![Vrana Palace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Vrana_Palace.jpg)
Vrana Palace ( bg, Дворец "Врана", translit=Dvorets "Vrana"; formerly ; ) is a former royal palace, on the outskirts of
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
, the capital of
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
. It is today the official residence of former
royal family of Bulgaria. While the Royal Palace in the centre of Sofia (today the
National Art Gallery
List of national galleries is a list of national art galleries.
{{tocright Africa
*Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
*National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
The Americas
*Galería Nacional, San Juan, Puerto ...
and
National Ethnographic Museum) served representative purposes and the
Euxinograd
Euxinograd ( bg, Евксиноград , also transliterated as ''Evksinograd'') is a late 19th-century Bulgarian former royal summer palace and park on the Black Sea coast, north of downtown Varna. The palace is currently a governmental and ...
Palace near
Varna
Varna may refer to:
Places Europe
*Varna, Bulgaria, a city in Bulgaria
**Varna Province
**Varna Municipality
** Gulf of Varna
**Lake Varna
**Varna Necropolis
*Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy
*Varniai, a city in Lithuania
* Varna (Šaba ...
was a summer residence, Vrana was the palace where the
royal family of Bulgaria spent most of their time. Vrana Palace is situated at an elevation of 571 m.
It includes the site of Chardakli farm, where there was a bridge which
featured in the liberation of Sofia.
History
The extensive lot was bought by Tsar
Ferdinand I in 1898 and was situated just outside Sofia whereas nowadays is inside the city proper. There is a large park and two buildings, the first one built in 1904 as a two-story hunting lodge commissioned to
Georgi Fingov, and the second constructed mainly between 1909 and 1914 as a palace, both with money from the state budget. The earliest building in the complex, the hunting lodge, has been described architecturally as an "exquisite interpretation of the
Plovdiv
Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
with
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city
* Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance
* V ...
decorative elements".
*
Three rooms of the three-storey palace commissioned to the noted architect
Nikola Lazarov
Nikola Ivanov Lazarov ( bg, Никола Иванов Лазаров) (1 April 1870 – 14 June 1942) was a Bulgarian architect.
Lazarov was born in the sub-Balkan town of Karlovo, then part of the Ottoman Empire (today in central Bulgaria). His ...
were later furnished in the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
style, one in the style of the
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n royal palaces and one in a Bulgarian national style, while the study was designed in a
Venetian style. The palace features a
carved wooden ceiling, oak
wainscoting
Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials.
Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...
, built-in metal plates and
Delftware
Delftware or Delft pottery, also known as Delft Blue ( nl, Delfts blauw) or as delf,
is a general term now used for Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, a form of faience. Most of it is blue and white pottery, and the city of Delft in the Netherland ...
. The interior columns are made of
Carrara
Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, west-northwest o ...
marble and an old
Schindler lift is still in use. In terms of architecture, the Vrana Palace combines
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
influences,
Bulgarian National Revival
The Bulgarian National Revival ( bg, Българско национално възраждане, ''Balgarsko natsionalno vazrazhdane'' or simply: Възраждане, ''Vazrazhdane'', and tr, Bulgar ulus canlanması) sometimes called the Bu ...
traditions,
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
and
French classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...
.
The
Karelia
Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...
n Hall is a gift from
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander III ( rus, Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, r=Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 18 ...
, and all of its furniture (the table, the chairs and the dressing table) are made of Karelian
birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...
by master woodworkers specially sent from Russia. The first storey also has a cinema hall and tea halls, the second storey is where the apartments are located, and the third one used to be allocated to the servants and the court.
In 1918 Vrana passed from Tsar Ferdinand to
Boris III
Boris III ( bg, Борѝс III ; Boris Treti; 28 August 1943), originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver (Boris Clement Robert Mary Pius Louis Stanislaus Xavier) , was the Tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria from 1918 until h ...
. Here he faced the new government after the military coup on 9 June 1923. In August 1943, it became the property of Simeon II. The main palace was bombed by the
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
in 1943–1944 during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and, after being partially damaged, it was subsequently restored in 1947. After the abolition of the monarchy, Vrana was taken by the
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
and became a residence of
Georgi Dimitrov
Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...
.
After the fall of the communist regime, Vrana was returned to the last tsar, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his sister Princess Maria Luisa, by the
Constitutional Court of Bulgaria
The Constitutional Court of Bulgaria is in charge of reviewing the constitutionality of laws and statutes brought before it, as well as the compliance of these laws with international treaties that the Government has signed. The 12 members of the C ...
in June 1998, and the park was donated by the royal family to the city of Sofia in October 1999, making it possible for the former royal park, arranged in 1903 by Ferdinand, to be opened to the public. Simeon moved with his wife Margarita into the renovated old hunting lodge in spring 2001. , the 0.968-square-kilometre park is opened to the public. The park is home to over 400 plant species and has been declared a national monument of
landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
.
Among the
landscape art
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...
ists who have worked on the Vrana Park include V. Georgiev, K. Baykushev, Jules Locheau, Johann Kellerer, Anton Kraus, Alaricus Delmard and
Wilhelm Schacht. The park includes a lake and several
rock gardens.
The palace, along with the other properties given back to Simeon II, has been the subject of much controversy in the Bulgarian media and society in the 2000s, as many argue they are in fact supposed to be public property. Since June 2013, the park has been opened to the public on weekends. The special public transport bus 505, which only runs on weekends during the park's opening hours, connects the palace with
Eagles' Bridge
Eagles' Bridge ( bg, Орлов мост, ''Orlov most'' ) is a bridge over the Perlovska River in downtown Sofia, capital of Bulgaria.''Travel Sofia: Illustrated Guide, Phrasebook and Maps'', MobileReference, 2010 The bridge and junction where it ...
.
External links
Google Earth view
References
General references
*
*
Footnotes
{{Authority control
Palaces in Bulgaria
Royal residences in Bulgaria
Buildings and structures in Sofia
Art Nouveau architecture in Bulgaria
Art Nouveau houses
Houses completed in 1904
Houses completed in 1914