THE STARA PLANINA
Gabrovo Three Villages Around Gabrovo
Triavna
The Shipka Pass
Kazanlak
Lovech
Troyan
GABROVO (Габрово)
According to legend Gabrovo was founded at the end of the 14th century by a blacksmith called Racho who set up shop on the banks of the river Yantra, which the modern town straddles, under a group of hornbeam trees (hence the town`s name, hornbeam in Bulgarian is `gabur`).
Gabrovians pride themselves on their sense of humour and thriftiness, and there is a whole canon of jokes about Gabrovian meanness of the sort that the English make about the Scots (whom Gabrovians see as brothers under the skin - Gabrovo is twinned with Aberdeen). Most of the jokes run along the lines of the Gabrovians who stop their clocks at night to save the machinery, the cats whose tails are docked so that you can shut the door quicker behind them and all the rooms in Gabrovo that are left unpainted to make them bigger. Cannily, Gabrovians have capitalised on this by building a House of Humour (Dom na Humora i Satira) and holding a biennial Festival of Humour (May of odd-numbered years). Historical and humorous attractions apart, Gabrovo is an important commercial centre specialising in the production of leatherwork and cotton, so much so that it is known as the `Bulgarian Manchester`.
The old town centre of Gabrovo, on the east bank of the Yantra, is a pleasant maze of tree-lined streets grouped around Pl. Purvi Mai (1st May) with its National Revival Clock Tower from 1835 and cafes and mehanas. А few metres west of the square is the Historical Museum on Ul. Genev which has a large exhibit of artefacts, including a complete suit of chainmail, from excavations at the site of a Thracian and early Bulgarian fort at Gradishte some 3 kilometres north of Gabrovo. North of the square the road leads downhill to the Igoto Bridge, where in the middle of the river stands a statue of Racho the blacksmith. North of the bridge on Ul. Bryanska on the way to the railway station stands the Dom na Humora i Satirata (open 7 days a week), containing a collection of over 100,000 cartoons, photographs, masks, costumes and other humourous items from all over the world. South of the Igoto Bridge Ul. Skobelevska climbs uphill, passing on the left the new Theatre, to Pl. Dimitrov and the Museum of Education, or the Aprilov School named after a Bulgarian merchant from Odessa, Vasil Aprilov, who in 1835 funded this the first Bulgarian language school and subsequently a number of other schools and cultural foundations. The museum is on two floors, the ground floor dedicated to Bulgarian culture during the medieval period and the second to a reconstruction of a 19th century school. There are several National Revival churches in Gabrovo of which the Church of the Virgin (1865) is the most interesting (near the junction of Ul. Aprilovska and Opalchenska).
Three villages around Gabrovo make interesting and picturesque day trips, the little crafts village of Etur and the nearby Sokolski Monastery, Dryanovo and its attendant monastery and the museum village of Bozhentzi. All are easily accessible by bus from Gabrovo.
Etur (Етър) is a reconstruction of the crafts centre that Gabrovo once was, a living Ethnographical Museum that specialises in traditional Bulgarian crafts such as leatherwork, weaving, pottery, musical instrument making and wood-turning. Set in a long, wooded valley, the village houses and workshops are attractively built of stone with wooden balconies and carved shutters. The centre of the village is a reconstructed bazaar, full of crafts shops where you can buy as souvenirs, should you so wish, authentic examples of the craftman`s art. By the stream is a watermill and various water-powered workshops for cutting timber. Up stream from Etur is the little monastery of Sokolski (Соколски) founded in 1832, its present-day tranquillity belying its 19th century past when it was a focal point for local insurgence against the Turks. The monastery church contains some vivid frescoes by one of its earlier priests.
