Razgrad's reading society took the word for development as its name and has been at work under it since 1869. Teachers and townsmen founded it, the craft guilds gave the ground, and by 1891 it had a building of its own containing a theatre hall, two dressing rooms, a reading room and a café. The library inside it opened in 1870; the first theatrical performance ever given in Razgrad was staged here at Christmas that same year. The choir Zhelezni Struni has sung under the roof since 1904. A music school, a ballet school and a youth theatre formation still share the premises, and the exterior of the associated Ekaterina and Dimitar Bachvarovi musical house, a protected cultural monument, was restored in 2024.