Central Military Club

The Central Military Club is a multi-purpose cultural landmark situated in the center of Sofia, Bulgaria, on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard and Georgi Rakovski Street. It is managed by the Executive Agency of Military Clubs and Information and serves the Bulgarian Army. This facility hosted the 2010 World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand of India and Vaselin Topalov of Bulgaria, which Viswanathan Anand won.

The edifice’s foundation stone was placed in 1895. The Military Club was conceived in the Neo-Renaissance style by Czech architect Antonn Kolá and completed in 1907 by Bulgarian architect Nikola Lazarov. The Sofia Officers’ Assembly supplied both the lot and the financing. A stone from the Slivnitsa battlefield during the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885-1886) was included into the foundations.

The three-story structure has a cafe, an art gallery, a variety of sophisticated rooms of varied sizes, and an outstanding music hall with 450 seats. As a result of all of this, the Central Military Club has long been an important cultural center in the city, once presenting works by Ivan Mrkvika, Vladimir Dimitrov, and Jaroslav Vn and offering studios to these well-known painters. Actors and opera singers like as Krastyu Sarafov, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Feodor Chaliapin, Boris Christoff, and bands such as Ladytron have all performed at the concert venue.