HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF KAZANLAK
by Catia Ramos
After visiting Thracian Tomb, Rose Museum and Ethnography Museum, we went with our wonderful guide Antonina to the Historical Museum of Kazanlak. The first thing I need to say is – we are very lucky we went there with a guide, otherwise this museum couldn’t make a good impression. There are a lot of old, precious treasures, but put in some kind of mess and also visiting museum with a guide allowed us to know which treasures are the most important.
So probably the most precious thing in the museum is a helmet of king Svet, the same one who was buried in Thracian Tomb in Kazanlak and whose city is hidden under Koprinka water. We also learned a bit about him and Thracians in general. After this I need to say that partly I like them, partly I am terrified. Reading “Iliad” I was always on a side of Troy, as Hector was much more reasonable rather than presuming Achilles, and Priam was more sedate than nervous Agamemnon. So it is really good to know that Thracians was on Troya side. On the other hand, the fact that when king died his favorite wife and favorite horse were buried with him is a little bit terrifying and make me to wonder if the origins of Thracians and Hindu are the same, because there are only cultures, about which I heard this kind of cruelty.
In the museum, we also had a possibility to talk with a woman, who was working as an archeologist during biggest archeological work in Rose Valley territory in 1990s. She told us some interesting stories about the work of archeologists and also a funny anecdote. Thracians didn’t have their writing and they were using symbols instead. During works archeologist found a ring-stamp with engraved a grape, the Griffin and the turtle. The boss of this archeological mission suggested an interpretation that it means “who drink wine is brave as Griffin and live forever as a turtle”. It is so nice story and made me feel like people everywhere are the same and tell very similar stories.
Except the Historical Museum, in the same building we can see the Art Gallery. As we learned Kazanlak is famous for art too and many artists come from this city. I need to be honest that art is definitely not my thing and it is difficult to me to judge its value. However there were two things which I enjoyed. One was the room full of religious paintings from XIX century. There was really nice polyptych showing “creating of human” and also two interesting paintings showing two saints very similar way: one was Saint George killing a dragon on a horse and the second one was killing a human on a horse. The second nice thing was a portrait of “Ludmila”, who looked very similar to Spanish King Carlos II.
And that is how we finished our museum tour in Kazanlak, we visited all museums inside the city and now we are ready to see the area around it.
