{"id":9858,"date":"2026-10-16T11:21:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artgallerykazanlak.com\/exhibitions\/nie-nenuzhnite\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T19:49:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T17:49:04","slug":"nie-nenuzhnite","status":"publish","type":"exhibition","link":"https:\/\/www.artgallerykazanlak.com\/en\/exhibitions\/nie-nenuzhnite\/","title":{"rendered":"We, the Unwanted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, \nPack up the moon and dismantle the sun, \nPour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; \nFor nothing now can ever come to any good. \nFrom Funeral Blues<\/em> (1936) by W.H. Auden (1907\u20131936) \n \n \n \nPublic institutions are precisely as sensitive to pain as are the people within them. Every community employs a self-preservation mechanism, which works to produce convenient narratives, smoothing over the tragic and burying cruelty with silence. Anniversaries usually serve as a celebratory stage upon which mostly agreeable truths are played out. In the year marking 125 years since the founding of the art collection in Kazanlak, we refuse this comfort. We refuse to believe that the the museum is a repository of the past, a pretty backdrop for celebratory speeches, because it has always been a territory of reaction, of opposition, of a living encounter with what pains us today. Guided by this understanding, for four consecutive years we\u2019ve been building the project Art everywhere<\/em> as a platform for commentary on the present. Its new edition We, the Unwanted<\/em> brings into the spotlight that which, day-to-day, we push away, hide in shadow and declare superfluous.<\/p>\n\n

The notion of \u201cunwanted\u201d here is not an aesthetic category but an attempt to diagnose the shuttered depots, the city streets, and, above all, ourselves. The oblivion of a museum is a quiet form of rejection. In the depot, works removed from conversation and turned into silenced objects languish for decades. This accumulation of silence mirrors exactly the very social mechanism by which we shut away uncomfortable themes in darkness \u2013 to avoid disturbing our day. Bringing these dozens of unseen portraits out of the depot into the light should not be thought of as an anniversary display or curatorial gesture, but as a conscious act of retrieval of memory. Alongside this repressed memory, a very specific urban topography unfolds. Violence is the most radical removal of meaning; it turns the person into an object, smoothing over the traces quickly afterwards with fresh asphalt and the everyday rhythm of the passersby. The city\u2019s domestic, political and criminal human transgressions over the decades are not archival episodes but real streets, pavements and thresholds that we pass by each day in our human indifference. The map [link below] is not a collection of landmarks to stroll around. It points out the places of the pain that was easier for us to mark as superfluous in order to ward off guilt and responsibility. <\/p>\n\n

Beyond the closed-off collections and the city\u2019s pedestrian streets stands the person themself \u2013 their broken vulnerability and the soul turned into an unwanted victim. Today, this rejection acquires new, chilling dimensions: the person, threatened by algorithmic reality and artificial intelligence, is increasingly declared replaceable, slow, unwanted. Violence, however, never remains confined to one technological or domestic case. It\u2019s a contagion that infects the entire social fabric. It begins with the substitution of the original and the transformation of truth into delusion, passing through the sacrifice of the single human life to a \u201chigher purpose\u201d and strikes the most defenceless \u2013 childhood, turning shattered innocence into a model of aggression. It enters the prison of male guilt, aggression and moral breakdown, to finally conceal the pain in the quiet, invisible domestic isolation of the woman. \n \nThis exhibition demands movement. We mobilise senses, cross streets, descend into isolated spaces and come out into the light. There are no ready answers, no sentimental consolation. Museums and the city network come together in a common scene of complicity. \n \nTake a look at the dozens of portraits from the gallery\u2019s fund, many of which have never before left the racks. In their eyes, in the stiffness of their poses, in the strain around their lips \u2013 no, do not seek academic mastery. Seek out the symptoms of our own sensitivity. Could you recognise the abuser in them? Could you recognise the victim? \n \nOnce you go outside with the map in your hand, the urban space will cease to be the same. Every marked spot is a place where somebody has cried out, and people have chosen to shut their eyes and pass on by. Every painting in the halls is a mirror. The art here does not decorate reality, it cuts through it and asks: how many more human destinies shall we declare unwanted before we recognise ourselves in them?<\/p>\n\n

