Ivan Vazov National Library

Founded in 1879, in the year after Bulgaria's liberation, the library at Plovdiv is the second oldest in the country and the second largest — more than a million and a half volumes, and a staff in which scholars sit alongside the librarians. It bears the name of Bulgaria's national writer. Since 1974 it has occupied a purpose-built house south of the City Garden, a building of the generation that designed reading rooms for silence; but Bulgarian libraries have long doubled as chamber concert rooms for small and attentive audiences, and music by Bach and Couperin has been heard among these shelves.