Provadiya
Encyclopedia
Provadia is a town in northeastern Bulgaria
, part of Varna Province, located in a deep karst
gorge (Provadia syncline
) along the Provadia River not far from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast
. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Provadiya Municipality
. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 12,901 inhabitants.
Provadia served as a customs
point since ancient times. It is well known for salt
y mineral water
s, its mild climate
and a total of 70 km of cave
s in the surrounding mountain
walls. It can be reached by train
from Sofia
or Varna
and there are also hourly buses from and to Varna, and a sophisticated road system.
) and Pravadı (Turkish language
). The Greek name and its adaptations stem from the word πρόβατο, provato, "sheep", and the medieval Bulgarian name corresponds directly (being derived from овца, ovtsa, with the same meaning). The fortress is open for visitors.
During the Middle Ages the town was a key centre of the First Bulgarian Empire
with an important monastery at the modern village of Ravna, the church of which was consecrated on 23 April 897, and a major scriptorium
of the Preslav Literary School
. The rebel leader and subsequently emperor of Bulgaria Ivailo defeated a 10,000-strong Byzantine army near the city in 1279. During the Second Bulgarian Empire
it was the seat of a metropolitan in the 14th century. Ovech was captured by the Ottomans in 1388 after a long siege.
In the 17th and 18th century Provadia was a commercial centre of the Ottoman Empire
and was inhabited by many Jewish and Ragusan
merchants. A 16th-17th-century Dubrovnik
-style church still stands in the nearby village of Dobrina.
in Bulgaria, which is believed to be virtually inexhaustible with a salt dome
up to 3900 m high, and has been sporadically exploited for some 7500 years but industrially, through leaching, only since the 1960s; now it is part of Solvay
Sodi AD in Devnya
under the name Provadsol AD. Some of the leaching caverns are used for the storage of natural gas. Provadia is an important hub on both the Druzhba Gas Pipeline and the future South Stream
. Other industrial facilities include a modern biodiesel
installation, a sunflower oil mill, a heavy earth-mover repair plant, shipbuilding machinery and textile factories. The town has a certain potential as a spa centre; its saline mineral water is allegedly similar in composition to the one at Karlovy Vary
.
Places of interest include the Lambova Kashta ethnographical complex and ethnographical collections in Dobrina and Manastir villages, as well as cave monasteries
and the ruins of the 9-10th-century Ravna Monastery, one of the most important centres of the Preslav Literary School, dubbed "language laboratory" by Umberto Eco
for its graffiti by common folks in several languages and alphabets.
Provadia Hook in Greenwich Island, South Shetland Islands
, Antarctica is named for Provadia.
The current mayor of the town is Georgi Yanev elected in November 2007.
Provadiya is the seat of Provadiya municipality (part of Varna Province), which also includes the following 24 villages:
on Greenwich Island, South Shetland Islands
is named after Provadiya.
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...
, part of Varna Province, located in a deep karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
gorge (Provadia syncline
Syncline
In structural geology, a syncline is a fold, with younger layers closer to the center of the structure. A synclinorium is a large syncline with superimposed smaller folds. Synclines are typically a downward fold, termed a synformal syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold, with younger...
) along the Provadia River not far from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast
Bulgarian Black Sea Coast
The Bulgarian Black Sea Coast covers the entire eastern bound of Bulgaria stretching from the Romanian Black Sea resorts in the north to European Turkey in the south, along 378 km of coastline. White and golden sandy beaches occupy approximately 130 km of the 378 km long coast...
. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Provadiya Municipality
Provadiya Municipality
Provadiya Municipality is a municipality in Varna Province, Northeastern Bulgaria. It is named after its administrative centre - the town of Provadiya....
. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 12,901 inhabitants.
Provadia served as a customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
point since ancient times. It is well known for salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
y mineral water
Mineral water
Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...
s, its mild climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
and a total of 70 km of cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
s in the surrounding mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
walls. It can be reached by train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
from 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...
or Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...
and there are also hourly buses from and to Varna, and a sophisticated road system.