I, PSYCHE<\/strong> \nThe story of Psyche, codified in Apuleius\u2019s The Golden Ass, has always seemed to be read as an allegory of the fate of the human soul (\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae), daring to know the unknowable. Revered as a goddess for her unearthly beauty, Psyche unwittingly became a rival of Venus. But for people she became taboo \u2013 no one dared to ask for her hand in marriage. The enraged Venus ordered her son Cupid to punish her rival. Captivated by her beauty, he sought out an oracle, who insisted that Psyche be abandoned in the desert. But Cupid did not keep his word \u2013 lifted up by Zephyr, the beautiful woman was carried away to a magical palace that sprang up among the sands, where she lived, attended by invisible servants. In this mysterious place her marriage to the Unseen was celebrated. Her husband visited her at night, and she had no right to look at him. This was love in the darkness. The prohibition on Psyche seeing his face was the condition of her existence. The transgression of this command\u2014her daring to illuminate the sleeping god with the lamp in order to know him\u2014ended in banishment. For Psyche, divine grace becomes the past. \nThe painting shown here captures precisely this first moment after the fall. Psyche lies helpless on the cold, hard ground, while Cupid flies in the distance like an ethereal winged vision, vanishing into the moonlight that has pierced through the dark clouds. In keeping with the ancient Hellenistic tradition, which personifies the human soul as a winged maiden, butterfly wings grow from her back \u2013 with soft, whitish tints and distinctive dark spots, reminiscent of those of Pieris brassicae [large white]. These fragile, transparent wings emphasise her absolute vulnerability against the harsh desert landscape: in the distance, the silhouettes of abandoned ancient cities and hills, sunken into the cold night, take shape. In this composition there is no cry, no external struggle or heroic pose. Only an abandoned nude female body \u2013 the being from whom the gods have seized her own meaning, casting her off as spent and superfluous flesh into the darkness. \n \n \nThis work, unseen for years, was purchased from a private collector in 2017. It is signed by the artist Ivan Dimitrov (1850\u20131944), who also gives the year of its creation as 1881. The author, known as \u201cthe doyen of Bulgarian painters\u201d and recognisable mainly for his academic portraits, may be described as an \u201cextraordinary phenomenon\u201d. Research for the present exhibition, however, reveals that the canvas is an academic copy of Psyche abandoned by Cupid<\/em> (1872) by the Romanian painter Sava Hen\u021bia (1848\u20131904). The original canvas, measuring 99 \u00d7 160 cm, was first shown to the public at the Paris Salon in 1873. A year later the work was also exhibited in Bucharest. With the help of the then Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vasile Boerescu (1830\u20131883), who bought it, Psyche entered the Pinacotheca of the Romanian state. Today it is part of the collection of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania. Ivan Dimitrov\u2019s connection with the school of fine arts in Bucharest, where he trained from 1877 to 1881, explains the emergence of this canvas \u2013 copying established artists is standard teaching practice. Whether this was a completed academic exercise or an attempt at appropriating authorship, we will probably never know. What is striking, however, is the physical size: at 101 \u00d7 163 cm, Dimitrov\u2019s canvas exceeds the original by Sava Hen\u021bia (99 \u00d7 160 cm). In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction<\/em>, Walter Benjamin notes how repetition strips the original of its unique \u201caura\u201d, but at the same time challenges its primacy. In this exchange the original and the copy easily swap places, and one of them inevitably becomes an unwanted object.<\/p>\n\n

