The court adjudicated in favour of Sava Popov, and he received an amount many times greater than the amount determined at the beginning. With this award, in 1977, he started building a new house in the village of Gorni Lozen, in the place of the old one.

At the end of his life, Sava Popov returned to his village roots, travelled between Sofia and his house in the village, visited his children and grandchildren, and attended to the arrangement of materials in his archive. He separated the private correspondence from the official, wrapped it up, arranged it by date, and labelled it precisely.

In 1981, with a difference of a few months, both Rayna and Sava Popov passed away.

We find a notebook titled “Miscellaneous Notes of Sava Popov, 1969.” There he describes his work at home and in the garden of his house in the village of Gorni Lozen. He meticulously notes the weather, the holidays, the guests who visited them, and what exactly his wife Rayna was working on at the moment. He especially notes the days when their son and daughter came. He was simultaneously in Sofia, at work in the editorial office, and in the village, close to the things that had been dear to him since childhood. He kept busy planting flowers and vegetables, moving soil, and building walls. In these notes there is very little about what was happening in the outside world; he does note the moon landing, but he omits the political events on earth.

From “Miscellaneous Notes of Sava Popov, 1969”

16 November 1969

Sunday. Sunny and warm weather. I planted the remaining trees and 27 currant bushes. We had no guests today. I feel tired. Raynichka planted family happiness (aspidistra) and the tulips. Today, Apollo 12 flew to the Moon for the second time.

1 May 1970
It’s raining. Cold. Last night it snowed. It covered the ground. Rayna picked the tulips. We’ve lit the stove and we sit at home. The temperature is around 2-4 degrees.

17 May
Sunday. Last night and Sunday it rained. All day I sit at home. The second week no one has visited.

2 May, Saturday
Ognyan’s family came. Ognyan helped me lay bricks. Damp cold weather. Mila and Slavcho Danailov came late afternoon. We gave them a little snack. They left around 9 o’clock. Ognyan left around 11:30. Emilia and the child stayed to sleep.

3 May, Sunday
Rainy weather, cold. No work can be done outside.
Toni and I solved puzzles. She and Rayna left around 5 o’clock. Tomorrow Rayna has to be at a doctor’s check-up; they took the typewriter because her mother went to Hisar for 20 days and Rayna has to be in Sofia during that time because of Toni. Lumpi hadn’t appeared lately. This evening he came for a little. He’s caught the love fever again. His whole snout is scratched up.

4 May, Monday
Cold weather, cloudy, rainy. Around 12:30 I’m leaving for Sofia.

5 May, Tuesday
I arrived around 11 o’clock. Changeable weather. It’s damp in the garden. I can’t work. Afternoon drizzle.

9 May, Saturday
Rained overnight. Wet and muddy. I can’t work. I read and wrote. Around 1:30. It turned out that Lazovski wants me to graft him pears, not plums.

10 May, Sunday
Nice weather. Sunny and warm. No one came today. I carried dirt from behind the house to the terrace.

11 May, Monday

Sunny and warm weather. I moved dirt until noon. I’m leaving for work around one o’clock.

17 May, Sunday
Last night and today it rained. I stay home all day. No one has come for a second week.

31 May, Sunday
No one came except Rozeta. It rained torrentially.

12 December, Friday
I haven’t come since last week. Last night Katya and Todor gave me two apple saplings – Red and Yellow Delicious. I planted them under numbers 27 and 28. It’s pleasant here, clean, quiet…

To Antonina, who unlocked her father’s house in the village of Gorni Lozen in the spring of 2019…