Today marks the 95th anniversary of the birth of folk singer and accordionist Kroum Yankov.

Born on September 11, 1930, in the Rhodope village of Dobralak, the performer showed an interest in the accordion from an early age. His tours through the villages of his native Rhodope Mountains with the famous clarinetist Vasil Popov were crucial to his development as a musician.

His art has reached us thanks to recordings preserved by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), which began in the early 1950s at Radio Plovdiv and later continued at Radio Sofia. The BNR archives hold dozens of songs and instrumental pieces performed by him, mainly horos and rachenitsas. In some of them, Kroum Yankov performed alongside the most renowned folk groups from the Thrace region.

Next, we bring you one of the first songs Kroum Yankov recorded for BNR together with the Sadovo Group – "Stoene, Sino Stoene".

Published and translated by Kostadin Atanasov

Photo: Nikolay Chapanski