Култура

Our first meeting happened through his remarkable paintings depicting landscapes from Velingrad and its surroundings. They were on the walls of the hospital, schools, rest stations, hotels, offices of various establishments in the city. They paused my gaze with the artistic image, with the originality of the plot
Later I had the opportunity to be close to the artist, but now as my attending physician. For more than six months, he helped me recover from a complicated fracture and surgery on my right leg. In addition to the daily rehabilitation procedures with the rehabilitators, he himself set out to give me injections in the knee joint with the German drug Arteparone, which was then in a trial version. The manipulation was carried out twice a week in his spacious office as chief physician of the Sanatorium of Working Peasants - he, Dr. Ivan Angelov. The attention and concern for my recovery, with which he treated his other patients, he also showed when he took me to check-ups in Plovdiv, and when he had to operate to prevent my looming peritonitis...


Alas, it is now six years since our parting from him, since he went into nothingness! 14 May 1996. It's his last earthly day.
I still remember, however, how in the brief breaks from his strenuous work as an orthopedist in the hospital, sitting on a bench in the garden, he held in his left hand the preferred pipe. He flashed the already gray, but preserved and still unruly hair, resembling a wig, and on his forehead were the furrows of life. They showed the experiences and inevitable clashes in the struggle to save human lives. In those moments, he professed that his ancestral root originated in Yakoruda. The father has a Czech education. Early on, at the age of 20, they lost one of the brothers. After the high school education received in Pazardzhik, Ivan participated in the Patriotic War as an officer of the SZO. He is a student with his other brother at the Faculty of Medicine. And then the professional steps are riveted. He established a health center as a doctor of Beslet Forestry, a district doctor in Velingrad, specialized in surgery and was in the surgical department of the hospital, for 9 years he managed Base 3 of the SCC ("Working Peasants"). Since 1971. is back in the hospital as head of trauma and orthopedic surgery. He examines, interrogates patients, reads X-rays, casts, puts in extensions, operates, heals. He lives with people's pains...
But along with them, he continues to be an artist. There he finds both relaxation and satisfaction and inspiration. Music for him is not just a hobby. Mandolin since the school years is an internal need, but this applies especially to fine art. His creations of oil watercolors, graphics, still lifes and portraits, landscapes and panoramic canvases are dozens and hundreds. 5 solo exhibitions in Pazardzhik, 4 in Velingrad, tours in Bankya, Yakoruda, Rakitovo, Varna, Dobrinishte. They invite him in, and he responds. Ten are the countries in which there are his canvases: Japan, USSR, Italy, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Turkey, Jordan, Finland, Norway. This brings him creative satisfaction and creative uplift.
But he doesn't forget his loved ones either. Take care of your two sons, your family. This is the other realm of his thoughts. On one of the evenings on duty at the sanatorium, he asked me how to find G.P.'s stories. Stamatov. Todor's high school teacher was strict and demanding. He was also closely helping his other son - Plamen, a student at the language high school in Plovdiv. He also had to build a house. There settled the big one with, the new members of the family became the two grandsons. They also brought him new joys. And now they're students...
His medical professionalism was equivalent to his parental love and dedication. To him, the Hippocratic Oath was no formality. His sister-in-law Donka recounts not a single case when the doctor placed first his duty to help the sick and his indignation when he found negligence on the part of his colleagues in the obligation to treat...
Public appearances were also his alphabetical duty. He was often on the committees as a jury member or as a doctor on duty at sprot competitions.
Doctor Angelov symbolized humanity and human responsiveness. He knew art and highly appreciated it - especially fine art, of which he was not just an amateur, but an original artist, creating valuable artistic works. And if we share the Latin saying about the brevity of life and the eternity of art, we will remember Dr. Angelov not only as saving lives and helping many suffering, but also as an artist whose works immortalize him!
Avram Gerev