House Museum of Baba Tonka / Nikola Obretenov, Ruse

Overview

The house-museum "Baba Tonka" is located on the street of the same name. "Baba Tonka" 40 in Ruse. It is an impressive building with two above-ground and one ground floor, built in 1908 for the home of Nikola Obretenov - son of Tonka Obretenova. The Obretenov family is a symbol of the tireless Bulgarian spirit and the pursuit of national liberation and an independent church. The founder is Tonka - a woman with a strong spirit, tireless fearless, raised in the same unshakable values ​​and her seven children - five sons and two daughters, all actively involved in the struggle for liberation, some gave their lives for the idea at an early age. Baba Tonka lived to feel her freedom and died at the age of 81 in 1893. During her ordeal life, she, along with her sons, took an active part in the affairs of the local revolutionary committee, supported revolutionaries, and became one of the most trusted persons. of Vasil Levski. The Bulgarian writer and revolutionary Zahari Stoyanov also became part of this emblematic Ruse family when he married Anastasia Obretenova, one of Baba Tonka's daughters. The Baba Tonka House Museum has been closed to visitors for many years due to its poor condition following the 1977 Vrancea earthquake and groundwater subsidence. In 2015, it was reopened, fully fortified and restored with an attractive interactive exhibition. The theme of the exhibition is not only the participation of the family in the pre-liberation struggles in Ruse, but also the contribution of Ruse in the Bulgarian Revival and in the struggle for liberation and for an independent church. In one of the rooms there is an exhibition of a town house from the end of the XIX century with authentic furniture belonging to another revolutionary and his family - the voivode Panayot Hitov. The skull of Stefan Karadja occupies a central place in the exposition. The ground floor of the house-museum has been turned into a reconstruction of a Ruse dungeon (prison) with an extremely authentic gloomy atmosphere, chains and appropriate sound.