bg Sofia

Haralambi Sarmadzhiev House

- Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard 19 -
The construction of the residential building of the lawyer and diplomat Doctor Haralambi Sarmadzhiev began in 1902 and was completed in 1903. It was designed by the Austrian-Bulgarian architect . Since 1916, it has been owned by the Ottoman Empire and its successor, the Republic of Turkey, and has been in use as the residence of the Turkish ambassador.
The Haralambi Sarmadzhiev house in 1903
Haralampi Sarmadzhiev was a who was born in 1860, in , then the Russian Empire. After graduating from high school, he went to and became a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Bucharest. There he worked in the office of the brothers Evlogi and Hristo Georgiev and was secretary of the Bulgarian Virtuous Society, and later continued his education at the Sorbonne University in , where he graduated with honors and a gold medal. At the age of 31, he married the beautiful Elena of the famous family Pulievi, from which the brothers Evlogi and Hristo Georgievi also come. Hahrawlambi and Elena had a daughter and four sons. Haralampi died in 1908, leaving the house behind to his family. However, financial and personal difficulties forced his widow Elena to rent the house to the Ottoman Empire in 1914.
Elena Sarmadzhieva and her four sons
The magnificent two-story house combines the modern Art Nouveau style with elements of Baroque, Mediterranean Renaissance, and early 20th century Rococo. The top gable is decorated with seven decorative vases of different shapes and sizes. In the middle of the top gable, a cloverleaf-shaped window is placed, which is surrounded by a shell-shaped ornament and floral ornamentation. Above it, you'll be able to see a broken segmental , of which both sides end with a .

On the second floor, you can admire some that are crowned with a Corinthian . If you look closely, you will see two of lion's heads cast in plaster with a part of a in their mouths. Above the circle top windows, either a segmental or pointed pediment can be seen. Each window is lavishly decorated with volutes, , foliage, and , which contain a figure of an adult or a child. Two are placed around the main balcony door.
The building is shown on a postcard from the 1950s
The doors of the main entrance on the first floor are flanked by four rounded pilasters with Doric capitals. Above the pilasters, four richly decorated are supporting the balcony above it. The bottom of the balcony is decorated with some floral ornamentation. The circle top windows on the first floor are crowned with a cartouche and volutes. A beautifully decorated can be seen on the east side of the building, which is crowned by a balcony, which is secured with a wrought iron railing.

Under the roof , you see a strip with interspersed with a number of corbels. A beautifully decorated square-shaped tower, with a roof terrace on top of it, rises on the northwest side of the building. The whole premises is secured with a lavishly decorated wrought iron fence.
The building in the 1970s