Lost in Plovdiv

There is hardly a tourist or resident of the City under the Hills who hasn't visited the Ethnographic Museum and marveled at the splendor of the Kuyumdzhiev House, in which it is housed. This house itself is a typical example of the Plovdiv symmetrical Revival style, and experts consider it the pinnacle of Baroque architecture in Bulgaria. Its owner, Argir Kuyumdzhioglu, was a wealthy merchant from Plovdiv.

However, there is another building, which unfortunately, is not in such good condition today and is not open to visitors. In the past, the famous architect Hristo Peev described it as "one of the most perfect houses" in terms of architecture. This house also belonged to a member of the Kuyumdzhioglu family.

The story of this place, at least as we perceive it today, begins just over 200 years ago. The name by which we refer to the house today is not entirely accurate. Dragan Kaloferetsa only owned the property where the current house would later be built. He lived at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, during the time of Plovdiv's Bishop Cyril, who died in 1808.

Dragan Kaloferetsa was a wealthy merchant and cloth maker. He traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire and left behind a large inheritance, which was passed down to one of his female descendants. This brings us to the time when the current house was built. This woman married Hadzhi Ivan Kuyumdzhioglu, also a wealthy merchant, who received this property as part of her dowry. He amassed a great fortune and traveled extensively throughout the Ottoman Empire and beyond.

With his wealth and generosity, Ivan Kuyumdzhioglu also helped his brothers—he assisted with the weddings of his brother Nikola's daughters and provided a substantial loan of hundreds of thousands of groschen to his other brother, Argir. Argir, in particular, became quite well-known, although he did not have a successful business career. The house of Argir Kuyumdzhioglu, constructed in 1847, was built with the loan from his brother Ivan.

Ivan himself built his house later, between 1848 and 1850. Its facade does not face the street but the courtyard, making it difficult to see today due to the high wall. The entrance features a beautiful portico with wooden columns and a basement. In 1854, several additional buildings were constructed in the courtyard, including a warehouse and a bathhouse, with an inscription marking their construction date. Slightly earlier, a water fountain was built, which is now located in the courtyard of the Klianthi House Museum, having been moved there at some point. The fountain bears the initials of Ivan Kuyumdzhioglu and the year 1847. After his death, his son Kostaki took over the business.

Subsequently, the building shared the general fate of the structures in Old Plovdiv. After the Liberation, the city moved its economic center to the lowlands. Plovdiv’s Three Hills area became a poorer part of the city, and the houses there were no longer well-maintained, which led to their decay.

For many years, the National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage was housed there, a fact still evident today from a remnant of an inscription above the entrance facing the street. Before being nationalized and used for cultural purposes, the house was owned by the descendants of its original owners and was not in very good condition. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Hristo Peev and Emil Momirov completed their famous book "The Plovdiv House during the Revival," the house was in very poor condition. It was later restored to its current state—while some concrete reinforcements are visible in its pillars, other parts of the building remain entirely authentic.