I, AHINORA<\/strong> \n \nIn art there are meetings which do not just unite a creative pair, but underline a whole universe of yearning and mythical depictions. Such is the encounter between Nikolay Raynov and Ivan Milev; two of the brightest visionaries of Bulgarian modernism. Straddling the threshold between the Native and the universal, between decorative stylisation and verbal plasticity, they created images which would outlive the everyday and become markers for essentially new artistic achievements in the history of Bulgarian art. \n \n \nIn Raynov\u2019s tale Queen Ahinora<\/em>, the legendary spouse of Khan Asparuh is fashioned with the power of words into a tragic and fatal figure \u2013 the queen with \u201ca dagger in her hair\u201d and a gaze in which everybody who looks upon her loses themself, life and soul. Her fate is marked by the transition between the foreign world of the East and the building of a new state, where personal life must be laid down as a necessary sacrifice in the foundations of the future First Bulgarian Empire. Raynov dresses this mythical figure in a verbal ornament of \u201cmotley furs\u201d, \u201cmother-of-pearl and bone beads\u201d, a \u201cwreath of wild violets\u201d and a veiled smile. \n \n \nWhen Ivan Milev translates the subject into the language of painting in 1925, he builds a frontal, almost icon-like composition with tempera, ink and golden bronze. All the attributes are there: the dagger in the hair, the violet nuances, the geometric shapes and the veil. But the true centre remains the gaze. In the wide-open green eyes of Ahinora there is no portrait banality, but tragic stillness and knowledge of an inevitable decision. The veil hides the smile, in order to concentrate the entire suggestion in the gaze \u2013 a gaze of a ruler and victim, a gaze fixed as if beyond the viewer, towards the space of myth, the tip of the bloodied dagger, towards \u201cfiery death\u201d, towards eternity. \n \n \nDonated by the artist to his native Kazanlak only months before his untimely death, the painting sank into a decades-long darkness \u2013 the territory of silence and oblivion. \n \n \nWE, THE CHILDREN<\/strong> \n \nAccording to the latest global data, every four minutes somewhere in the world a child is killed as a result of an act of violence \u2013 an act that takes the lives of around 130,000 children and adolescents under the age of 20 each year. Boys are at a significantly higher risk of a fatal outcome, since three out of every four children and young people killed by violence are boys. This risk of death rises sharply in late adolescence, when seven out of every ten who die are aged between 15 and 19. \n \n \nIn parallel, the scale of sexual violence affects hundreds of millions of young people worldwide, with around 90 million children alive today having experienced such assaults. Some 650 million girls and women alive today (one in five) were victims of sexual violence* in childhood, and over 370 million of them (one in eight) have experienced rape or severe sexual assault. In humanitarian crises and unstable areas this risk for girls increases further, reaching just over one in four. At the same time, nearly 50 million women aged 15 to 19 (one in six) have been subjected to physical or sexual violence by their husbands or partners in the last year alone. \n \n \nSexual violence also affects the male population on a huge scale: between 410 and 530 million boys and men (about one in seven) have experienced such an assault in childhood, including between 240 and 310 million (about one in eleven) who were raped or subjected to severe sexual assault. \n \n \nAt home, 1.6 billion children (two in three) are regularly subjected to violent punishment, and more than two-thirds of them suffer both physical punishment and psychological aggression at the same time. In addition, nearly 550 million children (about one in four) grow up in a domestic environment with mothers who are themselves victims of violence from their intimate partner. \n \n \nThis early stress permanently damages neurological development and generates serious social consequences in early life. According to World Health Organization data, children who have experienced physical or sexual abuse are between two and five times more likely to show reactive aggression and criminal behaviour themselves in adolescence, reproducing the cycle of violence they have endured. Childhood trauma increases the risk of early use of, and dependence on, illegal drugs and alcohol before the age of 18 by between four and ten times, as a mechanism for suppressing psychological pain. As a result of this accumulation, suicide ranks among the four leading causes of death among adolescents aged 15 to 19 worldwide, taking the lives of over 45,000 young people every year. \n \n \n*This figure also includes online and non-contact forms of sexual abuse.<\/small><\/em> \n \n \nWE, THE MEN<\/strong> \n \nAccording to the latest global reports of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, men make up over 80% of all victims of intentional homicide worldwide. This fatal violence is most concentrated in the 15\u201329 age group, and in certain regions with high levels of organised crime the share of men among victims reaches 90%. At the same time, men account for around 90% of all recorded perpetrators of homicide in the world, as well as over 93% of the global prison population. \n \n \nAlongside criminal violence, state-organised armed conflicts and wars around the world take the lives of over 240,000 people a year \u2013 the highest level of battle deaths since the end of the Cold War. In these military operations over 90% of the fighters killed are men, mobilised and used as expendable resources at the front. War lays the double trap of the male role; a man is required to be an instrument of aggression, and at his fatal end his body is made anonymous and buried in mass graves as surplus. \n \n \nThis is also one of the reasons why addictions among the male population have reached epidemic levels. Worldwide, men consume over 75% of all alcohol and make up over 70% of people diagnosed with alcohol dependence or harmful use. Causes directly linked to alcohol, including liver disease, accidents and violence, take the lives of around 2.3 million men each year, which accounts for 7.7% of all male mortality globally (compared with 2.6% for women). Men also make up between 70% and 80% of people with severe dependence on illegal injectable drugs and opioids. \n \n \nThe mental health crisis among men is also expressed in a drastic disproportion in fatal attempts to end life. Although women record a higher number of suicide attempts, male suicide mortality is nearly twice as high worldwide (around 12.6 per 100,000 compared with 5.4 per 100,000 for women), and in high-income countries this rises to three times as many male deaths.<\/p>\n\n