Dryanovo (Дряново), some 20 kms. north of Gabrovo, is known mainly for its master builders, little of whose work unfortunately remains in the modern town, prominent among them the most prolific of Bulgaria`s 19th century architect-builders, Nikola Fichev (colloqually known as Kolyo Ficheto), born here in 1800. He built many churches, bridges, including the covered bridge at Lovech and private houses entirely without pen and paper, always by making models with wax and sticks. A museum, on the street bearing his name (in the area around the top of Ul. Shipka where most of the remaining older houses are) details his life and achievements and serves also as the historical museum. Founded in the 14th century (its name comes from the word `dryan` meaning cornel-tree, an abundant local species), the town prospered until the nineteenth century on vine-growing and the breeding of silkworms. Four kilometres south of the town, in a gorge between rocky crags, is Dryanovo Monastery. The original foundation was established some distance away during the reign of Ivan Asen II. It was destroyed by the Turks in the 14th century and later rebuilt closer to the mountain. After it was destroyed again by Ottoman marauders, it was rebuilt on its present defensible site in the 17th century. The monastery was the scene of a celebrated clash between 200 local insurgents led by Bacho Kiro and the Turks in May 1876. They held out against a 10,000 strong army led by Fazli Pasha for a week. Forty-eight of the insurgents survived and escaped, among them Basho Kiro who was later captured and hanged. During the siege the wooden Church of the Assumption was burned down and on its site now stands a mausoleum containing the remains of the dead rebels. The 1845 Church of the Archangel Michael has survived but without its three domes, which were destroyed during the siege. The monastery also has an interesting collection of icons
Nearby is the Dryanovski, or Bacho Kiro, cave where Palaeolithic remains, of human and extinct animal species, were found in the 1930`s. The cave is lit and open to the public.
Bozhentsi (Боженци ) is a museum village, picturesque but, not being a working village, rather lifeless, 16 kms from Gabrovo on a turning off the Dryanovo road. It was founded by Bozhana, the wife of a Bulgarian boyar who took refuge in the mountains after he was killed by the Turks during the sack of Turnovo. In the middle of the 18th century the village had barely 24 houses, but a century later had become an important commercial centre whose merchants had offices throughout Europe and Russia. The houses they built with their wealth, over 100 large two-storied residences with spacious verandahs and ornate woodcarving, are the village`s main attractions although some of the houses on show belonged to much more humble folk and provide a rare insight into the rural lifestyle of the period.
TRIAVNA (Трявна)
Twenty kilometres from Gabrovo by car or a half-hour bus ride is the old town of Triavna, a well-preserved example of a nineteenth century Bulgarian town (140 of the town’s buildings are listed as of architectural merit) and home to the National Revival Triavna School of arts and crafts, examples of which are displayed in the Iconography School Museum, on Ul. Brezha across the railway line in the south of the town. The town was home to an astonishing flowering of icon painting and woodcarving between 1700 and 1850 and after that became a centre ofr secular Bulgarian art. The early work of the Triavna school followed the older stylised Byzantine tradition, but later became freer and more realistic, featuring characteristic interwoven patterns of flowers, fruits, wheat ears and birds. Traditionally, the skills and secrets of woodcarving and the painting of icons were passed down from generation to generation in the same families, and their work can be seen across Bulgaria and in Mount Athos, the Orthodox spiritual centre in Northern Greece. Examples of the work of three of the most prominent families, the Vitanov, Zachariev and Popdimitrov families, are exhibited in the museum. The Vitanov family alone produced around fifty artists, distinguished, according to a contemporary source by their ‘exceptional talent…expensive apparel and jewelled weapons.’ Tryavna became a centre of Bugarian resistance to the Turks in the 19th century, Angel Kanchev, the revolutionary who shot himself in Ruse (see Ruse) was born here, Vasil Levski visited eight times and the family that arguably did more than any other to articulate in literature what it meant to be Bulgarian, Petko Slaveikov and his son Pencho, lived here.
The bus and train stations are in the modern northern quarter of the town, from where it is a short walk on Ul. Angel Kanchev, south to the old quarter, an architectural reserve (passing on the way Kanchev’s birthplace). On a side street, Ul. Ivanka Gorova, is the town’s oldest building, the early 18th century Pop Angel’s House (open to the public).
Ul. Kanchev ends at Pl. Kapitan Dyado Nikola, overlooked by its 19th century clock tower. Across the square is the towered 12th century church of the Archangel Michail, endowed by the boyars Petur and Asen in commemoration of their uprising against Byzantium and the effective beginning of the Second Kingdom, the iconostasis of which is an excellent example of the Tryavna School. Adjacent is the old school where Slaveikov taught , restored as a 19th century schoolhouse and a gallery to the local artists, Tsvetan Dobrev and the Turnovo painter, Nikola Kazakov and his brother Dimitur Kazakov-Neron. Ul. Slaveikov leads out of the square across the river Trevnenska to the centre of the reserve area and a magnificent example of National Revival architecture. Three houses are open to the public, the Raykova House, an excellent example of Tryavna National Revival buildings, the Daskalov House with some remarkable wood-carving and a display of woodcarving since the earliest times, and the museum-house of the remarkable Slaveikov family. The father Petko (1827-1895) was a talented but self-taught teacher, poet and journalist who was prominent in the struggle for freedom and subsequently as a member of the first constituent assembly in Turnovo. He was much admired by Ivan Vazov who wrote of him
`Slaveikov was the first to create statues.....
from the rough cliffs of the Bulgarian language.`
He had four sons who became variously, ministers of justice and education, a general and foremost among them the poet and folk-song collector, Pencho Slaveikov (1866-1912). Pencho studied philosophy in Germany and on his return worked in various positions at the National Library of Sofia, finally as director in 1909. After being removed from this post for political reasons in 1911, he exiled himself in disgust to Italy for the last year of his life.
