Robbery in Arabakonak

The goal was to buy weapons for the nationwide uprising being prepared by the Internal Revolutionary Organization with the raised 125,000 ottoman groschen (1,250 ottoman gold pounds) — post factum it was April Uprising of 1876.

[1] The robbery was successful, but the Ottoman secret police managed to track down the perpetrators, and after hardships and persecution, they were eventually caught.

The big problem and failure came from something else — the Ottoman government decided that Russian imperial intelligence was behind the rebels and appointed the Sofia Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the robbery.

In the end, a Russian connection was not proven, but one of the robbers, Dimitar Obshti, decided that he could provoke international attention and the intervention of the great powers with the lawsuit, and issued the amount of the conspiracy with the Internal Revolutionary Organization.

[2] In the new Bulgarian history, this is one of the most tragic events and has been recreated many times artistically, including Milen Ruskov's novel — Summit from 2011 and the subsequent film of the same name from 2017, which turned out to be the most watched by Bulgarians from Revolutions of 1989.