The bust of prominent Bulgarian educator, Vasil Aprilov, had been stolen from the Alley of Revival Heroes in the Maritime Garden in Varna.

The police say a letter of warning had been sent to all stations for the purchase of non-ferrous metals, in case someone would attempt to sell it there.

Vasil Aprilov's bust was placed in the Maritime Garden in Bulgaria's Black Sea capital in 1936 and this is the first encroachment on it.

The information was reported Friday by the Varna correspondent of the Bulgarian National Radio, BNR.

Vasil Evstatiev Aprilov (21 July 1789 – 2 October 1847) was a Bulgarian educator. He studied in Moscow, graduated from a high school in Brasov and then pursued a medical degree in Vienna. After 1811, he was a merchant in Odessa. He initially participated in the Greek revolutionary movement, but later devoted himself to the Bulgarian Revival. He gathered Bulgarian folk songs. In his will he left a large amount of money for building the Aprilovska High School in Gabrovo. This was to be the first Bulgarian secular school using the Bell-Lancaster method. The emergence of this school gave a boost to Bulgarian education and soon other schools were opened all over the Bulgarian-populated regions of the Ottoman Empire.