Plovdiv

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  Plovdiv is the second largest town in Bulgaria not only because of its 380,000 inhabitants but also because of its economical and cultural importance. It is one of the most attractive and vibrant centres in the country. The town is picturesquely situated on the both banks of the river Maritsa, among a number of rocky hills which rise unexpectedly from the middle of a vast flat plain.
  Plovdiv has always been a beautiful city. Ancient chroniclers praised its beauty in their time. There is plenty to see in Plovdiv today: the old town embodies the town’s long and varied history – Thracian fortifications, Roman walls and public buildings and impressive timber-framed Renaissance houses which look down on the Ottoman mosques and the artisans’ dwellings of the lower town. But Plovdiv isn’t only a parade of antiques: the city’s arts festivals and trade fairs rival even Sofia’s in number.

Plovdiv has always been developing on a large scale. Its growth has been facilitated by its key position on important roads. It lies on the international Vienna-Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul highway and is also on the Paris-Istanbul railway line. The economic growth of Plovdiv and especially the establishment of the Trade Fair made necessary the construction of a number of big hotels and public buildings.   Plovdiv is a university and cultural centre. Among its higher edicational establishments are the Plovdiv University, the Medical school, the Institude of Food Technology , the Agricultural University, the Technical University and School of Music. There are also a number of research institutes in horticulture, food     technology and tobacco production. Of the cultural institutions mention should be made of the Art Gallery, the National Theatre, The Puppet Theatre, the National Opera, the Archeological Museum, The Ethnographic Museum and many others.

  Plovdiv is a large industrial centre. The largest enterprises comprise the non-ferrous metal works, the metal working plant and the textile combines. Other works produce typewriters, footwear, carpets, fur clothes and cosmetics. The Foodstuffs industry is well developed. The largest establishments in this field are the sugar combine, the brewery and the cannery which produces tinned fruit and deep frozen vegetables and fruit. The “Rhodopi” cigarette factory produces cigarettes for the local market and for export.
  Plovdiv is probably best known abroad for its International Trade Fair. The city became Bulgaria’s principal marketplace during the 1870s, when the railway between Europe and Istanbul was completed and the great annual fair held in Uzundzhovo since the 16th century was moved here. Plovdiv’s first international trade fair (1892) was a rather domestic affair – a man from the east of the country proposed to show his hunting dogs, while Bohemia exhibited beehives. The first large trade fair was held in 1933 with the participation of 424 Bulgarian industrial firms. In 1936 the fair became a member of International Fairs Organization. The first Intenational Trade Fair was established in the following year, 1937. Today, it is the largest of its kind in the Balkans. There are actually two annual fairs: the spring event, devoted to customer goods in early May, and the larger autumn industrial fair, during the second half of September, both held at the complex on the north bank of the river Maritsa. The complex contains a number of pavilions and exhibitions rooms where Bulgarian and foreign firms display their goods, negotiate and sign contracts for future business contacts.

HISTORY

  Plovdiv is one of the oldest towns in the Balkan Peninsula. The hills were inhabited in prehistoric times.
  The Thracian tribe of Obrysae fortified the hill of Nebet Tepe and the place was called Eumolpiade, after the legendary Thracian hero who first settled on one of the hills of Plovdiv.

In 342 B.C. Phillip II of Macedon waged a campaign in which he defeated King Kersobleptes of the Odrysae and built several strongholds in the conquered lands. Initially, the town was little more than a military outpost designed to keep a watchful eye over the troublesome natives. The Greek writer Polybius wrote that King Philip V in a campaign across Cental Thrace, attacked the Odrisae, the Bessi and the Dentels, reached Philippoe Polis and stationed a garrison there. Evidently, in the 2nd c. B.C. Plovdiv already bore the name of its conqueror and builder Philip.The Greek chronicles used two words to designate the city, and Claudius Ptolemy, the prominent geographer, was the first to unite them in Philippopolis. It was a rough frontier town which the Macedonians deliberately colonized with criminals and dropouts – Roman writer Pliny later identified Phillippopolis with Poneropolis, the legendary “ City of the thieves”. The Macedonians couldn’t however, hold the town for very long. After the disintegration of the Macedonian state it became the Thracian town again. The Thracians translated the name Philippolis into their own tongue – Pulpudeva.