WE, THE WOMEN<\/strong> \n \nAccording to official data from the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), women worldwide face specific, systemic risks linked to domestic violence, human trafficking, addiction and reproductive health. Globally, nearly one in three women (around 30%) has experienced physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, and over 640 million women suffer violence from an intimate partner. In its most extreme form this leads to femicide: according to the UN, over 55% of intentional homicides of women are committed by their relatives or partners (compared with just 12% for men), which means that over 85 women are killed every day in their own home.* \n \n \nProlonged exposure to domestic violence, social pressure and psychological trauma also leads to extreme displays of aggression on the part of women themselves. According to UNODC, women make up around 10% of all perpetrators of intentional homicide worldwide (around 40,000\u201345,000 cases a year). Unlike male crime, which is mainly street-based or organised, over 65% of homicides committed by women are directed at family members. Globally, around 5% to 7% of all murdered men are victims of their wives or partners, most often in the context of systematic abuse. \n \n \nAlongside this, severe postnatal depression, psychosis and extreme socio-economic hopelessness are major factors in infanticide (the killing of one\u2019s own child). Worldwide, in killings of children under one year old, the perpetrators are distributed almost equally between the two parents, with mothers committing over 50% of these crimes, most often in the first months after birth as a result of undiagnosed mental disorders or lack of support. \n \n \nParallel to this, women represent the main group of victims of international human trafficking and sexual exploitation. According to UNODC reports, over 60% of all detected victims of human trafficking worldwide are women and girls, and in trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced prostitution this share reaches a critical 91%. It is estimated that millions of women around the world are held in conditions of forced prostitution organised by criminal networks, and over 70% of them have experienced severe physical or sexual violence during the exploitation. \n \n \nIn the sphere of addiction and mental health, although men consume more alcohol, women are more vulnerable to the so-called \u201ctelescoping\u201d phenomenon: faster development of alcohol dependence and organ damage at lower doses. Around 1.3% of women worldwide (nearly 50 million) have a diagnosis of alcohol dependence, and over 30% of people using illegal drugs and prescription tranquillisers are women. Women suffer from depression and anxiety nearly twice as often as men, and suicide attempts among them are between two and three times more frequent, often as a result of trauma and violence. \n \n \nIn reproductive health, the World Health Organization records around 73 million abortions a year (accounting for 61% of unintended pregnancies). Around 45% of these are unsafe owing to a lack of medical conditions, leading to nearly 39,000 deaths of women a year and hospitalisation of another 7 million because of serious complications. In addition, preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth take the lives of around 287,000 women every year. \n \n \n \n* In 2024, around 50,000 women and girls were killed by an intimate partner or other family member, which is 60% of the roughly 83,000 women and girls killed intentionally that year. This means that an average of 137 women and girls were killed every day by a partner or close relative. (UNODC and UN Women, Femicides in 2024: Global Estimates of Intimate Partner\/Family Member Femicides (United Nations, November 2025)). In Bulgaria, the Council of Europe\u2019s Istanbul Convention is the most comprehensive international treaty on preventing and combatting violence against women and domestic violence. Bulgaria signed it on 21 April 2016. It has not been ratified and has not entered into force in the country, and in July 2018 the Constitutional Court declared it unconstitutional.<\/em><\/small> \n \n \n \n \nThis exhibition includes works by Ivan Dimitrov, Angel P. Hristov, Atanas Mihov, B. Atanasova, Borislava Atanasova, Borislava Tsaneva, Valery Ribalchenko, Vasil Barakov, Vasilka Genadieva, Vera Lukova, Victoria Bregovlyanin, Vytautas Ciplijauskas, Ganyu Ivanov, Georgi Emanuilov, Desislava Mincheva, Dechko Mandov, Dechko Stoev, Dechko Uzunov, Dobri Dobrev, Dobri P. Dobrev, Elsa Goeva, Zachary Zhelev, Ivan Popchev, Ivan B. Ivanov, Ivan Enchev\u2013Vidyu, Ivan Penkov, Yoan Leviev, Konstantin Tringov, Lyudmila Poptosheva, Magda Abazova, Mara Tsoncheva, Mara Chorbadjiska, Marie \u0160\u0165astn\u00e1, Milka Peykova, Nadezhda Kancheva, Nenko Balkanski, Nikola I. Nikolov, Nikola Mihaylov, Nikolay Karadzhov, Petko Klisurov, Petar Branev, Rada Poptosheva, Radoslav Radev, Rem Ermolin, Roman Kissiov, Snezhana Popgencheva, Stefan Parov, Stefanka Stoycheva, Toma Trifonovski, Hristo Donkov, Tsvetan Petrov, Tsvetana Simeonova, Tsvete Boneva and Tseno Todorov. <\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

