Balabanov's House

Torn down in 1935 and rebuilt four decades later, the house on the hill of Old Plovdiv that carries Luka Balabanov's name was first put up at the beginning of the nineteenth century for Hadji Panayot Lampsha, a merchant of the tailors' guild; Balabanov, a timber dealer, was a later owner. The architect Hristo Peev reconstructed it between 1976 and 1979 from surviving documentation — symmetrical in the manner of the Bosphorus shore, with carved wooden ceilings and alafranga niches. It now serves as a small cultural house for exhibitions, readings and chamber concerts, and Mozart's serenades and piano concertos have been played in its rooms.