National Museum of Natural History

The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum situated on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard in Sofia, Bulgaria, near to the Russian church. It was founded in 1889 and is linked with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. It is the Balkans’ first and biggest museum of its sort.

The displays in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ National Museum of Natural History take up 15 rooms on four levels. The collection of the Museum contains approximately 400 stuffed animals, over 1,200 bird species, hundreds of thousands of insects and other invertebrates, and samples of almost one-quarter of the world’s mineral species. It displays the Caroline parrot, which is now extinct worldwide, as well as the monk seal, bearded vulture, small bustard, grey and maiden crane, steppe viper, and German sturgeon, all of which are extinct in Bulgaria. White rhinoceros, Himalayan bears, cheetahs, and buffalos are among the large creatures that have lately been on display.

Visitors are captivated by one of the last pure-bred aurochs found in nature, the brown bear proclaimed as Europe’s largest, the rare small panda, the beautiful birds of paradise, toucans, the Californian condor extinct in the wild nature, various types of pheasants with magnificent feathers, the giant African tortoise, the blind cave fish from America, and the Periophtalmus fish, which can move on land. Except for the first of January, the third of March, Easter, and the 25th of December, the Museum is open every day. The last entrance is at 17:30 p.m.

History of National Museum of Natural History

The National Museum of Natural History of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has a history dating back more than a century and a half. It is the oldest museum in Bulgaria, as well as the oldest and most comprehensive natural history museum on the Balkan Peninsula. The Prince’s Natural History Museum was established in 1889 by Prince Ferdinand. Initially, he housed prince Ferdinand’s personal collection of birds, animals, and butterflies. Dr. Paul Leverkyun, a prominent ornithologist and court doctor, was the museum’s first curator. In the same year, the first and only full catalogue of collections, including many thousand exhibits from the period, was issued in 14 rooms on two floors in an ancient building on the museum’s present location.

Count Amede Aleon, Emile Hollub, Stuart Baker, Josef Haberhauer, Julius Milde, and other important foreign collectors and tourists contributed or acquired objects for the museum until the First World War. Almost all private collections of animals and plants, as well as the collections of our first geologists, were added in the following decades, including those of Nikola Sundaykov, Petar Chorbadzhiev, and Dimitar Joachimov; Ivan Neychev, Ivan Urumov, and Anani Yashev; prof. Dr.Sc.(Econ.) Georgi Zlatarski, and Raphael Popov.

It was known as the Royal Museum at the time, and it served as the foundation for the Royal Institutes of Natural History, which were founded in 1918. Many new animal and plant species have been identified. The museum became Bulgaria’s primary research facility for natural sciences. He began producing a journal with worldwide clout. The existing four-story structure, which has housed the treasures since 1936, is Sofia’s sole museum-specific structure. The building was damaged in the bombing, but the collections were saved since they were evacuated quickly.

After the war, the structure was restored to its original state, and the new exhibition reopened to the public in 1948. It was the first institution to become a branch of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences upon its restructuring in 1947. In the same year, three new academic institutions based on museum collections were formed – Zoological, Botanical, and Geological. Only the zoological collections are still housed in the structure. Later, a period of regression started, with the museum closing to visitors and the display being downsized from 22 rooms to 9 halls.

This was the situation of the museum until 1974, when academician Ivan Kostov took over as director. Because of his indisputable power and relentless efforts, he was able to win a decree from the then-Council of Ministers establishing the museum as an autonomous scientific entity with national significance. The museum has been named after him since then. The exhibition is then enlarged to 16 halls, with minerals, rocks, fossils, and plants rearranged, and the animal halls reorganized in a more contemporary manner. Since the museum’s independence, its employment base has risen by two and a half times, and the number of publications each year has increased several times. A museum library and a new museum magazine were established once again. Asenovgrad’s Paleontological Museum was established in 1990 as an associate of the NMNHS.

How to get to National Museum of Natural History

The National Museum of Natural History may be reached in a variety of ways. The museum’s building is within walking distance of multiple subway, bus, trolley bus, and tramway stations.

— by metro to Serdika or St. Constantine and Helena metro stations. St. Kliment Ohridski
– bus lines 9, 94, 280, 306 – st. Kliment Ohridski —
with trolleybus line 9 — St. Constantine and Helena Square stop Al. Nevsky
— with trolleybus lines 1, 2, 4, 11 – stop SU St. Constantine and Helena Kliment Ohridski
– tram line 20 – National Opera stop