We've been a couple since 2007, living together and traveling a bunch in Europe and Asia. After a few backpacking trips throughout Bulgaria, we fell in love with the rugged nature of the country.

In 2016 we sold our house in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands and moved to Sofia...and later on Plovdiv. Meanwhile, we searched for a village house to give our 4 cats the perfect place to grow old.

We found our "future home" in Domlyan 2 years later. It wasn't clean, nor save and barely livable...but we saw the potential and started cleaning, gardening and renovating, while working day jobs in Plovdiv. 

A large cat cage connecting to a window downstairs was built in the back garden, so the cats could be locked up, but outdoors, whenever we weren't present.

 

When working from home became a thing in 2020, we fully moved to Domlyan, to spend more time with the (at that point) 6 cats and to further renovate the house and garden.

Being at home all the time, feeding the cats outside, attracted more cats... and we started noticing most cats in the neighborhood were strays or barely and incorrectly looked after. Most neighbors don't have the means to spay or vaccinate their barn cats and when hungry, they feed them bread or cheap kibble... when cats get sick or poisoned, they end up in a garbage container or simply ignored...

 

Out of the first 5 new arrivals in 2020, 2 were pregnant. By the end of 2021, our "catcount" was up to 22 cats.

During the winter of '20 to '21, a lot of our cats became ill at the same time. Panleukopenia, herpes, calici, pneumonia, and all kind of nasty stuff. Some miraculously survived, some died. Full story here (link soon).

 

This was a turning point for us. We started looking at what we were doing right and wrong. Changing our initial intentions for the house and playing with ideas on how to proceed. Since kittens were left at our doorstep and new cats somehow kept spawning in our garden, we couldn't stop taking in more cats. Refusing them would simply result in having to watch them perish slowly. Spay-neuter-return? An adoption program? A cat café? Live streaming with cats? Maybe keep poultry and produce cat food?

 

All these ideas were then placed in the freezer, because we needed a solid foundation to positively impact the welfare of our cats. Our house should be their castle, since they already ruled it. Thus the sanctuary 'Cat Castle Domlyan' was born and we started researching what was the best course.

We found a better veterinarian. We poured our income into vaccinating and spaying all healthy cats we could get our hands on, building small and large quarantine rooms for sickly and wounded cats and completely changing the layout of the house, to give our furry residents more space and comfortable secluded boxes.