The House with the Monkey: A Bulgarian National Revival Merchant House
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Bulgaria
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Ottoman
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- House
On this page4 sections
History
Construction and early use
The House with the Monkey is a merchant’s house in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, built in 1849 by Bulgarian architect and master builder Kolyo Ficheto for Nikola Koyuv. Its construction took place during the Bulgarian National Revival, a cultural and national movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The house is among the city’s best-known buildings and is regarded as one of its symbols.
For a time, the house was home to Stefan Penev Akhtar, Bulgaria’s first antiquarian, or collector and student of historical objects and documents. Akhtar collected medieval manuscripts and coins and preserved for scholarship one of the two surviving copies of Boril’s Synodikon, a medieval Bulgarian church text recording synodal declarations and commemorations. The text is named for Tsar Boril, a Bulgarian ruler of the early thirteenth century.
Ownership and present use
The house remained in private hands until the 1940s, when it was nationalized after communist rule was established in Bulgaria. In 1979, it passed to the Union of Scientists.
In 2016, the Union sold the property to the Municipality of Veliko Tarnovo for 119,000 leva, citing insufficient funds. The house now contains a museum, and antique shops operate in its former workshop areas.
Remains
The three-storey house is about six metres wide and occupies a restricted urban plot. Its plan combines shops, storage areas, workshops, and living quarters. The shops are on the ground floor and opened onto two streets, while semicircular arches frame the entrances to the stairways.
Bay windows and decorative red-and-white masonry distinguish the exterior. Beneath the bay window on the south side, a small seated figure resembles a monkey and gives the house its name. The building stands in central Veliko Tarnovo, at the beginning of Samovodska Charshia, a historic market street.
