2024-10-08 04:43:03
- Our village became an oasis after the Rashkovi moved out, locals say 13 years after the riots
- Every year, people from all over the country honor the memory of the fallen boys Angel and Pavel
Katunitsa bristled again after those riots 13 years ago, when two boys died – 19-year-old Angel Petrov and 17-year-old Pavel Tolev. They became victims of the long accumulated dissatisfaction against the late Kiril Rashkov and his family, who turned the village into a feudal domain. After the riots, the whole clan was displaced.
The pain of Angel and Pavel’s parents has not abated at all, and every year they are honored in their lobular places with a procession. This was also the case on September 23 and 24 of this year, when the entire village, together with supporters of “Lokomotiv” (Plovdiv), passed with lit candles.
But months earlier, the residents of Katunitsa jumped again after relatives of the Rashkovi family appeared in the village with the intention of purchasing one of Tsar Kiro’s palaces. That’s it
the house on “Yagoda” Street, in front of which there was a checkpoint and no one could close it
It is all clad in marble with openwork railings on the balconies. It was the first that the locals broke into on the evening of September 23, 2011 and began to destroy.
“There was an attempt by Rashkovi’s relatives to buy her. I made a police inquiry and found out that these people are involved in usury, fraud and pickpocketing. I talked to them and advised them not to move to Katunitsa. They heard me and left. At the moment, the house is for sale”, the mayor of Katunitsa, Krasimir Yurukov, explained to “24 Chasa”.
The palace in question is now surrounded by rusted wire mesh. The property is derelict and overgrown. The traces of the pogrom are still visible. There are overturned stone vases and ornaments. However, the two marble lions that stood as a guard in front to protect its occupant are missing.
“3-4 months ago, some people appeared and went in to clear the weeds. They cut down trees in the yard, began to remove the old window frames. One of them mentioned that he had bought it.
How can an illegal house be sold,
we wondered. But the people of the village stood up and the buyers in question were swept away”, added the mayor’s neighbors.
The properties of the Rashkovi family in Katunitsa were 9 in total, among them the residence of his daughter Sabka. All were illegal and after Tsar Kiro’s arrest some of them were demolished and others sold by the National Revenue Agency for unpaid taxes.
Behind the palace with the missing lions rises another, almost hidden by overgrown trees. It also has broken windows.
There was once the gilded throne of Kiril Rashkov
The entire yard behind the outbuildings is deserted and crumbling.
The once magnificent house of Sabka Rashkova no longer exists after it was destroyed, and the grounds are all deserted. Meters from it on the same street there is another palace, which is uninhabited but in better condition. According to people from the village, it was bought by a person from Smolyan, who, however, did not move to live in Katunitsa.
The best maintained of the former palaces of the Rashkovi family – that of their late son Ivan, was purchased by the Italian businessman Michele Santorelli. He has lived in Katunitsa for years and the local people call him the benefactor of the village, as he built a chapel in memory of the two fallen boys. The huge property is in excellent condition, and the yard is arranged with decorative vegetation.
“Certainly Katunitsa has calmed down since the Rashkovi’s are gone. Everything is better in the village. Only we won’t see our children again”, says Pavel’s devastated mother Raina Toleva. She admits that it is very difficult for her to go back. She is comforted by the annual vigils in memory of the two boys.
“Nobody has forgotten them, more and more young people are coming to honor them
This brings me some satisfaction”, says the woman.
Ivanka Hristova, Angel Petrov’s aunt, does not want to return to the nightmarish day 13 years ago. She is the sister of the boys father. “It is very difficult for me, there is no way to describe it. I have pushed what happened to the back of my mind and I do not return to it. Every year we repeat: “We will not forget, we will not forgive,” she says. This inscription also appears on the monument of the two boys.
“The question of forgiveness is philosophical. But this is not about personal forgiveness. And let’s not forget that there was unfinished business. The tragedy would not have happened if the institutions were in place at the time, and the government was not under the influence of Kiril Rashkov. He was patronized”, reflects Ivanka Hristova.
