site.btaJune 20, 1962: First Bulgarian Mountain Lift Opens Festively in Vitosha

On June 20, 1962, the first mountain lift in Bulgaria was inaugurated between Sofia's Knyazhevo borough and Kopitoto - a locality in the Vitosha Mountain. Thanks to the cable car, tourists to the Vitosha Nature Park could, in just 10 minutes, easily and comfortably climb up to Kopitoto.

The cabin lift was manufactured and delivered by the Austrian company Girak Brothers. The total length was 1,900 meters. The capacity of the gondola was 600 people per hour from the base station in Knyazhevo at 744 meters above sea level, to the final one – on top of Kopitoto at 1,348 m. In 1986, a 160-meter-high TV tower was built next to the cable car’s end station. There were 54 cabins, which seated four people, with ski carrying facilities. The ropeway speed was 3 metres per second, and the time of travel was 11 minutes.

The lift is not operational.

It stopped working in 1993, because it was unsafe - this happened before Vajeni Linii EAD was acquired by Vitosha Ski AD. The concessionaire of the mountain slopes and the facilities on the mountain said that in the period from 1993 to 2007, the Knyazhevo – Kopitoto lift was plundered, which made it impossible to rebuild. Moreover, it was built using very old technology that is not applicable to modern technical requirements, they added.

In June 2025, Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev published a roadmap for the restoration of the Vitosha lifts. He explained what the plans and the possible obstacles are. The main steps include preparing a project and securing financing, analyzing the legislative framework and making necessary changes, updating the Vitosha Management Plan, adopting development plans and implementing the investment. The Mayor pointed out that the restoration of the Simeonovo, Dragalevtsi and Knyazhevo lifts depend not only on the Municipality, but also on the goodwill of the owners and a number of institutions.