The topography of violence in Kazanlak<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

This register gathers only a barely visible fragment of the topography of violence in Kazanlak: a geographical map drawn for decades, not in ink but in suffering, hatred and despair. Each address indicated is a silent testament to a shattered life, a moment of madness, political arbitrariness or personal tragedy. These are places we pass every day unaware of the shadow that history has cast on these pavements, buildings and parks.<\/p>\n\n

This is a topography of unwanted victims. Of those whose cry has faded in court archives, on the pages of old newspapers or in the oblivion of time. Remembering them is not a way of seeking revenge. It is a reminder of how easily humanity gives way to aggression, and how dearly forgetting costs us. \n \nThis list was compiled thanks to the exceptional efforts of Mr Stefan Bozadzhiev, Ms Ralitsa Arabadzhieva and Ms Antoniya Draganova. The team at Art Gallery Kazanlak also thanks the staff of Iskra Municipal Library for their help with our research for the project.<\/p>\n\n

Map of sites<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

01. <\/p>\n\n

Iskra Municipal Library<\/strong> \n \nThe Iskra Municipal Library holds priceless evidence of life in the town. On 24 March 1911, a local newspaper printed a short note from one Stoyan N. Kiliov, who publicly repented for having \u201cunjustly struck his wife\u201d. \n<\/p>\n\n

02. <\/p>\n\n

Iskra Community Centre<\/strong> \n \nOn the night of 15\u201316 May 1931, a bomb attack was carried out here in reaction to the premiere of the play Az ubih<\/em> (the Bulgarian translation of the French play L\u2019Homme Que J\u2019ai Tu\u00e9<\/em>) by Maurice Rostand. \n<\/p>\n\n

03.<\/p>\n\n

St. Cyril and St. Methodius High School of Humanities<\/strong> \n \nAfter the bombing of the Church of St Nedelya in Sofia on 16 April 1925, at the beginning of May 14, pupils of the Kazanlak Pedagogical School were arrested in Kazanlak and subsequently charged. One of those arrested hanged himself in prison at the local district administration building. Another slit his wrists in a suicide attempt.<\/p>\n\n

04.<\/p>\n\n

High School of Humanities<\/strong> \n \nOn social media on 13 October 2025, footage circulated of brutal aggression between minors. The violence took place at around 14:00, in front of the fence here. According to witnesses, girls attending other Kazanlak schools attacked a ninth-grader from the St. Cyril and St. Methodius High School of Humanities.<\/p>\n\n

05.<\/p>\n\n

Next to Villa Rosa<\/strong> \n \nHere, at the end of February 1945, 97 Kazanlak residents were detained and tortured. On 2 March 1945, the Fifth Panel of the People\u2019s Court sat in the large hall of the Iskra Community Centre and sentenced 22 of them to death, among them teachers, soldiers, police officers, entrepreneurs and administrators. The condemned were shot near the Kazanlak cemetery and buried in a mass grave.<\/p>\n\n

06.<\/p>\n\n

Taxi rank next to Detmag<\/strong> \n \nIn 1992 on St Dimitar\u2019s Day, a shot was heard in one of the taxis in town. A 26-year-old passenger shot the driver with an illegally held TT pistol. Miraculously, the driver survived.<\/p>\n\n