THE SHIPKA PASS & SHIPKA VILLAGE (Шипка)
The village of Shipka (Shipka means dog-rose) lies 14 kilometres up the Gabrovo road(route 5) from Kazanlak at the bottom of the Shipka Pass. The Gabrovo bus meanders through the villages of Krun and Sheinovo, where the Karakachan (Greek emigre) shepherds hold colourful horse fairs. There is a scattering of Thracian tomb mounds on the road between Krun and Shipka, just before you reach the latter. The first (on the left), the Ostrusha mound, is a 4thC. BCE burial tumulus with 6 stone clad rooms. Then, behind a factory on the right, the tomb of Shushmanets, a well-preserved temple which was later converted to a tomb. The Griffins tomb, elaborately decorated, is on the same road. Finally, on the left, the Tomb of Seuthes III, King of the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace from c. 331 to c. 300 BC and founder of the nearby Thracian city of Seuthopolis. It is one of the most elaborate tombs in the Valley of the Thracian Rulers
In the centre of Shipka is the Museum, previously the house, of the fin de siecle painter Chilingirov. A short walk up the hill from the hotel takes you to a magnificent Basilisk whose two domes and ornate spire dominate the village. Built in 1902 as a monument to Russo-Bulgarian friendship, the interior has a fine rood screen in the Russian Orthodox style. In the grounds of the church there are a number of open-air cafes where local people gather at night.
THE SHIPKA PASS
From Shipka the road winds up the mountain side to the Shipka Pass, Mount Stoletov and some dramatic views south over the Tunja valley and north over the crags of the Stara Planina. At the top of the pass, on a minor road, the Freedom Monument is dedicated to one of the most significant battles in recent Bulgarian history, one still commemorated by Bulgarian and Russian visitors who regularly leave flowers. In 1877 a small band of Bulgarian irregulars held the heights for three days against 27,000 Ottoman Turks advancing north to relieve the siege of Pleven, throwing rocks at the Turks when they ran out of ammunition. When Pleven fell to the Bulgarians, the Russian General, Radetski, force-marched his Russian reinforcements across Bulgaria and drove the Ottoman troops off the mountain, defeating them finally just outside Kazanluk. The face of the monument as you approach it is a lion with reliefs on the other walls celebrating the three battles, Shipka , Sheinovo and Stara Zagora, that finally ended Ottoman domination of this part of Bulgaria. Inside the monument, the first floor of the tower is a marble sarcophagus with the remains of Russian and Bulgarian soldiers, while the other seven floors hold historic war relics, the top floor offering a panorama of the peak. The monument is in Shipka National Park, which also holds 26 other monuments. 12 kms. east of the monument on the same minor road (irregularly served by buses) is one of the more curiously designed of Bulgaria`s many monuments, Buzludzha. Buzludzha peak was the setting of the first Bulgarian socialist congress in 1891 and has been a place of pilgrimage ever since. In 1981, the Communist Party opened a memorial house to this event, a huge, now abandoned saucer-shaped concrete building with a 70m. tower. The interior of the building, once a luxurious arena with intricate mosaics overlooked by pictures of Marx and Lenin, is largely ruined now and access is forbidden but the external structure is still intact and perched on one of the higher peaks of the Balkan range (1432m.), is an incongruous but fascinating sight.
KAZANLUK (Казанлък)
From Buzludzha a considerably better road (built for Party officials) runs downhill to Kazanluk, the easternmost of the Pod-balkanski (under the mountain) towns. These towns are the centre of Bulgaria`s rose growing industry, in the valley of the river Tundzha, the famous Valley of the Roses. The two main events of the year in the area are the rose harvest in May when the fields of the valley are a sea of colour and the annual Festival of the Roses in mid-June. Kazanluk has a long artistic tradition. Renowned in the 19th century as home to a distinctive school of wood-carvers, it is the birthplace of two of Bulgaria`s most popular authors, the satirist Chudomir, whose earthy short stories parody village life, and Aleko Konstantinov, whose short stories about the misadventures of the rascally rose-grower, Bai Ganyu, are universally popular. Two of Bulgaria`s better known painters, Tsenko Boyadzhiev and Christo Stanchev also originate from the town. Today, Kazanluk is the centre of a contemporary school of painters who exhibit at the Kazanluk Gallery.
