ARIE HOUSE, SAMOKOV

Next to Samokov's synagogue is the Sarafska House, the smallest of the three sumptuous residences of the Aries, one of the richest of Samokov's Jewish families. It is the only old Jewish house to survive the post-Second World War modernisation. A few years after 1944 it was sold to the state and renovated, and for several decades was used by visiting Communist dignitaries. Since 1986 it has been the property of the 13th Centuries Bulgaria Foundation, the heir to a Communist fund masterminded by the daughter of erstwhile state leader Todor Zhivkov to celebrate Bulgarian culture. It is now a museum of urban culture. 

The house's wood carvings and structures have been restored, but what strikes you most is the sophisticated furniture imported later from Europe for the purposes of the museum. Some traces of its former owners remain, including some furniture bearing lions' heads, the eponym of the Arie family.