07.<\/p>\n\n

Car park behind the municipality<\/strong> \n \nIn 1990 offences against personal property became more frequent in Kazanlak. In July alone, nine car thefts were recorded, committed by minors.<\/p>\n\n

08.<\/p>\n\n

Railway station<\/strong> \n \nOn 6 July 1926, the head of a young woman was found between the railway tracks. She had married two days earlier; the wedding had been large and noisy. On 15 July, in response to the tragedy, Petar Topuzov wrote in the newspaper Iskra: \u2018Though we supposedly advance culturally, what do we see?\u2019<\/p>\n\n

09.<\/p>\n\n

Desperado discotheque<\/strong> \n \nHere, on 12 December 2006, a mass fight broke out between two groups after an alcohol-fuelled quarrel. At 9:30 the following morning, as a continuation of the previous night\u2019s tension, one of the participants fired seven shots at close range into the body of another man with a pistol. The victim died of his wounds an hour later.<\/p>\n\n

10.<\/p>\n\n

Seuthopolis Square<\/strong> \n \nHere, in August 1868, the rebels of the band of Hadzhi Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha, Hristo Yankov and Stefan Oreshkov, were hanged.<\/p>\n\n

11.<\/p>\n\n

North-east corner of the Kazanlak Hotel<\/strong> \n \nHere stood the bookshop of Georgi Kakachev. In May 1886, because of his political convictions, he was jailed and beaten.<\/p>\n\n

12.<\/p>\n\n

Start of Iskra Street, near the statue of the Thracian Woman<\/strong> \n \nHere stood the fabric shop of 52-year-old Avram Avdala. On the morning of 31 May 1938 he saw his mother to the railway station, then made his way to his shop. He was later found by his son, hanged on the staircase inside.<\/p>\n\n

13.<\/p>\n\n

Middle of Seuthopolis Square<\/strong> \n \nHere, in the middle of the square, in spring 1900, according to town gossip, a disorderly scene took place. The writer Anton Strashimirov, at that time a literature teacher at the Pedagogical School, quarrelled with the mayor, Mr Mincho Stoev. The dispute arose because Strashimirov had given a failing grade to the mayor\u2019s son. The consequence of this humiliation: Anton Strashimirov was dismissed.<\/p>\n\n

14.<\/p>\n\n

12\u201313 Seuthopolis Square, Ivet cake & pastry shop<\/strong> \n \nThe Naydenov brothers owned property here. On the second day of Christmas in 1925, young men gathered in their tavern. After a fight broke out, Tenyo Stoykov had his lower jaw broken. The beating proved fatal. Despite the efforts of the local Dr Popov to save him, the young man soon died.<\/p>\n\n

15.<\/p>\n\n

The building cooperative at the corner of Rila Street and Seuthopolis Square<\/strong> \n \nThis was the home of the teacher Vasil Koskin. In despair after a long illness, he took his own life. He was found hanged from the vine in his courtyard on 24 April 1939.<\/p>\n\n

16.<\/p>\n\n

19 Seuthopolis Square<\/strong> \n \nAmong those sentenced to death by the Fifth Panel of the People\u2019s Court was Tenyu St. Karailiev, owner of the rope factory of the same name, founded by his father Stefan. His offence, which made him a victim, was his monetary donations to the needs of the Bulgarian and German armies during the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n

17.<\/p>\n\n

The Staynov houses<\/strong> \n \nPart of the Staynov family\u2019s properties stood here. The family also owned one of the town\u2019s factories. Right beside it, on 9 March 1936 at 18:00, the shoemaker Doncho T. Georgiev lay in wait for his former fianc\u00e9e. Embittered by the separation, he shot her in the head. The bullet, however, ricocheted off the bone, and the woman fell to the ground, wounded but alive. The abandoned man, thinking her dead, took his own life with a shot to the mouth.<\/p>\n\n

18.<\/p>\n\n

The caf\u00e9 in front of the post office<\/strong> \n \nHere, on 6 August 2012 at 18:30, a man took out a sharp craft knife, cut the veins in his wrists and walked along the pavement in front of the post office, crowded with pedestrians. Fortunately, a medical team saved his life. The trigger was his father\u2019s refusal to give him 250 leva.<\/p>\n\n