She recalls the words of King Kiro many years ago that anyone can be bought. But she claims that this was not the case with her mother-in-law – the former mayor of Katunitsa Sofia Hristeva.
“He collided with her absolutely head-on. He was used to doing whatever he wanted and saying that everyone has a price. He behaved unapologetically, unceremoniously and arrogantly. There was an out-of-town hacienda between Katunitsa and “Tsarigradsko shose”. He had surrounded the property with a fence on which “Tsar Kiro” was written in white stones. There is a nice forest there with deer, roe deer and pheasants. Around this building of his he had seized many acres. And he thought it was his and belonged to him. My mother-in-law fought to take away what was appropriated to him”, returns the tape Ivanka Hristova.
With the tension thus built up, on the evening of September 23, 2011, the scandal started from exchanged remarks between Kiril Rashkov and the mayor’s son Veselin Hristov. The Roma leader threatens him with murder, then calls for reinforcements from Stolipinovo. Among those who responded to the scene was the bus driver Simeon Yosifov. When he arrives in the village, 19-year-old Angel Petrov tries to stop him.
“My son stood in front of him and shouted: “Stop it! Where are you going?”. And he lit the bus and pushed him, then slowly-slowly walked over him. I saw that he was going to crush him, and I screamed. I knocked on the cabin:
“Stop it, bro! Stop it! You’re crushing my child”
He put him under the bus and dragged him 20 meters. I ran, hugged him and told him: “Get up, dad!”, and he passed out”, Angel’s father Atanas Petrov told “24 Chasa” at the time.
After the boy’s death, the whole village rose up and started burning and destroying the properties of the Rashkovi family. Police took the family out of Katunitsa, but tensions continued to escalate. People were implacable after years of harassment and silence. The driver who ran over Angel was sentenced to 15 years, but died before serving his sentence.
17-year-old Pavel Tolev, who suffered from a diseased heart, died the next day. This inflamed the people even more. Football fans from all over the country went to Katunitsa. The protests lasted for days. Half of the police from the Plovdiv region were directed to the village, there were protests in other places in the country as well.
Days later, Tsar Kiro was arrested and later sentenced to 2.5 years for threatening to kill.
“Was that supposed to be the price? They sent him to prison, and for what? For a threat! Is that all they were able to prove from everything he did?” Angel’s aunt Ivanka Hristova asks today.
Rashkov spent about 2 years in prison – he worked there as a gardener
In the meantime, he got another sentence – for waving the middle finger against people from Katunitsa in the District Court in Asenovgrad.
During that time, his family was already living in Plovdiv. Their main property is on “Slavyanska” street. While Rashkov was behind bars, his relatives tamed him. Many of the family members were investigated and convicted of tax crimes.
Soon after he was released from prison, Tsar Kiro decided to move with his relatives to his already legalized hotel next to the Monday market in Plovdiv. But quickly there were misunderstandings with the neighbors. He was then arrested for illegal mercury trafficking and the prosecution explained that it could have been used to make dirty bombs.
The so-called Roma leader died on April 2, 2021 and was buried at the central cemetery in Plovdiv with a procession and orchestra. His body was buried together with a bottle of whiskey for 700 BGN. Especially for Rashkov’s funeral, his daughter Sabka, who was serving a sentence for heroin trafficking, was released from Sliven prison.
Kiril Rashkov lived in the palace even after his death
He was laid in a tomb, on one side of which he is depicted on a throne, at the top is written: “King Cyrus”. On the other side of the monument, he is pictured with his wife Kostadinka, who now lives in Plovdiv. She is depicted next to her husband wearing a wide-brimmed cape. A marble platform with a table and chairs has been made behind the grave. His son Ivan is buried next to his father. He is also in an imposing tomb inscribed “Prince Ivan”.
The people of Katunitsa today do not want to remember the time when they lived together with the Rashkovi. And they call their village an oasis after the emigration of the family.
