The museum – house Baba Iliytsa is situated in the village Chelopek, at 6 kilometers from Vratsa. Baba Iliytsa was a Bulgarian woman, who helped after the defeat and the end of Botev from the crest Okolchitsa, in Vratsa from the Balkans. With the risk of her life, it saves one of the commanders of Botev. According to the stories from her native village Chelopek, about grandmother Iliytsa, she walked alongside a small mountain path, known only at a local level and then she navigated on the river Iskar by boat. The history says the fact that she met Ivan Vazov, in 1899, who glorifies her life. Initially, the story has another name (“the Chelopech forest”), but later on the author decided to draw the attention of the reader from the beginning on the most important character, and namely the grandmother Iliytsa. The title resumes all the time all the qualities of the Bulgarians, in a dignified woman. 104 years later, the descendants of the legendary Bulgarian and the municipality commemorate her with a museum – house. The house is completely re-conditioned in its original shape.
Baba Iliytsa is a courageous Bulgarian woman who occupies an important place in our history. In the month of May 1878, when Botev enters in fight against the Turkish armies from near the Mountain Okolchitsa (the Balkan Vratsa), she was killed and with her there are killed the majority of the rebels. One of the fighters, who survived the fight for the national liberation, arrives accidentally at grandmother Iliytsa and she saves him from killing, risking her life. According to the stories of the locals, she had to go with her husband on a narrow and dangerous path, and then to pass by the boat the Iskar river.
After a period of time, when the writer Ivan Vazov visited the village, she found out about this great man. He remains so captivated and fascinated by this story that he decided to immortalize forever the fact of the old woman and he wrote a magnificent story “A Bulgarian” and eulogized the dignity, the strength and the courage of grandmother Iliytsa.
The museum – house is in the proximity of Mountain Okolchitsa, which is on the list of one hundred tourist places, and also it has a seal N17. The house is arranged and it has an extremely rich and remarkable exhibit of ancient objects of household use and furniture, beautiful carpets, typical costumes for this part of Bulgaria, etc. Of a great interest for the tourists is a genealogical tree of the famous Bulgarian woman.