19.<\/p>\n\n

7 23rd Pehoten Shipchenski Polk Boulevard (corner of Hristo Botev Street)<\/strong> \n \nThe town\u2019s chess club was here. Secret court hearings were held in it during the 1970s. At the end of 1972, Ramadan Runtov (Kurudzhu), originally from Kornitsa and then living in Dolno Izvorovo in the Kazanlak area, was sentenced for anti-state activity, together with several like-minded people, in the chess club itself. Their offence was opposing the forced assimilation policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which was aimed at the traditions, dress and, subsequently, the names of Muslims in Bulgaria.<\/p>\n\n

20.<\/p>\n\n

Corner of Pushkin Street and 23rd Pehoten Shipchenski Polk Boulevard<\/strong> \n \nIn one of the blocks on this street, on 12 April 2011, a family quarrel broke out between a father and son. In July the father\u2019s body was found in a vat in the building\u2019s basement. During those three months the boy attended school regularly and led a \u201cnormal\u201d life until the crime was discovered.<\/p>\n\n

21.<\/p>\n\n

19 Pushkin Street<\/strong> \n \nHere, at 4:10 am on 11 March 2007, a loud explosion equivalent to half a kilogram of TNT went off. A bakery was blown up, and 70 apartments in four neighbouring blocks were damaged. Miraculously, there were no casualties.<\/p>\n\n

22.<\/p>\n\n

Vasil Levski quarter, block 13<\/strong> \n \nEarly in the morning of 9 March 1993, in this area, a 16-year-old youth attacked a 48-year-old woman. He struck her repeatedly and kicked her in the face, then stole her handbag, which contained 140 leva.<\/p>\n\n

23.<\/p>\n\n

97 Stara Planina Street, near Nikola Vaptsarov Primary School<\/strong> \n \nAt about 20:30 on 20 June 2015, for unknown reasons, a man fired at the rubbish bins here. Minutes later he shot himself fatally in the head with a home-made pistol.<\/p>\n\n

24.<\/p>\n\n

The Rosarium<\/strong> \n \nThe town is inhabited by people, but also by stray animals. In October 2020, a town resident came across a dead kitten with its paws cut off. Tatyana Baycheva raised the alarm about the cruelty, writing on social media: \u2018Do not be afraid to expose a killer!\u2019<\/p>\n\n

25.<\/p>\n\n

The Rosarium<\/strong> \n \nOn 18 July 1990, at around 22:30, two young men beat up a 70-year-old man here. The aim of the attack was robbery. The youths took the old man\u2019s wallet, which held only 3 leva.<\/p>\n\n

26.<\/p>\n\n

Yrechek Street (\u201cthe Jewish House\u201d)<\/strong>. From here, the Jewish Quarter of Kazanlak, between 9 and 11 June 1943, the Jews of the town were forcibly removed.<\/p>\n\n

27. <\/p>\n\n

8 Stara Planina Street<\/strong> \n \nOn 6 August 1997, 32-year-old Hristo Bizev, known as \u201cBizona\u201d, who was active in the restaurant and gambling business, was shot dead at home. Months earlier, his flat and his car had been blown up, one after the other.<\/p>\n\n

28.<\/p>\n\n

29 General Skobelev Street<\/strong> \n \nAnton Bonev Petkov, one of the brightest champions of the establishment of the communist regime in the country, was born here. On 26 May 1946, Anton was lured by a group of Komsomol members to the village of Aleksandrovo and brutally murdered. His body was found only about a week later.<\/p>\n\n

29.<\/p>\n\n

Somewhere on General Skobelev Street<\/strong> \n \nIn this area, at 2:30 am on 21 July 1992, two soldiers, who were then on home leave, beat up a young man. The purpose of the attack was the theft of Wimbledon trainers worth 1,700 leva.<\/p>\n\n

30.<\/p>\n\n

Next to the Japanese Woman<\/em> statue by the cinema<\/strong> \n \nHere, on 10 June 2023 at about 5:00 am, a quarrel broke out. A young man of just over 21 was brutally beaten by eight people.<\/p>\n\n

31.<\/p>\n\n

In front of the Kazanlak District Court<\/strong> The justice system in the country continues to create a sense of impunity in society. Such is the case of 47-year-old Daniel Kiskinov. On 26 February 2025, after a report of a bicycle theft, the man was beaten to death. Among the perpetrators of this brutality were police officers.<\/p>\n\n

