This little museum in the museum complex allows you to look around the town's prison that was used from the times of the Ottoman Turks right through the 20th century until 1954.

Prisoners were held in the two storeys below ground level, sleeping on hard wooden benches and taken down to the dungeons to be systematically tortured. Primarily political prisoners, they were tortured by the Ottoman guards using a variety of gruesome methods that are described (unfortunately only in Bulgarian) and illustrated in some detail. Particularly alarming is the fact that they were beaten with the heads of other prisoners who had already been executed.

Upstairs one can see the spartan solitary confinement cells, no bigger than a toilet cubicle, where prisoners were held in the 20th century.

Tickets are purchased from the Museum of Recent History next door. The price is rather steep for such a small museum - 6 leva for an adult - so if you are visiting several museums the 20 leva museum pass will be a better bet.