We thank People of Sofia for the invitation to share our story!
For us, this interview was more than just sharing – it was an invitation to look back, to reflect on our path, and to remember why we are actually heading in this direction.
With joy and gratitude towards People of Sofia we present our conversation – about the beginning, the inspiration, the struggles, and the dreams. About how a gallery is born, how trust is built, and what it means to believe in art, even when it isn't considered a "promising" profession. How to take a step into the unknown, with children in hand and faith in your heart.
We hope this text brings you closer to us – Krasimir Radev and Petya Radeva, the people behind FindArt.bg and Galerie Royale.
And as we like to say:
🎨 Art is personal. A home is more beautiful when it’s there.
We are Petya and Krasimir.
Krasimir: Born in Sofia. I have been involved in the art trade for 10 years now. 4 years ago we founded "Galerie Royale" / Galerie Royale as a place where Bulgarian paintings and sculptures of exceptional artistic and collector value are sold, and recently we began work on our latest project - findart.bg – a site for selling contemporary Bulgarian art. Otherwise, I graduated in something completely different from art. I graduated from UNWE – Telecommunications Economics. Back then, that was considered promising. I actually wanted to study history and geography – those were my specialties. But, honestly, to some extent, my parents pushed me in that direction. They are both people of science. During socialism, they worked at the BAS (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). My mother graduated in physics and my father in chemistry. After the 90s, they fought to develop a private business. We had a potato chip factory, one of the first of its kind after socialism. After that – restaurants and bars.
The connection to what we are doing now is that my father, from a very early age, was a coin collector – a numismatist. This interest continued throughout his life, and naturally, around 2005, he opened his first antique shop in Sofia. A small shop about 15 square meters. It mostly had antique objects, but also paintings by old Bulgarian masters. Petya: I am originally from Sandanski. I came to Sofia as a student. I graduated in finance. I worked in the banking sector until a year ago.
- How did you meet?
Petya: We met very prosaically – at the seaside. I was at the beach with friends, he was with his friends, and it turned out that a friend of mine and a friend of his knew each other – and the groups merged one evening. Three months later we were already engaged, and 5 months after that was the wedding. A year and a half later our first child appeared, and then the second.
– Okay, and how did your desire to change everything completely and open a gallery come about?
Krasimir: It is to some extent the story of my family, of my parents. When my father opened his antique shop, he managed to establish himself as a name in this industry relatively quickly. He was a very intelligent and well-read person, and his interest in numismatics helped him a lot. That was when my first steps into this vast world began. At only 17-18 years old, I started helping by posting items for sale on the internet. Our shop was literally one of the first eBay antique shops in our country. Naturally, at that time, technology, phones, and the internet were not what they are now. Payments were only possible through the PayPal system, which, however, was not available in Bulgaria at the time. A friend of ours, who was on a student work-and-travel program in the States, brought us a bank card with a PayPal profile, and that helped us start online sales.
Unfortunately, in 2015, my father passed away, and as a family, we decided that we could not let this business disappear. At first, I didn't intend for this to be my primary occupation, but literally within a few months, I got very passionate and decided that I would develop in this direction. In that 15-sq.m. shop, I took my first steps into a whole new universe of knowledge and information. For the first time, I saw paintings by our great artists. As small as it was, there were paintings by some of our great masters inside — Shtarkelov, Boris Denev, Nikola Tanev, etc. About a year later, we rented a larger shop nearby because the business was going well. Those were still the times of internet trading — we sold all over the world through various channels and profiles, but mostly antique objects. As for art, however, it was more difficult. That market is only local, and we were small; I was still gathering knowledge and trying to earn the trust of the clients. Over time, we established ourselves more and more, but the moment the business grew was connected to our purchase of a collection of Bulgarian paintings from Germany in 2020.
The story is very long and interesting. A collection of nearly 300 purely Bulgarian works, created by Ivan Boyadjiev – the owner of one of the largest trading houses in Bulgaria between the two wars. He imported motorcycles, typewriters, radios — things that were extremely expensive and valuable at the time. He was, perhaps, one of the biggest merchants and, consequently, quite a wealthy person and a patron of the arts. He helped many artists – he bought them paints, canvases, and cardboard. They thanked him by gifting him their paintings. But a large part, of course, was bought by him. One of the best private galleries in Sofia was housed in his space. Many exhibitions of budding and young authors were organized there. And this man, over the years, collected a collection of about 300 works, among which there are many drawings, watercolors, graphics, and nearly 170–180 oil paintings.
Ivan Boyadjiev was close to the royal family and was part of the urban bourgeoisie. Naturally, after 1944, very difficult times began for him. They displaced him, confiscated his house, and he had incredible problems with the authorities. Through connections, he managed to get a medical certificate stating that he was ill and needed to be treated in Germany. That was a common practice back then — he wasn't the only one doing it. Many people managed to save themselves this way. He left for Germany, supposedly for treatment, and lived there for about another 20 years. He never returned to Bulgaria again. With the help of his close friends, he managed, bit by bit, to get his collection of paintings out of Bulgaria.