  In 1st century A.D. the Romans occupied the Balkan peninsula. The emperor Claudius seized Philippopilis in 46 A.D. Thrace became a Roman province. In the 2nd century the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius fortified the Three hills again. The town became a prosperous Roman city, called Trimontium, meaning Three hills. But the old name Philippolis was also used because the Greek language was predominant in this part of the Roman empire. The town grew in size and spread onto the plain surrounding the hills. The Romans built a second city wall which included parts of the flatland and Sahat tepe hill. In the 3rd century A.D. the town spread to Dzhendem tepe where a temple of Apollo was erected. Remains of the Roman wall, a round tower and one of the city gates can be seen on Nebet tepe hill. Other interesting architectural materials and sculptures are displayed in the archeological museum.
  After the disintegration of the Roman empire, Plovdiv became a Byzantine town. It was devastated by the Huns in 447, in the 6th century emperor Justinian rebuilt and refortified it. Later, although the town theoretically continued to belong to Byzantium, there were frequent Slav raids. By the 7th century, with the Danube frontier increasingly breached by barbarians, the city was in decline . With the arrival of the Protobulgarians, Byzantine control over the area became increasingly tenuous. “Once upon a time”, lamented Byzantine chronicle Anna Comnena in the 12th century, “ Philippopolis must have been a large and beautiful city, but after the Tauri and Scyths (i.e. the Slavs) enslaved the inhabitants… it was reduced to the condition in which we see it.” In Comnena’s time Philippopolis was a notorious hotbed of heretics, a situation usually blamed on local Armenians, who migrated to Thrace en masse in the eight and tenth centuries, bringing with them the dualistic doctrines of Manichaenism and Paulicianism . Although these heresies eventually fizzled out , the Armenian population of Plovdiv have endured to this day .
  In the 9th cent. The Bulgarians seized the town and held it for some time. The Slavs changed Pulpudeva into Pupuldin , Puldin and finally Plovdiv. In the 11th cent. Plovdiv once again came under the authority by Byzantium. At the time of the crusades Plovdiv has a mixed population consisting of Bulgarians , Greeks and Armenians. In 1096 the crusaders came into Thrace and were welcomed by the friendly population. But during the second crusade led by Conrad III they set fire to the commercial suburbs of Plovdiv and when later the army of the Third crusade led by Friedrich Barbarossa enter the city, its inhabitants fled away in the Rhodope mountains. After the Latin Empire was settled in Constatinople, Plovdiv was handed over the knight Renier de Trit. The population gave him a friendly welcome, but later on, after the battle near Adrianople, when emperor Baldwin was defeated and captered by king Kaloyan on 14 april 1205, certain political changes occurred. The Greeks and the Armenians following the advice of the Bulgarians, decided to deliver Plovdiv to Kaloyan, and Renier de Trit took refuge in Stanimaka( now Assenovgrad). In the meantime Kaloyan victorious march was stopped below the walls of Saloniki and then the Greeks in Plovdiv  surrendered to the local nobleman – the Greek Alexis Aspietas. Then, during the autumn Kaloyan took the city, hanged Aspietas, and annexed Philippopolis to the Bulgarian state, while Renier de Trit, besieged in Stanimaka, was freed in 1206 by a Latin detachment that came to his rescue. The successor of Baldwin, Henry, defeated Tsar Boril on 2 august 1206 near Plovdiv and Renier de Trit returned to the domain. After his death the city remained within the Latin Empire until 1235, when the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Assen II conqured Philippopolis, and the city was finally joined to the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, until its fall under Ottoman domination in 1370.

Plovdiv was a rather run-down place when the Turks inherited it in the 14th century renaming it Filibe, a corruption from Philippopolis. It became the seat of the governor of Roumelia. Because of its situation of the main road from Asia Minor to Europe, the town soon recovered as a commercial centre, with a thriving Muslim quarter, complete with bazaars and mosques, grooving up at the base of the hill where Plovdiv’s Christian communities continued to live. Many of the latter were members of the rich merchant class by the mid 19th century, and they expressed their influence in construction of opulent town houses which showed the very best of native art and crafts.   In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Plovdiv became an important center of the Bulgarian National Revival. The citizens took an active part in the struggle for the church independence from the Greek patriarchate, and for independent Bulgarian schools and national culture. The first Bulgarian school was started 1836 and Nayden Gerov established the classic school in 1850.     Plovdiv was a rather run-down place when the Turks inherited it in the 14th century renaming it Filibe, a corruption from Philippopolis. It became the seat of the governor of Roumelia. Because of its situation of the main road from Asia Minor to Europe, the town soon recovered as a commercial centre, with a thriving Muslim quarter, complete with bazaars and mosques, grooving up at the base of the hill where Plovdiv’s Christian communities continued to live. Many of the latter were members of the rich merchant class by the mid 19th century, and they expressed their influence in construction of opulent town houses which showed the very best of native art and crafts.

  In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Plovdiv became an important center of the Bulgarian National Revival. The citizens took an active part in the struggle for the church independence from the Greek patriarchate, and for independent Bulgarian schools and national culture. The first Bulgarian school was started 1836 and Nayden Gerov established the classic school in 1850.
  Plovdiv was liberated by Russian army in 1878 but under the treaty of Berlin became the capital of the province of Eastern Roumelia, an Ottoman province administrated by a Christian governor – general. Much of the Christian population,  naturally , wanted union with the Principality of Bulgaria, which was finally attained in 1885. Plovdiv at last became a Bulgarian town again. The cultural life of the town flourished. Well-known writers and artists worked here. Plovdiv developed as an industrial centre too with a number of cigarette and textile factories, sugar refineries and flour mills.
  Plovdiv has continued to rival Sofia as a cultural and business centre successfully, not least because of the prestigious international trade fairs held here in May and September. Close proximity to Turkey and Greece ensured that Plovdiv is a well placed to take advantage of recent changes – the membership in NATO( 2004 ) and EU ( 2007 )

Sights:

 Antique theatre

 Balabanov house

 Dzhumaya mosque

 Hissar Kapiya

 Kuyumdzhioglu house

 Lamartine house  

 Nebet tepe

 Roman hippodrome

 Round tower

 St Constantine St Helena Church

 St Nedelya Church

 The Assumption of the Holy Virgin Church

Pictures from Old Plovdiv