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Turnovo

In town | Turnovo

Once you've been to Veliko Turnovo, your heart is forever captured by its magical beauty and splendour. It is a magic called love. A love, that teems everywhere. Finally, you become an inseparable part of its magnificence and eternity.
This is a place on Earth where the future meets the past to build the present. This town has been through many centuries of tragedy as well as of glory. The air is filled with the breath of many national heroes and many legendary men. When you walk around you can feel the holy atmosphere and the energy of a place like this.

Veliko Turnovo, one of the most ancient Bulgarian towns, is situated amphitheatrically on 4 hills - Tsarevets, Trapezitsa, Momina Krepost and Sveta Gora, the ridges of which were indeed the deeply inclined steep banks of the meanders of the river Yantra. Tsarevets was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in the 12th century AD. Ancient travellers wrote about the town of Turnovo as "the second after Constantinople" in its beauty and might. The fateful events from the 13 centuries old Bulgarian State are related to this town, such as the Second Bulgarian Kingdom's apogee in the 12th and 13th centuries AD and the adoption of the First Bulgarian Constitution in 1874.



During the 15th-19th centuries Turnovo was a symbol of the former Bulgarian state system and a stronghold of the Bulgarian national spirit, a leading centre of the struggle for cultural independence. During the Bulgarian National Revival period in the second half of the 18th and the 19th centuries the town was an important administrative, trade and industrial centre. The rapid economic boom was set as a favourable premise for a dynamic cultural and educational process. Unique monuments of the material and spiritual culture were created.
After the Liberation from Ottoman domination in 1877 until the wars in 1912 - 1913 and in 1915 - 1918 as a historical capital Turnovo played a significant role in the political, administrative and cultural formation of independent Bulgaria. In 1879 Bulgaria was restored for a second time. Then the Constituent Assembly drafted the supreme fundamental laws of the nation - the Turnovska Constitution in the hall of the former Turkish konak (town hall). The 1st, the 3th, the 4th and the 5th Grand National Assemblies (in 1879, 1887, 1893 and 1911) were held in Veliko Turnovo.
In 1990 The 7th Grand National Assembly was established in same town hall where the Constituent Assembly was in session in 1879.


Seven centuries ago as capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom the town of Tzarevets had had a major role in the political and spiritual life in Bulgaria. Although there is very little evidence preserved up to now they give clear information of the might of the Bulgarian Tzar dynasties and the Bulgarian Patriarch influence together with the spiritual activities in the former throne town. Archaeological research shows significant civil, residential and cult buildings.
The most monumental ones were the King's and Patriarch's Palaces. The exquisite architecture, the original and realistic murals in the cherishes, the colorful mosaics and handicraft masterpieces show the high disposition and artistic genius of Bulgarian masters, such as Zachary Zograf and Kolyo Ficheto.

Now the old town quarters are preserved with their Bulgarian Renaissance houses and their dislocated terraces, with their fine interior, handicraft workshops and cafes. Today's travellers describe it as the most beautiful Bulgarian town. Now the town of Veliko Turnovo is an administrative, economic and cultural centre. The audiovisual performance "Sound and Light" is the best attraction for visitors to the town.






If you should happen to visit this unusual city, whose stone houses seem perched one above the other on the steep bank of the Yantra river, you will first be taken to see Tzarevets - the place of the patriarchal church and royal palaces, the hill where Bauldouin's Tower still rises, linked with the legend of the Latin Emperor Bauldouin of Flanders, who was captured by Tzar Kaloyan.





Then you will be shown another hill: Trapezitsa - where the foundations of 17 mediaeval churches were discovered. Veliko Turnovo gave the world the Manassiev Chronicle and the Tetraevangelia of Tzar Ivan Alexander. It was the native place of Theodosius of Turnovo and Patriarch Euthymius. It has preserved colorful murals and architectural silhouettes from different ages for generations, and left us to ponder the eternal wisdom, chiselled into the column of Khan Omourtag: "Man, no matter how well he lives, dies and another is born...". Nowadays only the restored St. Demetrius of Thessalonika and St. Peter and St. Paul churches are open to visit. A stroll along old Gurko Street in the Samodivene Market, a craft and trade centre, will give you a feel of the atmosphere of the Bulgarian National Revival period.