Ivan Boyadjiev passed away in 1972. His son, Yordan, inherited the collection and, fortunately, proved to be a very good custodian. He not only preserved the paintings but continued to enrich it. We discovered paintings bought by him at a major exhibition of Bulgarian artists in East Germany. After Yordan and his wife passed away, since they had no direct heirs, the paintings were inherited by their nephew, who is German. He, in turn, had no interest in the collection or in preserving it and put it up for sale. And so the offer reached us – through an art dealer from Berlin. Before that, the collection had been offered to various other places, but we were lucky enough to reach an agreement with these people and buy it.
Accordingly, in the most Bulgarian way – with a car and a van to Germany – we loaded the paintings and drove 2,000 km without stopping, and managed to bring them to Bulgaria.
Petya: I only knew how much money we had spent and didn't know what these paintings were — what they were really worth, how valuable they were, etc. At that time, I was still far from art, focused entirely on the banking sector; purely as a woman, I looked at the whole story only from a financial perspective. Because for us, that sum was by no means small. I was worried that the paintings might be fake, that someone was deceiving us, or that they would be robbed on the highway while being transported.
Krasimir: But here we are — we managed to bring them to our homeland. The paintings, however, needed an incredibly complex and long restoration, because many of them had not been well preserved, others didn't have frames — just a bare canvas, rolled up. There were also poorly varnished ones where the varnish had to be removed and reapplied, which is a very difficult, expensive, and slow process.
But the more paintings were ready after restoration, the more the idea of showing this collection properly in an exhibition grew. Fortunately, Anelia Nikoleva, who is a fantastic professional and one of our best art historians, was familiar with the works from the collection and valued them highly both artistically and historically. She agreed to be the curator of the exhibition and the compiler of the catalog we published. And in 2023, in partnership with the UBA (Union of Bulgarian Artists), we opened the exhibition “The Ivan Boyadjiev Collection – ‘The Discovery’” at 6 Shipka Street. We are very proud that we managed to do it. It cost us a lot of effort and money, but these paintings deserved to be seen, and the story behind them deserved to be told.
And somewhere in that period, we realized that we wanted to develop more as painting dealers. Besides the collection, we had already gathered many other valuable works. And then the idea for a gallery was born — a place for truly valuable paintings and old masters. A place that modern collectors and art connoisseurs could recognize. A place that guarantees the quality and authenticity of the works with its name. Because this is a problem not only in Bulgaria, it is a problem all over the world. For us, this is a major battle and a cause we are fighting for.
– Are there many such stories of other collections?
Krasimir: – No, there aren't. I can't even think of another one of this scale. This was one of the best-preserved old collections. Collected from the 20s to the 70s of the 20th century. Preserved in its entirety. There was a catalog for the collection, which Ivan Boyadjiev kept very strictly, describing all the works with the names of the artists. Only 3-4 of the described paintings were missing. We donated this catalog to the State Archives.
- What makes a collection valuable and significant?
Krasimir: Various characteristics make a collection valuable. It is good for there to be logic in it, for the works to support each other stylistically, historically, and semantically. It is important to maintain a high artistic level and, of course, authenticity — this is an issue that is on the agenda, especially in recent years. A collection doesn't need to be of 3000 paintings. It can be much smaller, but well-structured. The paintings from it can participate in exhibitions at some of our state galleries and museums; if possible, they should be documented or monographed in various publications or books, a catalog should be issued for it, an exhibition should be held. In this way, a landmark collection is created.
– Petya – did you also enter this world of old masters, of collecting?
Petya: – Slowly and with difficulty. This happened from the moment I stopped working at the bank — about a year ago — and started coming here every day. Krassi constantly says: “The eye is trained — by looking at paintings, the eye is trained!” And that is an absolute fact. By often looking at paintings, sculptures, and works of art, you start seeing the works in a completely different way.
At the beginning, when Krassi hung paintings at our place, I couldn't understand why we had to have such village houses, dusty roads, and cobblestones, even if they were by Tanev or Denev. I only saw a dusty road and an old village house and couldn't see anything else. However, over time, that really changed. And even now, when he buys such a painting, I don't want us to sell it. I appreciate the painting itself and the value of the artist much more.
- Are there Bulgarian artists in foreign museums?
Krasimir: Bulgarian works are encountered far too episodically in foreign museums. In the bio of every artist, you can read the following: “His works are owned by many state galleries in the country and abroad...”, but they are stored more in the archives of those galleries. Unfortunately, there are no landmark Bulgarian works in world museums that are placed in their permanent exhibitions.
– Why is that?
Krasimir: Before 1944, there was a period in which Bulgarian artists had started to position themselves very well in Europe. Many of them traveled to Paris, Milan, Prague, Berlin, and Munich. They studied there, participated in exhibitions. They won medals and actually had good success.
There is even a story about Vladimir Dimitrov - The Master and Picasso. How much of it is history and how much is truth — I cannot say. At an exhibition in Warsaw, Pablo Picasso, to attract attention to himself, stripped naked because everyone was captivated by the Master's work.
And then 1944 came. The shadow of "monumental propaganda" and socialist realism smothered us, and the freedom of creation was limited.
