then until 1943, he did not stop staging operettas, operas, and musical plays, even not after his retirement in 1935. In 1946, he became the first conductor of the Shumen Municipal Symphony Orchestra. He was also an arranger of many fairy tales with musical illustrations, probably one of the first in Bulgaria. Veliko Dyukmedzhiev passed away on November 27, 1958.

The commercial part on the first floor housed the shop of Raina Dyulgerova, who was the first woman to open a haberdashery shop in Shumen, which was called Elegance. The shop offered women's and children‘s hats made by the owner.
Veliko Dyukmedzhiev
The Neo-Renaissance building used to have a majestic hexagonal dome on top of the southeastern corner, but it's now replaced with a dormer. Either a segmental or a pointed is placed above the second floor windows. On this same floor, you'll be able to see some that are built up by stone blocks, which are crowned with a Doric . The balcony that's placed on the corner, is supported by two and secured with a wrought iron railing that's decorated with .
An old postcard showing the building with the dome still on