Shishmanova house was built in 1854 in the typical style of the 19th century architecture common in the vast Thracian region. The two-story symmetrical building has a traditional structure from the late Renaissance, with beautiful bay windowed facades and a rectangular kiosk projecting forward. The ground floor was built of solid stone masonry, and the second was a wooden structure filled with small stones. During the major renovation of the house in the early 1970s, the stones were replaced by brickwork. Inside the house impresses with its exquisite architectural line and wood carving.

Exactly which representative of the great Shishmanov family built the house in the middle of the 19th century cannot be specified today. It was just one of the many houses located around the cathedral church “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin”, built on the property of Hristodul Valchev Shishmanov (1784-1870) and consecrated in 1837. The heir to the house was Todor Z. Shishmanov – a lawyer, public figure and mayor of Haskovo in the period 1905-1907, who was the first-born son of Hristodul’s younger brother – Zheko Shishmanov (1790-1844).

In the last years of the 19th century, a primary school was opened in the house. The educational process took place in the rooms on the second floor, but in the years when there were too many children, there were also pupils on the ground floor. The owner of the house at that time – the regimental adjutant lieutenant Ivan Shishmanov, who highly valued education and culture in the city appointed himself as a school headmaster. His wife, Elena Shishmanova, lived in the house until old age. after her death the building was restored and arranged as a museum exhibition “Homework until the end of the 19th century”.

The exhibition opened in 1975, introduced visitors to the characteristic home occupations of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Haskovo region. The house-museum was closed in 2003. After a major renovation in 2024 under a program of cultural entrepreneurship, heritage and cooperation in partnership with Iceland, the exposition was restored and opened to visitors.

Author: Dr. Veselina Uzunova

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