Monument to Olga Skobeleva, Plovdiv, Stone monument in Trakia district, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
The Monument to Olga Skobeleva in Plovdiv's Trakia district comprises a 3 m marble memorial with richly profiled edges on a tuff pedestal, erected in 1881, and a 1964 rotunda by architect Kiril Todorov. The rotunda has a 7 m diameter, 9 m columns, and a 2 m marble female figure holding two children. The old monument bears inscriptions on four sides, including an epitaph by poet Ivan Vazov.
On 6 July 1880 Countess Olga Skobeleva, head of the Balkan department of the Russian Red Cross, left Plovdiv for Chirpan carrying 20,000 gold rubles to buy a farm for orphans. Captain Alexei Uzatis and two Montenegrin friends ambushed her carriage six kilometres from the city; Uzatis killed her with his sword. A marble monument was unveiled at the spot on 5 July 1881, funded with 9,000 groschen.
The monument's name is used for the surrounding microrayon and the nearby Tsarigradsko shose overpass. The old marble monument carries an epitaph written by poet Ivan Vazov, who was living in Plovdiv at the time. The 1964 rotunda bears the inscription "Skobeleva Olga Nikolaevna 1823 – 1880".
The monument stands in the Trakia district, microdistrict Skobeleva Mayka (A13), beside the overpass of Tsarigradsko Shose, which is named after it. The old marble monument and the 1964 rotunda stand close together, so both can be seen in one stop. The site is in a residential area with no visitor facilities.
The old marble monument was unveiled on 5 July 1881 at the spot where Olga Skobeleva was killed; 9,000 groschen were set aside for its construction. Its pedestal of tuff carries inscriptions on all four sides, one of them an epitaph written for the occasion by poet Ivan Vazov, then living in Plovdiv.
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