Atanas Krastev House

Lonely Planet review

The Atanas Krastev House was where local painter and conservationist Atanas Krastev lived until his death in 2003. His self-portraits and personal collection of (mostly) abstract 20th-century Bulgarian paintings are displayed. The cosy, well-furnished house is strewn with personal mementoes, and the terrace offers superb views. The garden also houses exhibits. Buy paintings by living legend Dimitar Kirov here.

Born in Istanbul in 1935 to a sculptor father, the gifted Dimitar was painting by the age of seven. Still working and living today in Plovdiv's old town, with Rosalia, his wife of 44 years - and one of modern Bulgaria's greatest ballerinas - Dimitar may well be the spirit of old Plovdiv personified. This living master of Bulgarian painting and mosaic art considers himself 'the last of an era', after the passing a few years ago of his best friend and fellow painter, Giorgi Bozhilov. nicknamed Slon ('the elephant').

With a faint smile peeking out of his beard, and kindly eyes set behind thick glasses, the laconic artist bedecked in a fedora hat and puffing on a cigar is truly a larger-than-life personality from another era. As he recalls the things that inspired him to create, his comments are animated by interjections from slender Rosalia, whose delicate beauty is still obvious, and who though retired still moves with the unmistakable half-steps of the ballerina. Rosalia features prominently in his paintings. For her birthday in 2007, the painter threw his wife a party - an entire exhibition of portraits of her, displayed in the garden of the Atanas Krastev House gallery.

The Kirovs have wonderful stories of the Bolshoi Theatre (where she was dancing when they decided to marry), of travelling the world with the Plovdiv Opera and of participating in the bohemian abstract art scene in Paris in the 1960s. Still, it was Plovdiv that initially inspired him and it was Plovdiv that called him back. When Parisian gallery owners, recognising the young painter's talent, asked him to stay, he told them no: 'I wanted to live in my country,' says Dimitar, 'and I'm still very proud of my decision to stay here.'

What inspires Dimitar most about Plovdiv? 'This city has 8000 years of culture,' he says, using a barely relatable Bulgarian idiom, 'and this beats me in the ankle.' What he means to say is that the city uplifts him: 'Old Plovdiv is a place you take energy from - it itself is my inspiration.'