This story was devoted to people who with their strong efforts and love to antiques have laid the foundations of museum activities in Yambol.

The Regional Museum of History in Yambol is a fact due to the gratuitous collecting by local intellectuals who laid the foundations of the historical explorations in the region. Today we believe that the first archeological formations in Yambol have become the forerunners of the present museum. Right after the Liberation it became clear that the interest to antiquities in the region of Yambol had been great. Even as back in time as in eighteen eighty six, at the initiative of Professor Petar Noykov, the first museum collection was arranged in the three-grade boys’ school.  Anyway, the first archeological society in the city was founded on the first of March nineteen twenty five, under the name Diana. The society was a unit at the Mixed School of Pedagogy. Its foundation was at the initiative of Zahari Izmirliev, teacher of History. The society held their excavations at Kabile on fourth of March nineteen twenty five. They made a special wooden cabinet where they arranged the found excavated objects. We could say that this was the first modest exhibition in Yambol.

At the same time some prominent local intellectuals founded the civil society Diampolis which carried out intensive activities in the field of archeology and ethnography. According to Article One of its Statutes the objectives of the society were to find, preserve and explore the monuments of the past within the perimeter of Yambol and Elhovo regions and to inspire interest in people to those. The society had the following departments: Archeological-historical, Geographical-natural and Ethnographic.

To achieve its goals the society had the right to undertake excavations, to collect monuments, to encourage people who take care for monuments, to redeem objects, to arrange exhibitions. According to Article twenty one of the Statute, the students’ group Diana became a part of the research society Diampolis. The museum collection had three hundred twenty seven coins and two hundred sixty three items.

Thus the objects collected by the two societies had been kept until nineteen thirty six in the building of Yambol pedagogical high school and later they were handed over to the community cultural center. One of the biggest breakthroughs in the local archeology happened in nineteen twenty seven, when the above mentioned teacher Zahari Izmirliev held excavations with his students and enriched the museum collection. Further on, in nineteen thirty five the archeologist Vasil Mikov saw those objects and noticed that the ceramics was different from what it was known until that time as a Neolithic ceramics. Those in fact were one of the first excavations in Bulgaria on a site from the Bronze era.

In nineteen forty eight department Museums and Galleries at the Committee for Science, Arts and Culture proposed to the City People’s Council to provide in the budget for the following year funds for the position of Assistant for Antiquities and also a place for a museum. Thus gradually was born the necessity to create a Museum of History, a place where to exhibit materials found by the two archeological societies.

The development of the Museum of History is very interesting and you can hear more information about that further on. Yet, by decision of the City People’s Council, dated twenty sixth of January nineteen fifty two the foundations of the historical museum of Yambol were laid.  Veneta Dacheva, a pedagogue and a journalist, was appointed for its first curator. Initially, the museum had three sections: history, socialist construction and natural sciences. Its first exhibits were part of the museum collection of the archeological societies. During that time the museum was housed on the second floor of Narmag shop, where the first exhibition was opened. In nineteen fifty five the museum was transformed into National General Museum. Until the same year - nineteen fifty five, Veneta Dacheva  had also been its only curator. By and by the museum activities in the city expanded and the number of specialists employed there increased. And expansion of the museum work required a new, bigger and more appropriate building. After many obstacles and good opportunities, finally the Regional Museum of History in Yambol received its present building.

In two thousand and twelve the Museum celebrated its sixtieth anniversary with the exhibition History, Events, Personalities.