Stoyan Avramov described Ivan Naumov as follows: Alyabaka was a tall, broad-shouldered and strong man with a dark face and black hair, that made him appear as a Moor.

In the regions of Veles, Prilep and Porechie he was the only leader, who frightened the Serbian propaganda, whose agents treated him as invincible and invulnerable.In 1902 he killed a Turk and escaped to Sofia.

In 1905, Ivan Naumov's band expelled Dimitar Chupovski from Macedonia, who came to Veles to spread the Misirkov's ideas, which were considered as "pro-Serbian" and "anti-Bulgarian".

[7][8][9] In the summer of 1907, Alyabaka entered Macedonia as a leader of one of the largest revolutionary bands, which had 60 freedom fighters, mostly soldiers of the Bulgarian army.

The same year in August, while he returned from the congress of the IMARO's Bitola revolutionary region, held at the Prostranska Mountain, at which he was elected inspector of the bands, Alyabaka witnessed the kidnapping of a girl from the village of Belica by Arnauts.