Lovech - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province

Lovech Province

Lovech Province is one of the 28 provinces of Bulgaria, lying at the northern centre of the country. It is named after its main city - Lovech. As of December 2009, the population of the area is 151,153.-Municipalities:...

and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality

Lovech Municipality

Lovech Municipality is a municipality in Lovech Province, Central-North Bulgaria, located on the border between the area of the Fore-Balkan and the Danubian Plain...

. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

. Near Lovech are the towns of Pleven

Pleven

Pleven is the seventh most populous city in Bulgaria. Located in the northern part of the country, it is the administrative centre of Pleven Province, as well as of the subordinate Pleven municipality...

, Troyan

Troyan

Troyan is a town in Lovech Province in central Bulgaria with population of 21,997 inhabitants, as of December 2009,. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Troyan Municipality. The town is about 160 km away from the country capital Sofia. The nearest civilian airport is Gorna...

and Teteven

Teteven

Teteven is a town on the banks of the Vit river, at the foot of Stara Planina mountain in north central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Teteven Municipality which is a part of Lovech Province. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 10,613 inhabitants.The town...

Geography

Lovech is situated in the Forebalkan

Balkan Mountains

The Balkan mountain range is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan range runs 560 km from the Vrashka Chuka Peak on the border between Bulgaria and eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea...

area of northern Bulgaria, on both sides of the river Osam

Osam

The Osam is a river in northern Bulgaria. Its drainage basin is in between that of the river Vit to the west and the Yantra system to the east. The river has two main tributaries in its upper course: the Black Osam takes its source from the foot of Levski Peak in the Balkan Mountains, at an...

, and unifies both mountainous and plain relief. The eastern part of the town is surrounded by a 250 m high plateau, where the largest park in Lovech, Stratesh, is located, and the southwestern part is surrounded by the hills Hisarya and Bash Bunar. In the northwest the relief gradually changes to the plains of the neighbouring Pleven Province

Pleven Province

Pleven Province is a province located in central northern Bulgaria, bordering the Danube river, Romania and the Bulgarian provinces of Vratsa, Veliko Tarnovo and Lovech. It is divided into 11 subdivisions, called municipalities, that embrace a territory of 4,333.54 km² with a population, as...

. The average altitude of Lovech is about 200 m above mean sea level. The highest point of the town is Akbair Hill at 450 m.

Lovech has a beautiful location, with many parks and places to rest. In Stratesh Park, the highest place in the town, there are a great number of lilac bushes, easily seen from the whole town, which are a wonderful view in the spring. Due to this, Lovech is well known as the town of the lilac

Lilac

Syringa is a genus of about 20–25 species of flowering woody plants in the olive family , native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia, and widely and commonly cultivated in temperate areas elsewhere....

Population

During the first decade after the liberation of Bulgaria

Liberation of Bulgaria

In Bulgarian historiography, the term Liberation of Bulgaria is used to denote the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 that led to the re-establishment of Bulgarian state with the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, after the complete conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire, which...

, in the 1880s the population of Lovech numbered about 7,000. Since then it started growing decade by decade, mostly because of the migrants from the rural areas and the surrounding smaller towns, with a peak in the period 1987-1991 when exceeded 50,000 residents. After this time, the population has started decreasing rapidly in consequence of the poor economic situation in the Bulgarian provinces during the 1990s that leaded to a new migration in the direction of the country capital Sofia and abroad.

Ancient history

Lovech is one of the oldest towns in Bulgaria. Traces of human activities from very ancient times were found in the region, mainly in the caves near the town. The reason was the comfortable location between the mountains and the flat country, and the presence of a river.

The first inhabitants of the town were the Thracian

Thracians

The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...

tribe of the Meldi, whose traces date as back to the 4th-3rd centuries BC. They founded their capital, called Melta, in the area, which was situated at the place of today's neighbourhood and architecture reserve Varosha. Later, when the Balkans were occupied by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, a military station called Prezidium was founded near the modern town, which was situated at an important strategic position on one of the main Roman roads. Parts of this road are to be seen in the territory of Lovech today.

Middle Ages

The former Roman citadel Hisarya, which is situated on the hill of the same name, was the place where in 1187 the peace treaty between the Bulgarian Empire

Bulgarian Empire

Bulgarian Empire is a term used to describe two periods in the medieval history of Bulgaria, during which it acted as a key regional power in Europe in general and in Southeastern Europe in particular, rivalling Byzantium...

and the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

was signed and the returning of Bulgaria on the European map was officially declared, marking the beginning of the Second Bulgarian Empire

Second Bulgarian Empire

The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. In the 12th century Lovech was a great trade centre and one of the most famous towns in Bulgaria.