History
Historical names of the medieval fortress, the ruins of which have been preserved until today, include Provat (Byzantine Greek), Ovech (Овеч, Bulgarian), Provanto (ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
) and Pravadı (Turkish language
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,...
). The Greek name and its adaptations stem from the word πρόβατο, provato, "sheep", and the medieval Bulgarian name corresponds directly (being derived from овца, ovtsa, with the same meaning). The fortress is open for visitors.
During the Middle Ages the town was a key centre of the First Bulgarian Empire
First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...
with an important monastery at the modern village of Ravna, the church of which was consecrated on 23 April 897, and a major scriptorium
Scriptorium
Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...
of the Preslav Literary School
Preslav Literary School
The Preslav Literary School was the first literary school in the medieval Bulgarian Empire. It was established by Boris I in 885 or 886 in Bulgaria's capital, Pliska...
. The rebel leader and subsequently emperor of Bulgaria Ivailo defeated a 10,000-strong Byzantine army near the city in 1279. During 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...
it was the seat of a metropolitan in the 14th century. Ovech was captured by the Ottomans in 1388 after a long siege.
In the 17th and 18th century Provadia was a commercial centre of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and was inhabited by many Jewish and Ragusan
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...
merchants. A 16th-17th-century Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
-style church still stands in the nearby village of Dobrina.
Today
South of Provadia lies the largest rock salt mineSalt mine
A salt mine is a mining operation involved in the extraction of rock salt or halite from evaporite deposits.-Occurrence:Areas known for their salt mines include Kilroot near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland ; Khewra and Warcha in Pakistan; Tuzla in Bosnia; Wieliczka and Bochnia in Poland A salt mine...
in Bulgaria, which is believed to be virtually inexhaustible with a salt dome
Salt dome
A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when a thick bed of evaporite minerals found at depth intrudes vertically into surrounding rock strata, forming a diapir....
up to 3900 m high, and has been sporadically exploited for some 7500 years but industrially, through leaching, only since the 1960s; now it is part of Solvay
Solvay (company)
Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company with its head office in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1863 by Ernest Solvay to produce sodium carbonate by the solvay process. Since then the company has diversified to two major sectors of activity: chemicals and plastics...
Sodi AD in Devnya
Devnya
Devnya is a town in Varna Province, Northeastern Bulgaria, located about 25 km away to the west from the city of Varna and The Black Sea Coast. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Devnya Municipality...
under the name Provadsol AD. Some of the leaching caverns are used for the storage of natural gas. Provadia is an important hub on both the Druzhba Gas Pipeline and the future South Stream
South Stream
South Stream is a proposed gas pipeline to transport Russian natural gas to the Black Sea to Bulgaria and further to Greece, Italy and Austria. The project is seen as rival to the planned Nabucco pipeline...
. Other industrial facilities include a modern biodiesel
Biodiesel
Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....
installation, a sunflower oil mill, a heavy earth-mover repair plant, shipbuilding machinery and textile factories. The town has a certain potential as a spa centre; its saline mineral water is allegedly similar in composition to the one at Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...
.
Places of interest include the Lambova Kashta ethnographical complex and ethnographical collections in Dobrina and Manastir villages, as well as cave monasteries
Cave monastery
A cave monastery is a monastery built in caves, with possible outside facilities. St. Anthony the Great known as the founder of monasticism lived in a cave.- List of cave monasteries :*Albania**St...
and the ruins of the 9-10th-century Ravna Monastery, one of the most important centres of the Preslav Literary School, dubbed "language laboratory" by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
for its graffiti by common folks in several languages and alphabets.
Provadia Hook in Greenwich Island, 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 for Provadia.
The current mayor of the town is Georgi Yanev elected in November 2007.
Municipality
|
Venchan Venchan is a village in the Provadiya Municipality, Varna Province, north-eastern Bulgaria. It is situated at 7 km to the north-west of Provadiya. As of 2007 the village has 364 inhabitants.... |
Honour
Provadiya HookProvadiya Hook
Provadiya Hook is a gravel barrier spit separating the inner Yankee Harbour in Greenwich Island, Antarctica from the outer Shopski Cove and McFarlane Strait...
on Greenwich Island, 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...
is named after Provadiya.