Big-city dwellers in Bulgaria today know the chitalishte mostly from 19th-century revival literature. A public institution serving as a community center, a library, and a theater at once, the chitalishte has all but disappeared from cities. The scarcity of cultural and educational offerings in smaller towns, however, makes the institution a vital hub of activity to this day.
One example of a chitalishte with an important role in town life is Svetlina–1861 (Light–1861), in the highland town of Shipka. The center has 10 community groups, including a folk-dance club, a children’s theater group, and a cinema and photography club, and organizes 13 events on different public holidays each year. While demand for the center’s services was high, funding to keep it open was insufficient, so Svetlina’s team entered and subsequently won the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law’s competition for an NGO business plan, supported by ABF.
Svetlina is quartered in the Chirpanliev House, one of the few remaining revival houses in town, which was converted into an ethnographic museum with donations from the town’s residents. The center’s winning business proposal is to transform the yard space around the house into an open-air museum with a café and a souvenir shop selling works by local craftsmen.