Josef Schnitter

Josef Schnitter (Bulgarian: Йосиф Шнитер, Yosif Shniter; 16 October 1852 – 26 April 1914) was a Czech-Bulgarian architect, engineer and geodesist.

[3] He graduated from the University of Technology's Faculty of Construction in the imperial capital Vienna and then moved to the Russian Empire, where he converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

[1] Even before the Treaty of San Stefano was signed on 3 March 1878 and Bulgaria was liberated from Ottoman rule, Schnitter was dispatched to Plovdiv by the Russians.

[3] He settled in the city, which was the capital of autonomous Eastern Rumelia until the Unification of Bulgaria in 1885, and, after a brief private practice, served as Plovdiv's head architect and municipal chief of engineering from 1878 until his death in 1914.

[3] Schnitter was married to Elisabeth Maria Friederike Baumann from Windsheim in Germany who was staying in Plovdiv's Old Town en route to Istanbul.