On Saturday, January 26, in Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Burgas, the Director of the Directorate for National Construction Control (DNSK), architect Ivan Nestorov, gave a press conference about the construction outrages on the Black Sea coast. He explained that his trip to the coast was not on his own initiative, but because Prime Minister Borisov had sent him. Without being asked explicitly, at the very beginning of the event, architect Nestorov commented broadly on Bivol’s publication, which reveals that his in-laws have acquired properties in lucrative locations, sold to them by construction companies at unrealistically low prices. Here is his explanation:

Journalist: I want to ask what is new today compared to yesterday?

Nestorov: “The new thing today is that a media article was published yesterday by your colleagues from Bivol, saying that architect Nestorov is a very, very corrupt employee, in view of the fact that his father-in-law had a home that he had sold, bought another home, and further had a third residence in the coastal town of Sozopol. I can only tell you that, unlike your fellow journalists, my father-in-law, who is no longer on this earth, is Vesselin Tsolevski and he will leave an imprint in the Bulgarian cultural heritage. Because he spent 45 years of his life in the Boyana Film Studios and has created maybe over 20 movies and documentaries. And for that reason, my father-in-law, Vesselin Tsolevski, will remain an example for me to be proud of, I will not be ashamed of him. And I can give you an example, one of the movies he has created features our favorite actor Ivan Laskin and it is called “Vasco Da Gama from the Village of Rupcha (an emblematic Bulgarian movie – editor’s note). He is the sound director of this movie…

And for this reason, when my daughter was born, we lived for five years in his apartment. And when talking about a corrupt employee, I signal to your colleagues from Bivol to look at, I was also the Chief Architect of Sofia Municipality, open all the sites, check Ivan Nestorov and the companies that I was tasked to help in the realization of their investment intentions, whether they have signaled and whether they have found that Ivan Nestorov is the corrupt employee. But they should also take a look at all those chief architects who came after Ivan Nestorov.”

Journalist: So, you have no property on the sea shore in Sozopol, so I understand?

Nestorov: “It belongs to my father-in-law, not to Nestorov. For this reason, the one I told you about, he is deserving enough and has left a mark in our cultural heritage.”

We recall the facts.

Nowhere in our publication are the words “corrupt” and “corruption” used with respect to architect Nestorov.

In 2002, the deserving sound director Vesselin Tsolevski, may he rest in peace, bought an apartment of 68 square meters on the waterfront in the town of Sozopol for only for BGN 17,300 from the company BDK Ltd. He was 74 years old then.

In 2010, Vesselin Tsolevski exchanged this apartment for another apartment owned by the company BDK Invest, which had the same owners. The new apartment is at an even more exclusive location, it is bigger and has a large terrace overlooking the bay, while the previous apartment did not. Architect Ivan Nestorov and his family vacation there every year.

In 2005, the mother-in-law of architect Nestorov, Zdravka Tsolevska, secured another gainful property acquisition. She bought an apartment of 92 square meters in the capital Sofia for only BGN 47,500. A reference in the Property Register shows that a similar apartment in the same building, but with a smaller area, was sold by the same company only a month earlier for three times more – BGN 162,139.

We add another interesting fact. The daughter of architect Nestorov, Maya Nestorova, which he mentions in his narrative, has acquired a garage for BGN 16,485 at the age of 19 and at the age of 22, paid BGN 175,046 for an apartment of 85 square meters in Sofia. There is no evidence that the young lady has taken a mortgage loan or had her own business.

All this is subject to a check by the Commission for Combating Corruption and the withdrawal of illegally acquired property (KPKONPI) (sic). Bivol contacted the DNSK press office and asked a question to Mr. Nestorov whether he considered that the lucrative property acquisitions of his in-laws could put him in a situation of conflict of interest because at the time of the purchases he had exercised oversight on construction companies. He is yet to answer it.

We are still asking this question.

Of course, KPKONPI may accept the explanation that the owners of BDK have made a generous gift to his father-in-law, while another company has sold an apartment at below-market price to his mother-in-law simply because construction bosses are deeply grateful to the award-winning sound director Vesselin Tsolevski, and the mark he has left in Bulgarian culture.

If this ends up being the conclusion of the case, we are hoping that Bulgarian companies will take care of other people with a significant contribution to the Bulgarian culture and reward them with such exclusive properties as the one on the picture. And let no one be underprivileged, even those who do not have sons-in-law controlling the work of builders.

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