site.btaGround Floor of Main Building of Bucharest's Historic Solakov Inn Reinforced

The ground floor of the main building of the former Solakov Inn in Bucharest, where exiled Bulgarian revolutionaries found shelter in the 1860s and 1870s, has been reinforced. The Mayor of the Romanian capital, Nicusor Dan, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday that a metal structure was set in place in this part of the building, which, according to him, is essential for the stability of the whole building, and a wooden support system has been put up under the brick arches, the Agerpres news agency reported.

The municipal company contracted for the project is working on the concrete foundations. It has carried out 75% of the waste disposal plan. The next step will be to reinforce the front wall, also with a metal structure, while making a special effort to preserve the existing decorative elements, Dan said.

In April, the Mayor announced the launch of a RON 7 million (EUR 1.4 million) municipal project for a safety overhaul of the former Solakov Inn, which was left to decay for many years until the municipal authorities decided in June 2023 that it should be reinforced and repaired over a period of 16 months.

The Solakov Inn is on an official list of historical landmarks in Bucharest. According to a factfinding report which supported last year's decision, the building had fallen into an advanced state of ruin, was at a serious risk of collapsing and presented a seismic risk of first degree.

The Solakov Inn was initially built as a pasta factory in 1859, the year of the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia. It was named after the Solakoglu brothers from the Danubian city of Svishtov. It gradually became a haven for Bulgarian revolutionary immigrants in Romania prior to Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman Turkish rule in 1878. The Solakov Inn housed the press where the great Bulgarian National Revival figure Lyuben Karavelov published the newspapers Freedom and Independence, as well as the Knowledge journal. There, too, poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev and national hero Vassil Levski spent the harsh winter of 1868, which was immortalized by Botev in a memoir.

The 100-room building was nearly destroyed in World War II bombings and then nationalized by the Romanian government in 1948. Until the end of the 1980s it housed low-income people and gradually fell into disrepair. Bulgarian ambassador to Romania Petar Danailov began negotiations with Romanian authorities for the inn to be restored and become a Bulgarian cultural centre.

In 2003, descendants of the Solakoglu brothers succeeded in regaining their property, but it was in terrible condition. Restoring it required a considerable investment, which they failed to provide. After part of the front wall fell in 2019, the Bucharest authorities launched an alienation procedure. In January 2022, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan announced that they had the green light to commence work on the Solakov Inn. The salvaging of the historic building would begin soon, and the former inn would be turned into a cultural hub of the Romanian capital.