The opening is on October 5 at 6 p.m. at 26 Alexandrovska Street, in the central pedestrian area next to the municipality building. The panels will stay on display until November 5.
The 23 panels were put together by the Union of Bulgarian Architects together with the National History Museum, which gave the photos and texts from the Boyana Church museum. The show comes to Burgas at the initiative of architect Sabin Popov, head of the Burgas branch of the Chamber of Architects, with help from Petar Dikov, head of the board of the Union of Architects, and the union's Burgas society.
The International Union of Architects set World Architecture Day in 1985. It falls on the first Monday of October each year, alongside the UN's World Habitat Day. The theme for 2026 is "Housing is a human right. Build it," calling on architects to work for fair access to safe, decent homes.
The exhibition tells the story of the Church of St. Nicholas and St. Panteleimon, which sits at the foot of Mount Vitosha and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 under number 42. The church has three parts, built one after another along an east-west line. The first is a small village church from the 11th century. The second dates to 1259, and the third — from the Bulgarian National Revival period, mid-19th century — is dedicated to St. Panteleimon and was built with money given by the people of Boyana.
The second part was built by sebastokrator Kaloyan, a cousin of Tsar Konstantin Tih. After the tsar took the throne in 1257, he made Kaloyan governor of Sredets. Kaloyan also paid for the church's paintings, as a surviving donor's inscription in Old Bulgarian shows. Because it was built without a narthex, the church is grouped with the works of the Tarnovo art school, and its construction follows the painting style typical of the capital, Tarnovgrad.
The wall paintings come in three layers. The first, from the 11th-12th century, once covered the whole eastern part. The second dates to 1259 and follows the rules set by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 787. Among the oldest surviving portraits of Bulgarian historical figures are those of Kaloyan and his wife Desislava, as well as Tsar Konstantin Asen Tih and Tsaritsa Irina. The frescoes by the Boyana Master are thought to predate the European Renaissance.
After Bulgaria's liberation, the people of Boyana wanted to tear down the old church and build a bigger new one. In 1916, Tsaritsa Eleonora, Tsar Ferdinand's second wife, steered them to a different site, and Ferdinand set up the small park around the church with rare plants. A year later, the tsaritsa died. Her grave lies by the south side of Kaloyan's church.