The last surviving maazis in Turnovo are also being demolished, the 200-year-old buildings are collapsing due to the carelessness of the co-owners

New fences due to collapsed walls of old houses appeared on the main street

A huge hole gaped in one of the walls of an old house at 12 Stefan Stambolov Street.

A part of the facade has caved in and fences have been placed to prevent it from falling on someone, saw a Borba team.

The building is one of only 7 surviving Tarnovo maazis, which shaped the commercial appearance of the city and the silhouette of the main street in Staro Tarnovo.

The maaz at number 18, which juts out by itself next to the destroyed Stambolov Khan, is also in bad condition. It has existed in the Tarnovo plan since 1907 and has withstood the great earthquake of 1913. Its built-up area is 70 square meters, it is on two levels, it is built of stone, and its roof ends with a huge triangular cornice. In 1984, there was an architectural project for it and a photograph taken by NIPC, enough to verify its condition at that time and at least preserve it for generations as photographic material.

Another house, at 19 “Velcho Jamdzhiyat” Street, next to the monument of Nikola Piccolo, is on the way to collapse.

There, the side wall, built of glued bars, has bent in the middle, and the time is not far when it will drag the whole house down. You can’t walk on the sidewalk in front of it either, because there are fences. In practice, from the Central Station to the Administrative Court, only ruins and panels are visible, hiding the ruins. The houses were abandoned more than 10 years ago and apparently the instructions to the owners are not enough. If measures are not taken, soon there will be nothing for tourists to see in this part of the old capital.

Once upon a time, the most popular commercial buildings were the maazis.

Their construction began in the first half of XVIII century, around 1840. It is impossible to say exactly how many shops and maazs there were, but according to the old cadastral plan from 1907, it can be seen that exactly in this part, around “Velchova Zavera”, there were 30. Leka- slowly due to laziness we will lose the last ones as well.

According to a preserved document around 1840, the Tarnovo merchants undertook to build their warehouses of stone, to be closed with iron shutters in order to protect them from the frequent fires that broke out in Tarnovo, also reflected as historical data in the archives. And those maazis that have been preserved so far are actually built entirely of stone, with stone vaults. They had special metal tensioners, metal doors and lids, and in their upper part they were decorated with so-called plastered brick cornices. By them you can still tell which buildings are maazis – by the preserved “wolf’s tooth” cornices. The roofs were of two types – semi-cylindrical and triangular, and were covered with single-pitched roof tiles.

Half-balcony – emporia, or stairs leading to the upper level.

Nowadays, no metal elements are preserved, and with the few repairs, no owner has tried to comply with the prescriptions for an authentic appearance. Similar premises – maazis, unfortunately, none of them have been preserved, there were also around the “Hadji Nikoli” inn. Then they are adapted for residential needs, which changes their character.

Anna RAIKOVSKA

Sn. the author