The Turkish invasion in the middle of the 14th century did not pass the town, but the Hisarya fortress was captured last of all, in 1446, although for a long time after that the town enjoyed some privileges such as a prohibition on Turkish people to settle in the town or to take Bulgarian children as janissaries.

Ottoman rule

In the 17th century Lovech (Lofça in Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

) was once again an important trade centre and one of the richest towns in Bulgaria, a reason for the town being called Altan Lovech (Golden Lovech, from Turkish

Turkish language

) at the time.

In the times of revolutionary organisations against the Ottoman rule, Lovech was the centre of operations of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation

Internal Revolutionary Organisation

The Internal Revolutionary Organisation or IRO was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation founded and built up by Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in the period between 1869 and 1871. The organisation represented a network of regional revolutionary committees which were governed by a Central...

of Vasil Levski

Vasil Levski

Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, , is a Bulgarian revolutionary and a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule...

, called the Secret Revolutionary Committee. He was arrested by the Turkish military in a village near Lovech called Kakrina

Kakrina

Kakrina is a village in central northern Bulgaria, part of Lovech Municipality, Lovech Province. It lies in the central Fore-Balkan Mountains, at an altitude of . As of 2008, it has a population of 298....

and later hanged in Sofia

Sofia

. The biggest museum of Vasil Levski in Bulgaria containing
many personal items such as notebooks, clothes and weapon is situated in the old town part of Lovech.

Between 1872 and 1874, the Bulgarian master-builder Nikola Fichev, known also as Kolyu Ficheto

Kolyu Ficheto

Nikola Fichev , commonly known as Kolyu Ficheto , was a Bulgarian National Revival architect, builder and sculptor born in Dryanovo in 1800....

, built the famous Covered Bridge

Covered Bridge, Lovech

The Covered Bridge is, as the name suggests, a covered bridge in the town of Lovech, Bulgaria. The bridge crosses the Osam River, connecting the old and new town parts of Lovech, being possibly the most recognisable symbol of the town....

(Покрит мост) over the river Osam, the only one of its kind in the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. The bridge was burned out in 1925, but rebuilt in 1931. Now it connects the new and the old part of the town and it's full of cafes, small restaurants and many souvenir shops.

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, an important battle was held at Lovech, known as the Battle of Lovcha

Battle of Lovcha

The Battle of Lovcha, or Loftcha , was a battle of the Russo-Turkish War which occurred during the siege of Plevna...

. Many Turkish families were made to leave the city by the Russian army, and the Muslims of Lovech known to be "Lofçalılar" has immigrated to several parts of Turkey (mainly Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, Edirne

Edirne

Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

and Bursa).

Modern time

In more recent times, Lovech was the place where modern foreign language education in Bulgaria started. Taking over from the American college established there in 1881, the first foreign language school in Bulgaria was set up in Lovech in 1950. Initially three languages were taught in this school: English, French and German. However soon after that the teaching of English and French was moved to Sofia and Varna respectively, founding the first language schools in these cities: the First English Language School

First english language school

First English Language School was founded in 1958 in Sofia, Bulgaria as a specialized high school for education of English language as a foreign language to Bulgarian high school students. The school has occupied its current location at 60 Dondukov Street since 1960 and shares it with the 112th...

in Sofia in 1954 and the French Language School in Varna in 1958. Since for the period 1959-1984 German was the only language taught, the school in Lovech was informally known as The German School (Немската гимназия).

Economy

On April 9, 2009 Great Wall Motor and the Bulgaria

Bulgaria

n company "Litex Motors" signed a contract for building a plant that would manufacture Great Wall Hover

Great Wall Hover

Great Wall Motor also produces a more luxurious, limousine version of the Hover, called the Great Wall Hover Pi . Its name is also sometimes spelt Hover•π. The first Hover Pi was given as a gift to Fidel Castro...