32.<\/p>\n\n

Again, around the court<\/strong> \n \nIn August 1990 the Kazanlak District Court released alarming statistics: over the previous 12 months, 530 marriages had been registered, but there were also 130 divorce cases. The most common reason for ending family relationships was the husband\u2019s physical and psychological abuse of his wife.<\/p>\n\n

33.<\/p>\n\n

South-east corner of the Mati Bulgaria school yard<\/strong> \n \nThis was the site of the local lock-up. Here, on 1 May 1886, on the orders of Prime Minister Petko Karavelov (who was in Kazanlak at the time), a group of protesting opposition activists were arrested. They were then beaten with \u201cclubs and ox sinews\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

34.<\/p>\n\n

Corner by the Lidl shop<\/strong> \n \nThe old hospital of Kazanlak stood here. On 10 July 1935, Nadezhda H. Ivanova Ilieva was admitted to it after attempting suicide with narcotic substances bought from the shop of Kemal Avramov Bidzheranov. On inspection of the merchant\u2019s stock, \u201cillegal poisons\u201d were found, including 880 g of opium and 2 kg of red mercury powder. He was fined for this.<\/p>\n\n

35.<\/p>\n\n

Chudomir Literary and Historical Museum<\/strong> \n \nThe remains of Chudomir are interred here. On 26 December 1967, only a day after Christmas, he took his own life, jumping from the third-floor balcony of the Government Hospital in Sofia shortly after 13:30.<\/p>\n\n

36.<\/p>\n\n

The Mosque<\/strong> \n \nAt about 1:00 am on 1 December 1996, the mosque was bombed. The glass and wooden window frames of the building were smashed. The blast knocked out the entrance door, and considerable damage was done inside. The bomb was a professionally made albeit home-made device, placed inside the building. Kazanlak\u2019s mayor, Ivan Gorolomov, condemned it as an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n\n

37. <\/p>\n\n

By the bathhouse at the market<\/strong> \n \nDuring the night of 21\u201322 June 1933, explosions went off at two houses in the town: those of Colonel Kostov on Yapa Market and of Georgi Totomanov, a technician at the military factory. The investigation established that Totomanov had wanted to kill his wife so that he could live with his lover. He was sentenced to 15 years\u2019 solitary confinement.<\/p>\n\n

38.<\/p>\n\n

The market (by the car park on the north side, behind the bathhouse)<\/strong> \n \nHere, on 20 March 2023 at about 14:30, after a quarrel between two families from the villages of Tazha and Manolovo, a mass brawl broke out. According to eyewitnesses, around 30 people were involved in the clash.<\/p>\n\n

39.<\/p>\n\n

By the Art High School<\/strong> On 9 August 1997 at about 6:00 am, an 18-year-old girl was raped in the area by a 33-year-old man.<\/p>\n\n

40.<\/p>\n\n

Next to the Emanuil Manolov monument<\/strong> \n \nOn 7 March 1937, the young woman Donka Kalcheva was found here, writhing after poisoning. She had attempted suicide because of an unrequited love.<\/p>\n\n

41.<\/p>\n\n

The Bozveli house (next to Iskra Municipal Library)<\/strong> \n \nIn the home of Konstantin Bozveli, at about 11:00 on 14 October 1936, a shot was heard. His younger son Lyubomir, then barely 34, was severely depressed after being diagnosed with cancer. That day he took his own life.<\/p>\n\n

42.<\/p>\n\n

39 Knyaz Mirski Street<\/strong> \n \nThis was the home of Boncho Shanov, one of the organisers of the September Uprising in the Kazanlak district. After the uprising was suppressed, he was captured and killed on the road between Kran and Kazanlak on 26 September 1923.<\/p>\n\n

43.<\/p>\n\n

Memorial plaque at the Church of St Elijah the Prophet<\/strong> \n \nOn 6 August 1877, Ottoman troops entered Kazanlak. A period of arson, looting and mass bloodshed against Bulgarians across the whole region followed.<\/p>\n\n

44.<\/p>\n\n

By the hospital<\/strong> \n \nOn 17 September 1992, a 52-year-old woman from Pleven was admitted here. She had been raped at the railway stop at Pavel Banya at 21:30 the previous evening. After the crime, her attacker beat her and took six gold rings. Here again, four days later, a 32-year-old man died of injuries from a brutal beating.<\/p>\n\n

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