– Were there significant artists during socialism?
Krasimir: – There are such bright personalities who fought against the imposed status quo. Consequently, they weren't appreciated back then, but we have the opportunity to enjoy their work now. Because of their uncompromising nature, they didn't participate in artistic life; they were repressed, vilified, not allowed to hold exhibitions, and didn't have materials — they painted on whatever they could find. With the arrival of the September 9th coup, we all know what happened to the intelligentsia in the country. Artists were naturally not spared. Many of the great names lay in prison at the time, were displaced, and were pressured to blend into the new order imposed by the Party. Boris Denev, Konstantin Shtarkelov, Alexander Dobrinov, Alexander Bozhinov, Nikola Tanev, etc. — all of them were in the Sofia Prison. And because they were in the same cell, they drew each other. There are many drawings with pencil and charcoal from that period by the artists. Rayko Aleksiev, a great, gentle artist and feuilletonist, was declared an "enemy of the people," beaten, and died in prison. A bright ray in the purity of art was the so-called Plovdiv Five. These were five artists who appeared on the scene very young, started painting differently, and started to escape from that socialist realism and all the propaganda. This happened somewhere towards the end of the 60s. These were Encho Pironkov, Georgi Bozhilov – The Elephant, Dimitar Kirov – DiKiro, Hristo Stefanov, and Yoan Leviev.
- Okay, and we reach today. After ’89, what happened?
Krasimir: After ’89, something happened that we can call — complete chaos. For many years, the transition was literal in art as well. The powers that be were still the ones who had been there before. But the best thing that happened is that the artists now had the freedom to create whatever they wanted. Yes, it was still difficult, but at least there was no one to knock on your door and ask you why you speak against so-and-so, why you make political caricatures, and why you are painting that.
It is good that they are starting to travel. This began with Perestroika — after 1980 onwards, many artists managed to travel. The leash was loosened — they even went to France and Western Europe. And in the work of many of them, Western influence could already be felt.
- How did you decide to get involved in contemporary art after working with older art?
Krasimir: We have always carried the idea of working with contemporary Bulgarian authors, which is why we created - findart.bg – a site for the sale of contemporary Bulgarian art (FindArt). We want to introduce our young artists to the general public and show why it is important and valuable to buy art, and for people to discover this need within themselves. It should be known that all over the world, the greatest art collections have been created from the paintings of artists contemporary to the collector. Many of the collectors we work with do not have time to go to exhibitions, artists' studios, or search for them on the internet, and very often they ask us where they can see something by various contemporary artists. I have always felt it a great drawback that I work only with some of them but lack the time to explore and get to know other talented creators of ours, and that there is no platform that unites and presents their work. So the idea for this site has been around for quite some time, but it has only been realized in the last few months because, with two children and a gallery, it was extremely difficult for us to find the time. And we wanted to do it truly professionally, to be a long-term project, not something that would appear for two or three days and disappear. And let's not overlook the fact that these days it is popular for young families, who are currently furnishing their homes, to hang mass-produced prints purchased from large furniture stores on their walls. In reality, for almost the same money, a person can buy original art by a Bulgarian author. And it will carry much more of a message, soul, and character to the space.
That is exactly what we want to show people: to make them think about why it is important to have real art in their homes, to instill this in their children, to look for the beautiful and the real around them, and to be able to appreciate it.
- Do people in Bulgaria buy art, based on your personal experience?
Krasimir: Yes, we Bulgarians have a well-expressed sense of collecting. An absolutely positive change in recent years is that people with normal incomes and normal businesses are starting to collect paintings. People in the medical profession are standard art lovers. Also, people with serious businesses are building good collections. Women, in general, have a very special, expressed feeling for art – especially for women artists. They have a sense for it. In recent years, more and more people from the middle to upper class are starting to take an interest and afford to buy art.
- What do you think the state is failing to do in the field of culture?
Krasimir: – We are lagging behind in the sphere of education. The interest in and need for art can and should be nurtured from an early age. Few people in our country have grown up with paintings and sculptures around them, so it is important that they be guided in this direction by schools.
There is also a serious problem with the payment of people working in the field of culture; the salaries of museum workers are too low, and fewer and fewer people want to work in this area. This, in turn, leads to low expertise and a loss of knowledge in many areas of culture.
The National Academy of Art and the National Art Gallery also have their own problems, but there are people there who care about art and continue to work with unflagging energy. That is the light at the end of the tunnel.
- All right, and to wrap up – where do we go from here?
Krasimir: - From here, we continue to develop the art market in our country. We protect our clients and their collections from works with questionable authenticity and enrich them with works of ever-higher artistic value. We do not stop fighting to show Bulgarians why it is nice to have real art at home and to help our contemporary authors find a new market for their work.
In closing, I want to say – I am a total optimist for the future of Bulgarian art. Now, with FindArt, we are meeting many of our contemporary artists and I see how active and energetic they all are. They do not stop for a single moment; they ennoble the environment, teach children, and do not stop creating with true inspiration. No matter how difficult it is, they do not give up, but continue forward and develop. I am sure that together we will succeed!