, Great Wall Wingle

Great Wall Wingle

The Great Wall Wingle is a compact pickup truck built and marketed by Great Wall Motor since 2006. In 2009, it became the first Chinese-made 'Ute' or pickup to be sold in Australia where it is marketed as the V-Series...

and Great Wall Florid

Great Wall Florid

The Great Wall Florid is a subcompact car marketed by Great Wall Motor of China. Styling is suspected to be copied from the first generation Toyota ist , while the nose section is inspired by the second generation Toyota Vitz ....

in Lovech, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

.
The investment is for 80 million euros and 1, 500 new jobs would be created. The new plant in Bulgaria would be open in October 2010 and would be used to assist of entering the EU market by Great Wall Motor.

Main sights

The Tinkov house
The Covered Bridge
Covered Bridge, Lovech
The Covered Bridge is, as the name suggests, a covered bridge in the town of Lovech, Bulgaria. The bridge crosses the Osam River, connecting the old and new town parts of Lovech, being possibly the most recognisable symbol of the town....

by Kolyu Ficheto
Kolyu Ficheto
Nikola Fichev , commonly known as Kolyu Ficheto , was a Bulgarian National Revival architect, builder and sculptor born in Dryanovo in 1800....
The monument of Vasil Levski
The monuments to Russian soldiers killed in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
The Varosha old town part
Stratesh Park with the biggest zoo in the province
Bash Bunar Park
The baroque buildings in the town's central parts
The Varosha architectural and historical reserve, with Drasova and Rashova memorial houses

Theatres

Lovech Drama Theatre
Theatre by the Nauka Community Centre
The summer theatre in Stratesh Park

Museums

Museum of Vasil Levski
Lovech Historical Museum
Drasova Memorial House
Rashova Memorial House
Saint Kliment Ohridski School

Sports

PFC Litex Lovech
PFC Litex Lovech
PFC Litex Lovech or simply Litex is a Bulgarian football club from the town of Lovech, which currently competes in the Bulgarian A Professional Football Group, the top division of Bulgarian football...

, one of Bulgaria's top football clubs
Osam, a men's handball club
Lovech '98, a women's handball club
Eagles, a baseball club
A wrestling club
A kyokushin
Kyokushin
is a style of stand-up, full contact karate, founded in 1964 by Korean-Japanese karate master, who was born under the name Choi Young-Eui . Kyokushinkai is Japanese for "the society of the ultimate truth". Kyokushin is rooted in a philosophy of self-improvement, discipline and hard training...

karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...

club
Progress, a chess club

Famous people born in or connected with Lovech

Hüseyin Hilmi Işık,Turkish, Sunni Islamic Scholar
Joseph I of Bulgaria
Joseph I of Bulgaria
Joseph I, born as Lazar Yovchev, , also known as Iosif I, was a Bulgarian Exarch from 1877 to 1915. His grave, marked by a white cross and a bed of flowers, is located just outside the western wall of St Nedelya Church in Sofia....

— Bulgarian exarch
Georgi Ivanov
Georgi Ivanov
Major general Georgi Ivanov Kakalov is a retired Bulgarian military officer and the first Bulgarian cosmonaut. He was a member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria in 1990.-Early life and military career:...

— the first Bulgarian cosmonaut
Dimitar Dimov
Dimitar Dimov
Dimitar Todorov Dimov was a Bulgarian dramatist, novelist, and veterinary surgeon.Born in Lovech, he is best known for his best-selling novel Tobacco , which was made into the 1962 film Tobacco, directed by Nikola Korabov...

— Bulgarian author
Simeon Djankov
Simeon Djankov
Simeon Djankov is a Bulgarian economist and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Bulgaria in the government of Boyko Borisov. Prior to his cabinet appointment, Simeon Djankov was a Chief economist of the finance and private sector vice-presidency of the World Bank...

— economist
Anastas Ishirkov
Anastas Ishirkov
Academic professor Anastas Todorov Ishirkov was Bulgarian scientist, geographer and ethnographer. He was the founder of geographical science in Bulgaria and was a member of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences....

— noted geographer
Benyo Tsonev — important figure of Bulgarian linguistics
Todor Kirkov — revolutionary
Hristo Karpachev — poet, partisan
Panayot Pipkov — composer
Lyubomir Pipkov — composer
Sylvia Zareva — editor
Haci Adil Arda Turkish, Politician in the Ottoman Empire

Honour

Melta Point

Melta Point is a rocky point on the coast of Hero Bay, Livingston Island, formed by an offshoot of Teres Ridge. Adjacent ice-free area . The point is named after the ancient Melta, ancestor of the present town of Lovech in Northern Bulgaria...

on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands

South Shetland Islands

The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after the ancient Melta.

External links

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