Photo: “For the Truth”
Traders whose pavilions are located in front of the Dryanovo Monastery do not agree with the fee set by the Municipal Council in Dryanovo for the use of municipal land for trade and have appealed it to the court. In the meantime, the mayor of Dryanovo has served them with orders to remove the pavilions and to “Energo Pro” to cut off their electricity.
Neither of these was done and after the deadlines in the mayor’s order expired, the pavilions continue to operate and are full of goods, a reporter for “For the Truth” saw on August 6 this year. At the time, the traders stated that the fee of 30 leva per month for each square meter of area they use is “unreasonably high” and they will not remove their pavilions until the court rules on the legality of the order, as well as the legality of the decision on the amount of the fee itself.
Sudden change of position
However, on August 8, they surprisingly changed their position. Their representative contacted “For the Truth” to say that they have decided to start paying the disputed fee. The new decision comes just two days after they categorically stated that they would not comply with the mayor’s order until the court ruled on their appeal against the decision to set the new fee. As of August 8, they still did not know whether they would withdraw their appeal after agreeing to pay and said that they were waiting for advice from their lawyers.
What happened that made the merchants change their position
The mayor of Dryanovo Trifon Panchev denies that he exerted pressure on the merchants.
“We didn’t pressure them in any way, they just decided that they would start paying for the use of the municipal space after five years of working only for a parking fee”
, he explained to “For the Truth”.
Panchev suspects that the change is related to the ruling of the Administrative Court in Gabrovo from August 6. With it, the court ruled that “the immediate implementation of the order is in the public interest, which is not opposed by another interest of the same degree of importance”. With this, the court disregarded the requests to suspend the implementation of the order to remove the pavilions and practically freed the hands of the Municipality to begin their forced removal after the deadline for voluntary removal had expired.
Parking fee or fee for commercial space
The conflict between the Municipality of Dryanovo and the traders in front of the Monastery of St. Archangel Michael is due to the monthly fee of 30 leva per sq m voted on April 30 this year by the Municipal Council in Dryanovo for the use of the land in front of the monastery. The fee was introduced with a change in the Regulation on local fees and prices of services on the territory of the Municipality of Dryanovo and is intended to “clear up” the current situation, in which traders pay for stalls, some of which have expanded over the years to about 50 square meters, only 5 leva per day against a cash receipt for a parking space.
The municipality insists that there is a need for a legal framework for collecting funds from the use of municipal land, which have not been entering the local treasury for years, on the other hand, the traders claim that the new fee will prevent them from continuing their activities and will lead to the closure of the pavilions, and will condemn them to unemployment.
Order on paper, trade continues
Since until August 8, the traders refused to pay the new fee until the court ruled, on July 21, 2025, Mayor Trifon Panchev issued an order to remove movable commercial objects located in the parking area in front of the Dryanovo Monastery. The place is public municipal property, and the pavilions were placed according to a scheme from 2017, approved by the chief architect of the Dryanovo Municipality. This scheme is valid until the end of 2017, Panchev wrote in the reasons for the order.
It also says that in 2021 a new scheme for placing pavilions in front of the monastery was approved, coordinated with the Ministry of Culture in accordance with the Cultural Heritage Law, since the St. Archangel Michael Monastery is an immovable cultural property.
Unreasonably high price
Before changing their position, the traders sharply criticized the amount of the new fee. For them, 30 leva per month per square meter was an “unreasonably high price”. “For a pavilion of 20 square meters we will have to pay 600 leva per month. You see what we sell – mainly souvenirs,” they explained.
One of them compared the prices with nearby tourist destinations: “It’s not that we don’t want to pay, but there are no such prices. In Tryavna, Bozhentsi, even Veliko Tarnovo, the prices range between 5 and 10 leva per square meter.”
They also criticized the lack of transparency in determining the fee: “There is no clarity about what is included in it and there is no justification for its size.” They are convinced that the new price will force them to cease their activities, especially given the fact that the pavilions have expanded over the years and have long exceeded the 20 square meters originally allocated to them.
A new vision, but at the project level
In 2023, the Dryanovo Municipality announced the completion of the procedure for coordinating the technical project “Removable Pavilions at the Municipal Parking Lot – Dryanovo Monastery”. The project envisages the construction of 9 pavilions, designed to meet the specific requirements for a site of national importance.
The project was planned as part of the municipality’s investment program for 2024, but it never started. The nine “in keeping with the spirit of the place” pavilions remain visible only in the project visualization.
In the meantime, traders continue to operate in pavilions without approvals while they await the development of the court case and the final settlement of their status.