The main tourist attractions are the Museum of the Rose on the Gabrovo road about 3 kilometres from the town (bus #6 or any bus to Gabrovo) and the replica of the Thracian Tomb in the City Park (buses #7 and #8 or 10 minutes walk. Follow Ulitsa Iskra from the central square, Pl. Sevtopolis, turn right at the Palace of Culture and the park is ahead of you on the hill). The Museum of the Rose describes the history of the rose-growing industry and the process of converting rose petals into oil. It is set in a pleasant rose garden. As you walk into City Park on the way to the Thracian Tomb, you will pass on your left a monument to Emanuel Manolov, the composer of the first Bulgarian opera and writer of popular songs. Take the path up the hill and you come to the original Thracian tomb, a UNESCO World Heritage sight, which is only open to archaeologists or students of Greek history (entry by permit available from the Ministry of Culture). Turn right past the original, and 100 metres further on is the replica. The tomb is of a high-ranking Thracian and his wife or catemite, dating from about 400BC and built in the characteristic Thracian beehive shape, with a narrow entry chamber or dromos. The walls are decorated with murals depicting the façade of a rich building faced with marble slabs. Set into this façade are a series of colourful and beautifully executed paintings of Thracian life. The centrepiece of the tomb itself is a depiction of the couple, touchingly holding hands, while in procession around the cupola a retinue of horses and servants bearing gifts approach them.
Other attractions in Kazanlak are the Chitalishte theatre, just off the square on Ulitsa Iskra, which regularly mounts performances of folk singing and dancing, while further up Ul. Iskra the Kazanlak Gallery also houses the History Museum. The Tourist Information Office is on Ul. Iskra, about 100m on the left from its start. A walk down Ul. Kiril i Metody from the Gallery, past the public baths, takes you to one of the food markets (the other is beside the railway station), where plentiful and cheap village produce can be bought. South of the History Museum on Ul. Trapezitsa is the satirist, Chudomir`s House, now a museum.
LOVECH (Ловеч)
Known for its katorga (forced labour camp) during the Communist years, Lovech today is worth visiting to see the Kvartal Varosh, its nineteenth century old town, now an architectural reserve, south of the modern town centre. The town occupies the site of an ancient Thracian settlement, later a Roman fortress, called Melta. As a place of strategic importance, the Bulgarians also constructed a medieval fortress here. During the 18th and 19th centuries Lovech developed as an important craft centre, particularly of leather and fur goods. Kvartal Varosh is reached by crossing the river Osum over the Covered Bridge (Pokritiya Most), which once provided shops for the craftsmen of Lovech. The original bridge by the great, self-taught Bulgarian architect Nicola Fichev was destroyed by fire in 1925 and the present bridge is a reproduction. In the Varosh`s cobbled streets are two museums on Ul. Marin Poplukanov, a Museum of Nineteenth Century Life (the Drasova and Rashova House Ethnographic Complex), which gives a picture of everyday life in the last century, and a museum to Vasil Levski. Levski was the guiding light of Bulgaria`s 19th century revolutionary movement (see History), who stayed here when in Bulgaria and who was arrested by the Turks in a village nearby. Above the Varosh, in the Stratesh park are the remains of the Bulgarian fortress, Hisarya (follow the same street up the hill).
TROYAN (Троян)
Troyan (named after the Emperor Traian) is a fairly typical Balkan town, notable only for its pottery and a pleasant Museum of Folk Arts in the centre, and not worth a detour on a busy holiday if it were not for the proximity of its remarkable monastery. Accessible by bus as a day trip from Lovech, Troyan Monastery, the largest in Bulgaria after Rila Monastery, lies near the village of Oreshak 5 kms. from Troyan. Troianski Manastir was founded in the early 17th century, several times partially destroyed and several times restored. The centrepiece of the complex is the three-domed, three aisled church built in 1835 by Constantine. The iconostasis is by carvers from Tryavna and the icons by the Samokov master, Dimitur Zograf. His brother, Zahari, painted the frescoes between 1847 and 1849 and notable are the depictions of the Last Judgement in the porch, portraits of the donors and a self-portrait of the artist. Vasil Levski stayed here frequently in the 1870`s and set up a revolutionary cell joined by the abbot and all the monks. The cell he stayed in is now a museum. Oreshak itself is famous for its craftwork and home to the National Collection of Handicraft and Folk Art.