If you have passed along Zlatarska Str., there is no way you’ve missed noticing perhaps the most beautiful building in Kapana. The century-old house, built in the 1920’s, grows younger and feasts on the passions of love of its inhabitants. Because of its dramatic story the architecture jewel enters our ‘Kapana’s Legends’ series. We meet the current owner, who enchanted us with the exciting story around the building of the house that today is like a symbol of the ethnical bouquet under the hills.
With great pleasure he starts the story about the Turkish man who was madly in love with a beautiful Greek girl. And at that time this was intolerable, not like these days. A marriage between a Muslim and a Christian was unthinkable. An absolutely forbidden love, the current owner Georgi Tomov says. The beauty of the house and its unique ornamentation were his way of expressing his love. Having designed it for the lady of his heart, the painfully enamored Turk conveyed the colour scheme of Greece – her motherland - onto the façade. He had it painted in soft blue and white. This is how it remains to this day. Where the corner house gathers, in its central part, the Turk placed his symbol – a ram’s horn, which showed that he was a sheep-breeder. Under the windows he hung plaster love garlands, and above them – lions’ heads, as a symbol of the owner’s courage and power. On the roof he placed three bowls that showed greatness. It is precisely the house that makes their otherwise impossible love possible – the couple slaps people’s opinions and builds their love nest there. They became a family, but remained childless. Because of this, after 1944 their property had been nationalized, and in 1968 with a resolution of the Communist party the house was given to an Armenian family. The current owner Georgi Tomov buys the house from them.
Our meeting with him is in his little shop that belongs to the house. He shows us old photos of the building and on one of them we notice clamped to it a small photo of a beautiful young woman. Ah, this one? This is Danny, my love; tell us the man with obvious emotion, after having seen our curiosity. It becomes clear that these are not banal words but truth itself – the family has been together for 45 years. Even today a wedding band with a beautifully engraved D shines on his finger. The great love for his wife is what made him buy the home for her. Back then it was in a wretched state, but Georgi Tomov took up the repairing himself, keeping its original appearance. Come upstairs, I’ll show you the house. You’ll be the first to see it…
Feeling the atmosphere of such a building is like taking a leap into history, to feel the spirit of eras and people that have left their energy between the walls. Now the second floor is used as an office by the son Vasil, who is a rehabilitation therapist. The daughter Rumi is a nurse. It is to his children that Georgi wants to leave the house. Today, as an expression of his romantic nature the man from Plovdiv paints. He tells us that he’s a self-taught painter and with pride shows us his improvised gallery, in which there are his self-portraits, Odysseus, van Gogh. He doesn’t dare paint his loved one on a piece of paper. She is engraved in his heart.
