site.btaBulgarian Irredentist Movement Landmark in Bucharest May Collapse due Red-Tape Mire

Bulgarian Irredentist Movement Landmark in Bucharest May Collapse due Red-Tape Mire
Bulgarian Irredentist Movement Landmark in Bucharest May Collapse due Red-Tape Mire

The Solakov Inn in Bucharest is in danger of collapsing on passing pedestrians and tram 21 cars, the HotNews.ro website warned, asking City Hall why it had not consolidated the building after it had undertaken to do so. 

According to the municipal administration's Executive Director responsible for the consolidation of buildings at seismic risk, Razvan Munteanu, there is a bureaucratic procedure to be followed. This includes preparing an expert opinion on the condition of the building, receiving approval from the Culture Ministry, issuance of permit for repair works and commissioning of a contractor company.

Consolidation works were to have begun this spring, City Hall's answer to the HotNews.ro inquiry says. The date has been rescheduled for the coming fall. 

The preparation of the expert opinion had taken long, for the geodesists could not enter the building itself due to its advanced stage of decomposition, the debris and the vegetation, Munteanu explained. City Council now has to consider the technical and economic indicators, after which the permit is issued, Monteanu told HotNews.ro.

The Culture Ministry has already okayed the proceedings and the project has been contracted to the Metropolitan Buildings Trust company. Information about the building's consolidation is still lacking, nor is it known whether City Hall will hold a competition for the restoration of the inn, when that will be done and with what funding.

The inn was named after the Solakoglu brothers from the Danubian city of Svishtov. Initially built as a pasta factory in 1859, it gradually became a haven for Bulgarian revolutionary immigrants in Romania. The Solakov Inn housed the press where the great Bulgarian National Revival figure Lyuben Karavelov published the newspapers "Freedom" and "Independence", as well as the "Knowledge" journal. There, too, poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev and national hero Vassil Levski spent the harsh winter of 1868, as was later described by Botev.

The glory of those times, which preceded Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman rule, is attested by a memorial slab to Karavelov on the building's facade placed there by the Bulgarian embassy in Bucharest.

The 100-room building was nearly destroyed in the World War II bombings and then nationalized in 1948. Until the end of the 1980s it was used to house low-income people and gradually fell into disrepair, to the point that it was threatened to be demolished and remained in that poor state long years despite its statute as a monument of culture (since 1997). The then Bulgarian ambassador in Bucharest, Peter Danailov, began negotiations with Romanian authorities for the inn to be restored and become a Bulgarian cultural centre.

In 2003, descendants of the Solakoglu brothers succeeded in regaining their property, but it was in terrible condition. Restoring it required a considerable investment which they failed to provide.

After part of the facade fell in 2019, the Bucharest authorities launched an alienation procedure. The procedure took long, largely due to the ongoing pandemic and a change of the city authorities, until finally Bucharest City Council approved the funds for the alienation on November 26, 2021 to the tune of some RON 4.5 million (BGN 1.8 million).

In January 2022, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan wrote on his Facebook account that they had the green light to commence work on the Solakov Inn. Work on the salvation of the building would commence soon and the inn would be turned into a cultural hub of the Romanian capital.

/BR/

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By 11:15 on 29.03.2024 Today`s news

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