Hotel ‘London’

The building at the corner of “Church Independence” street and “Knyazheska” street was built in stages. In 1901-1902, Stoyan Hadjigenov bought a delicious plot on “Church Independence” street. The new center of Rousse was already being formed there, and he had engaged Eng. Vladimir Malchev to build a beautiful town house for the him.

During the process of construction, the house has also acquired an illegal outbuilding on “Knyazeska” street, where the seller allowed himself to settle in a neighboring property whose owner was away from the city for a long time. The second part of the building was built by architect Edwin Petrycki. Thus, the buildings formed a beautiful corner house with rich ornamentation and good connection.

Over the years, the building has changed owners several times and basically evolved as a hotel. It was first named the “Schweitzer Hotel”, and has long existed as the “London Hotel”.

The owner of the “London Hotel” was Vasil Ralchev, a settler from Teteven, who acquired the building in 1919. The hotel had 17 rooms and a pastry shop on the ground floor. Legends say  that behind the pastry shop, there was a hidden passage to a gambling room. This type of activity was illegal at the time, but extremely attractive to the rich and famous Russians who had been gathering there on the sly.

After the Second World War, the building was used by the Municipal radio center. It also housed a branch of the Bulgarian TABSO air carrier, later the Bulgarian civil aviation "Balkan".It currently houses a branch of a bank.

Source: Doikov, V., Dimitrova, M. Buildings - the European cultural heritage of  Rousse. R., 2013