The town house – a view from the inside – Part One

The English expression "My home is my fortress!" is often used by us Bulgarians as well. Have you ever wondered what the Burgas townspeople fortresses looked like from the inside at the beginning of the 20th century? In the following lines you can read about the furniture in some Burgas houses.
We begin with a description of a Burgas house from the beginning of the 20th century, and the data were recorded by Eng. Georgi h. Petrov, based on memories told by his grandfather. The house we are going to present to you had the following rooms: entrance hall, stairs, drawing room, study room, dining room, bedroom, servant's bedroom, cloakroom, study. And to make it more interesting and curious for the young friends of the museum, we will keep some of the old words.
The entrance hall was used to leave shoes, umbrellas and other things. It was decorated with one or another picture, with wall lamps, and if there was room, one or two chairs were placed. Clothes hangers were also pulled. As for the stairs, when they were wide enough, they were decorated on the sides with fine vessels of rare flowers and statues. The most representative room is the salon. The furnishing of the reception room, as the salon was called, was done according to the taste and means of the owners. There were one or more sofas, two or more armchairs, four or more upholstered chairs and a nice table. A nice album or a precious dish and an ashtray were placed on it. This was the main furnishing of the salon. In front of the sofas and chairs, small, richly dressed stools were pushed to place the feet.In the large salons there were two or more tables, but not in the middle, but on the edges, and on them they put various precious ornaments, beautiful vases, various rarities, old-time things and rich needlework or embroidery. On the couches and chairs were also hung or draped some pretty embroidered oriental or other fabrics of some kind. It was generally accepted that the sofas were placed in the first or honorable places, the armchairs on either side of them and the chairs after them. A room, and especially a drawing-room, no matter how much it was decorated, if deprived of one or two mirrors, it resembled a beautiful and picturesque place in which there was no water. More than two mirrors, however, were allowed only in a large salon. Mirrors were placed on consoles or double semi-circular wall tables, pushed into the gaps between the windows, in the corners or hung on the walls above small tables. The circles (frames) of the mirrors were either gilded or with a color similar to the wooden part of the other furniture. The best and most elegant salon stove was the porcelain one. When it was flat on top, they put a nice clock on it and on its sides a candlestick for several candles. As if both the clock and the candlesticks were a set - of the same metal and of the same design. But when the stove was not flat on top, then the clock had to be wall mounted. On the walls of the salon, if it was not large, hung no more than two or three pictures, beautiful with expensive circles. In the absence of paintings, beautiful handicrafts and portraits could be hung on the walls. Portraits were also placed on the tables and consoles.It would have been nice to have one or two chandeliers in the living room, independent of the other candlesticks. The piano was a piece of furniture not only for decoration, but also a necessity in the living room, even when no one in the family knew how to play it. No objects were placed on the piano except for sheet music and other musical necessities. In a well-furnished salon, it was a luxury to have at least two large flower boxes (flower beds) with some beautiful and rare flowers in them, even if they were artificial. In the elegant salons, such flower pots were placed on richly crafted and gilded wooden columns. During a party, one or two identical tables could be placed in the salon for some games, and there were also candlesticks on them. The fabric of the sofas, armchairs and upholstered chairs had to be the same. Usually, the best and most durable colors are dark and clear cherry, brilliant red or ordinal dark blue. In winter, the floor of the living room was covered with gouber, which had to match the color of the fabric of the furniture. If the floors of the rooms are luxuriously made, do not cover the entire floor of the salon with guber, but only the tables, sofas and chairs. The color of the walls of the salon had to be open and cheerful (presumably light-colored walls), and the patterns (patterns) should match the color and patterns of the fabric on the furniture. To be continued...

*photos are illustrative
Plamena Kirova
Ch. editor of the "Ethnographer" department