GPS: 42.694845, 23.335991

24th of May is the day of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Bulgarians really like this day.

Especially for 24th of May, I made some photos for you from the the National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius ” in Sofia.

When I entered inside the Library  i was ipmressed by the silence, the space, the coziness.

The first proposal for the establishment of a public library in Sofia was made on 04 of April 1878

The birthday of the National Library is 28 November (10 December in a new style). The name of the first librarian is Ivan Shumkov. The library was in different buildings, more of them narrow and inappropriate. The employees worked hard to keep this national treasure.
Current building
The National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius “is one of the buildings that remembers everyone who visits Sofia. It is one of the symbols of Sofia.
The official opening of the building was on December 16th 1953. The completion of the building took 14 years.
Architects are Ivan Vasilyov и Dimitar Tzolov. An interesting element in the building is the skylight, which allows the entrance of direct sunlight. The architecture is unique. It is the first building in Bulgaria, specially designed for this function.
The facade is made by the Ukrainian sculptor Mihailo Parashchuk.
The building has 14,500 square meters, more than 4 700 square meters are occupied by the eight-storey bookstore and the rest are reserved for reading rooms.
The Bulgarian National Library deposit for all documents published in Bulgaria. It also has monographs, periodicals and other documents in various languages, published in countries around the world. The library stock has around 7,808,928 library units.

It is possible to see the library if you ask. Please, be quite.

Dont’ miss to take photos from the enigmatic House with the strawberries really not far from the library.