Vassil Aprilov was one of the most eminent figures of Bulgarian revival and enlightenment period. Born in the wealthy family of a merchant, he studied in Moscow, and later graduated from the German High School of Brashov, Romania. Then he studied medicine in Vienna, Austria but did not graduate due to an illness. In 1811 he finally settled in the Russian city of Odessa, where he became a merchant.
In 1835, Vassil Aprilov founded a Bell-Lancaster school in the North-Bulgarian town of Gabrovo, the first school before the Liberation (1878) to teach in Bulgarian, launching an educational movement that included the foundation of the first school for girls in 1840. With the monk Neophit Rilski (Neophyte of Rila) as its teacher, it was the first school to teach in Bulgarian. Its work was facilitated by the appearance of a Bulgarian publishing.
Aprilov National High School.