Ulpia Serdica - Get to know Serdica !

Ancient mausoleum of neighborhood Hadji Dimitar

The Project "Conservation and socialization of an ancient rustic villa, Haji Dimitar, Sofia" won financing by The Culture Programme of Sofia municipality in June 2010. It is co - financed by The Centre of Architectural knowledge of Bulgarian Academy of science (by this moment its flowing into The Institute of Science of art is already a fact). Partner in the project is "Transformatori" association. EM "Old Sofia" and "Poduyane" district in the face of the mayor Eva Mitova cooperate in the project. The project provides for the showing of the mausoleum remains, the placing of information signs of the meaning and the look of the villa in Haji Dimitar district, well laid out surrounding space and its connection with the nearby children's playground, appropriate lightning and marking the access of the sight which is very close to the turning round of Bus N 85.

The project team's leader is arch Faytondzhieva and the rest of the team includes arch Todor Atanasov and arch Radosveta Kirova. Arch Farkov is consultant, arch Delcho Delchev - coordinator, arch Valeri Gyurov - partner from "Transformatori" association. The archeological research of the sight in the end of the 60's is made by Magdalina Stancheva. Currently the villa is located in ill-kept space between the buildings. The cleaning and the exposure of the sight start in August 2, 2010 under the guidance of the archeologist Yunian Meshekov.

The intensive archeological researches recently in parallel with the construction of the metropolitan railway provoke the interest in ancient Serdica as a whole. Not only are traces of the ancient life found in the heart of the modern city but also ancient Serdica is circled by many rustic villas (rural villas). From one hand these ancient rural and cattle - breeding farms supplied the ancient town and from another one - they are good places for relaxation and spacious luxurious residents outside the crowded town. Villas from the type "rustic" with different size, structure and furnishing are found in Obelya, Orlandovtsi, Filipovtsi, Haji Dimitar districts.

The rustic villa in Haji Dimitar is found in 1967 when the construction of blocks of flats began. It is the biggest one among the others found around Serdica. The archeological findings point that it had existed until the Goth invasion in the last quarter of the 3rd century when was destroyed and sacked. The residential and farm buildings as the farmyard are situated under the current residential blocks of flats. In the space between them are the emblematic remains of the villa's mausoleum, object of this project. By Magdalina Stancheva's datum the yard of the villa is near five decares and it included six farm buildings, the worker's buildings, mausoleum and richly furnished house made of big stone quadrics reused for building constructions in the 20th century. Addition to the two firstly built storehouses for grain (horrea) is another one. Other impressive farm building has fifty meters length. On the sight is found an earthenware pot with 250 silver coins inside from the 3rd century.

The entrance of the mausoleum is from south. The plan is symmetrical, with three consecutive premises, the middle one with exedras. On the northern end are situated four masonry tomb chambers 2.3 meters long and 1.25 meters wide which probably were reveted with marble. After the Goth invasion when the villa is destroyed Thracians settled here and used the mausoleum as sanctuary and cemetery.

Arch Radosveta Kirova