Откриване на руското консулско агентство в Пловдив през 1857 година
Opening of a Russian Consular Agency in Plovdiv in the Year 1857

Summary/Abstract: Russia’ military and political defeat in the Crimean war (1853-1856) brought changes in the course of her foreign policy in the subsequent years, which followed one main goal -to revoke or limit the terms of the Treaty of Paris. That goal had to be achieved peacefully, by spreading her cultural-educational influence among the Christian subjects of the Sultan. One of the means in that direction was the consulates in the Balkan region. The number of Russian consulates and consulate agencies in the Ottoman Empire was increased after the war. Strategically important locality in that respect was Plovdiv. The Foreign Ministry picked for the position in the new consular agency the Bulgarian Naiden Gerov, born in Koprivshtitsa. Since the beginning of the war he left Plovdiv. After a short stay in Odessa and Bucurest he settled in Petersburg. Here he worked to receive Russian employment, but also to receive help for the school in Plovdiv. The documents revealed that Gerov preferred secret employments, which gave him time to devote himself to other public utility activities. He assumed his post in the Russian consular agency in Plovdiv early in the summer of 1857 and remained there for 20 years. Only few years after its opening, according to a Sultan’ ferman, the agency developed in vice-consulate.

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