Major General
Nikolai Stoletov was appointed Chief of the Bulgarian militia, with his chief of staff being Colonel Efim Rinkiewicz. Other staff officers were also appointed - Colonel Engelhart, Lieutenant Colonel
Fyodor De Preradovic and others. The command staff consisted of 136 officers, among which were Bulgarian officers and non-commissioned officers in the
Russian Army: • Lieutenant-Colonel
Konstantin Kesyakov, • Captain
Raicho Nikolov, • Lieutenants Peter Alexiev, Delev,
Petko Stoyanov, Konstantin Shivarov,
Atanas Uzunov,
Dimitar Filov,
Danail Nikolaev,
Stefan Lyubomski, • Sub-lieutenants
Stefan Kissov,
Avram Gudzhev,
Olympiy Panov and
Costa Panitsa. Friendly doctors were appointed, including the Bulgarians
Konstantin Bonev,
Sava Mirkov,
Konstantin Vesenkov, Andrei Bogdanov, Ivan Panov,
Yakov Petkovich. The militias were trained by Russian officers. They were armed with the
Chassepot rifle, which was bought by the Ministry of Defense and the Moscow Slavic Committee. In terms of numbers and structure, the militia was comparable to a reinforced wartime infantry division. It consisted of 3 militia brigades, each consisting of 2 militia "druzhina" (the equivalent of a battalion) of 5 companies each. Later on, 6 more independent detachments formed later are included. The Bulgarian militia units were commanded by: • 1st Militia Brigade, commanded by Colonel Korsakov, • 2nd Militia Brigade, commanded by Colonel
Leonid Vyazemski, • 3rd Militia Brigade, commanded by Colonel
Mikhail Tolstoy. Other independent detachments were: • 7th Militia druzhina, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Tizenkhausen, • 8th Militia druzhina, commanded by Staff-captain Merchanski, • 9th Militia druzhina, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Lvov, • 10th Militia druzhina, commanded by Major Dorshlung, • 11th Militia druzhina, commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Gasparevski, • 12th Militia druzhina, commanded by Major Kornilovech. ==Honours==