Chitalishte Ivan Vazov – 1931 Komatevo, Plovdiv

Chitalishte Ivan Vazov – 1931 Komatevo, Plovdiv

About us:

The chitalishte was founded in 1931 in a room in the school of the then village of Komatevo and chose Ivan Vazov as its patron. Its first activities involved drama performances the profits from which were used to buy books. There were also teacher lectures mostly focused on pedagogical issues. In 1947 “The Little Chitalishte” which had a library and a hall for amateur performances was built following the initiative of community cultural center activists with the support of the local administration and the efforts of the younger generation. Twelve years later the current two-storey building was built with government funding and voluntary labour. It offers spacious rooms for the library and the various initiatives as well as a hall with 300 seats and a stage. In the 1960s the village became a residential area of Plovdiv and by the 1990s its inhabitants who were about 450 in the 1930s reached 7,000. In the 1980s the library was expanded and modernized and by 2006 its book collection comprised nearly 18,000 volumes. The center initiates and conducts meetings with writers who record their impressions and messages to the community in a dedicated album. For 57 years now the chitalishte has a functioning school of the arts. Initially, it offered accordion, folk instruments and folk dances classes. Later on the center began offering piano, drawing, modern ballet and cinema classes. The theatre troupe which was set up with the foundation of the center continued working for 75 years. The children’s vocal group has been active for over 10 years now, while the chitalishte folk choir has won a silver medal after it resumed its activities in 2006. The chitalishte maintains customs and rituals connected with traditional holidays such as Sirni zagovezni [Slavic carnival], Koukeri, and Enyovden [Midsummer].

At present the chitalishte has a rich library collection with a library and information center within the project Glob@l libraries; it has 7 clubs, 5 folk dance groups; it organizes concerts and events and is involved in projects. There is a permanent ethnographic exhibition on its premises which displays about 40 different objects that have been donated to the center and its collection of authentic folk costumes and household items continues to grow. What is also of importance to the center is to be able to serve as a hub for citizenship engagement and to provide a forum for addressing the issues that the local residents find most pertinent and pressing.

If you would like to find out more, see Information card of the chitalishte in the Regional Expert Consultation and Information Centers (RECIC).

Director: Evgeniy Hristov Manev

Secretary: Viktoria Radoslavova Georgieva

Library: Emilia Vasileva

Address: 139 Komatevsko shose Str., District Komatevo

Phone: +359 877 082668; +35932/691758

E-mail:  [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000315838412

Spaces:

The chitalishte is housed in a two–storey building and includes a library, a reading room, a book depository, a children’s playground in the library, a dance hall, three study rooms for the schools of guitar, bagpipe, blacksmith, piano and fine arts, a concert hall with a capacity of 300 people. The chitalishte has two wide lobbies that are suitable for exhibitions and other events. In good weather, open spaces are also used for events. The center also has a Living Room, which houses the Ethnographic Collection, collected from donations by residents of the neighborhood.

https://zachitalishta.com/?portfolio=chitalishte-ivan-vazov-1931-komatevo-plovdiv&lang=en