A major donor to the ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ National Endowment Fund, Ilia Deleff (1921–2012) had, among his numerous fulfilled dreams, one that he failed to bring to a happy ending.
Throughout his life, Ilia Deleff strived to make his dreams come true. ‘I managed to fulfil some of my dreams thanks to serious and persistent work, stimulated by my strong belief in achieving success,’ said the Bulgarian, who spent almost his entire life abroad. An innate trait of his was to dream of achieving something, even if it seemed unattainable.
In 1956, he settled in Brazil, where he lived and worked while developing a passion for collecting giant crystals. As he himself stated: ‘The road to success turned out to be long and hard, full of incredible adventures, risks and hard work, whose fruit is one of the most valuable assets of my life—my collection of giant crystals, a living book of nature, revealing to us the wonders of the rocky kingdom.’
Professionally, he mastered the art of preparing the mineral specimens in his collection: processing and shaping them in the most exquisite and aesthetic way, so that they would be intriguing and attractive when displayed in the exhibitions he organised. But since he always strove to invent something novel and remarkable, with the aim of emphasising the beauty of his favourite crystals, he dreamed of founding a planetarium. A planetarium where the planets of our solar system would be displayed as spheres made of natural matter, semi-precious stones. His idea was to present a model of the Solar System made of minerals. To this end, he drew his information from various sources, including literature on astronomy, and data obtained from the Voyager 2 space probe.
He succeeded in conducting the necessary research and to identify appropriate minerals that met the requirements for size and colour. He managed to find a specialist in Brazil who could produce these colossal spheres, nine in number, through advanced cutting and polishing.
The project
Each sphere represents a planet in the Solar System and proportionately corresponds in colour and size to the respective planet. For example, the sphere of Jupiter weighs 1,500 kg; it has varied colours, rings, spots, and other features that give the perfect idea of the actual planet. Its size and beauty are astonishing. Ilia Deleff imagined all these objects installed in a correspondingly large circular room with a spherical vault, and positioned high above the visitors, each sphere on its own rotating mechanical axis.
He planned for the arrangement of the spheres to correspond to their actual order in the Solar System and their position relative to the Sun. He imagined a darkened room, with the lighting specially directed onto the spheres to reveal their colours—blue, vibrant blue, golden brown, dull grey, yellow, dusky red, depending on the colour of the semi-precious stone from which they were made. Rotating slowly around its axis, each sphere would demonstrate its beautiful colour and the brilliance of its rings. He believed that the viewer could thus immerse himself in a fantastic spectacle where the proximity to the planets would be tangible.
Ilia Deleff’s dream was to bring this cosmic view to life in Bulgaria.
The ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ National Endowment Fund was a major contributor to the establishment of the ‘Earth and Man’ National Museum, having provided the principal exhibits—the ‘Giant Crystals from Brazil’ collection of Ilia Deleff, a Fund donor who bequeathed in 1985 his personal collection of unique giant crystals to Bulgaria, with the wish to found a museum in the capital.
Photographs:
- General view of the exhibition of Ilia Deleff’s latest private collection, Megaquartz Crystal Pantheon, at his home, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- Large sphere of dolomite, a model of the planet Jupiter, 1,500 kg.