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Near the National Palace of Culture is one of the most interesting museums in Sofia - Museum "Earth and Man." It is one of the largest mineralogical museums in the world. It was founded in 1986 and is housed in a restored building built in the late nineteenth century.

The initiator of its creation, the author of its conception, organizer of the fundraising, as well as donor of around 5000 exhibits and its director from its creation until today is the mineralogy professor Dr. Mihail Maleev.

The building has an area of 4000 square meters There are exhibition rooms, stock rooms, video room, conference room and geological study cabinet. The museum often helds conferences and lectures.

The interior of the museum is a project of Ivan Radev, and original paintings in the exhibition are works by Theophan Sokerov. In the space around the museum are exposed works of the sculptor Mincho Minev. Author of the project for reconstruction of the building is the architect Hristo Ganchev.

The museum is located on two floors and has ten rooms, nine of which are occupied by permanent exhibitions.

One of the most attractive exhibitions is that of the giant crystals, mainly varieties of quartz: rock crystal, amethyst, morion, smoky quartz, citrine, but there also can still be seen beryl, tourmaline, mica, apatite, gypsum, feldspar, hematite, fluorite and others. It is a striking diversity of shapes and colors. All these minerals are powerful generators of energy and they are easy to convince a person that they are not "dead nature", but on the contrary.

The first floor exhibitions are the "Giant crystals" "Minerals" and "Mineral resources of the earth" and collections, collected and processed more than 40 years by the founder of the Bulgarian Speleology Peter Tranteev.

The second floor will grab visitors' attention with no less interesting exposures - "Minerals of Bulgaria", "Mineral Resources of Bulgaria" and especially "Precious and decorative stones."

In the exhibition "Precious and decorative stones" can be seen almost all the gems in the nature and processed jewels. Interesting are the topaz stones of Volyn, Ukraine's, with their large size (13.5 kg.) and spectacular color quality.

The fund "Minerals of Bulgaria" have been preserved complete collections of mineral diversity of Rila, unique single mineralized cavities of Nova Mahala, manganese minerals from the trays, hydrothermal veins and oxidizing zones (Enyovche, Kochash), agates and associated minerals from the Eastern Rhodopes.

In this museum is the annual celebration of the "Earth Day" with numerous initiatives in April and May. Furthermore, шге traveling exhibitions of the museum has been in Macedonia and in "Natural History Museum Herman Otto" in the city of Miskolc, Hungary.

At the museum work jewelery shop for collection samples, library, research archives, photo studio and 6 specialized geological laboratories. Geological area in the Museum "Earth and People" offers interactive educational games for children from 3 to 12 years and their adult companions.