| Plovdiv
General Information
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Plovdiv is located in the
southwestern part of Bulgaria, an east European country sandwiched between
Greece and Turkey on the south and the Danube River with Romania on the north.
The eastern border of Bulgaria is formed along the Black Sea. The city has been
built upon seven ancient hills found on the Thracian plain, and now spreads on
both sides of the Martisa River.
In the 7th century B.C. Thracian
people were inhabiting the land around the Hebros (Maritsa) River. These people
were good farmers, cultivating grain crops and breeding livestock. Skilled
craftsmen and artisans, they tended vines and made wine. Rare for the ancient
world, roses with 60 to 100 petals grew in Thrace. Here on these hills along
this river was one of the centers of a most advanced civilization. During the
period of the first millenium B.C. settlements appeared near these seven hills
and by the 5th century B.C. a town with a solid fortified wall, cobblestone
streets and a drainage system was formed. The ruins of this settlement can be
found among the rocks of Nebet Tepe in Old Town Plovdiv.
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The Eternal City, as
Rome is conventionally called, is much younger than Plovdiv. So are Athens,
Carthage and Constantinople. A contemporary of Troy, Plovdiv is a city upon
layers of cities and an epoch upon layers of epoch. Plovdiv is all is one: a
Thracian and a classical Greek polis, the pride of Philip II of Macedonia ( that
is where the old name of the town Philipopolis comes from ), the capital of
Thrace under the Roman Empire, a center of Byzantinism, a stronghold of the
Bulgarians, a dream of the crusaders, one of the prettiest cities of the Otoman
Empire, Bulgaria’s first capital after the Liberation.
Situated on three hills in the Thracian Plain, encircled
by the slow running waters of the Maritza river, Bulgaria's second largest city
today, Plovdiv has a 24 centuries long history and is one of the ancient
crossroads between East and West.
Landmarks remaining from Roman times include the Philippopolis
Amphitheatre and the restored 2nd century Antique Theatre. The marble-tiled
Forum, the Ethnogrphic museum, the art galleries, churches and the street of
folk arts and crafts are major landmarks of Old Plovdid.
The Old Plovdiv on Trimontzium hill is famous fot its National
Revival architecture (from 18th-19th c.). Many of the houses are now museums:
the Ethnographic Museum, the Museum of the National Revival and the National
Liberation struggles, the Alphonse de Lamartine museum house.
The Sts. Constantine and Helena Church, completed in 1832,
contains murals painted by the best known Zahari Zograph, in 1836, while the St.
Marina Church (1852 - 53) has a beautifully carved iconostasis.
There are many more things to see in Plovdiv: the permanent
exhibition of the famous Bulgarian artist Zlatyu Boyadjiev (1903 - 1976) who
loved to paint Plovdiv; the workshops of the old masters of Bulgarian arts and
crafts on Strumna Street - coppersmiths, leather workers, potters, etc.
source:sofia-bulgaria.virtualave.net/plovdiv.html
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