Go, build, and make the name Adjar...
Svezhen, the charming Bulgarian jewel of the Middle Mountains, is a village in southern Bulgaria, in the municipality of Brezovo, Plovdiv region. It is located in Sarnena Sredna Gora and lies 752 meters above sea level.
By Order of the Council of Ministers No. 55 of November 26, 1987 (State Gazette, No. 96, 11.12.1987), the ancient part of the village of Svezhen was declared an architectural and historical reserve representing the Renaissance cultural heritage.
The reserve includes 110 separate architectural objects (mainly houses), as well as parts of the general infrastructure.
Five of the sites are registered as cultural assets of national importance, the rest are of local importance.
A typical representative of Svezhen's architectural objects is the Seraphim house - one of the oldest in all of Svezhen. This home is one of the oldest typologies of preserved authentic wooden houses from the Bulgarian Middle Ages during the Ottoman rule and one of the few buildings over 300 years old preserved in our country.
The native house where Colonel Vladimir Serafimov was born and grew up - the Liberator of the Rhodopes, which is currently turned into a house-museum, is a unique architectural and construction immovable cultural value, a cultural monument with the category "National Importance", announced in State Gazette no. 86 of 1986.
Among the Svezen architectural objects is the slender and tense posture of the building of the old school, founded in 1880, which, however, has been closed for a long time.
The hot August sun was shining brightly on the old beauty, so she was shining. I sealed this image of her forever and now I present it to you.
The school is named Enyo Velev and has been closed for over 30 years.
The beautiful former primary school building is now deserted and quiet.
Some of the houses have been preserved in very good condition to this day, but there are also those that have long been abandoned, deserted or completely dilapidated.
They compare Svezhen and its location with a scattered amber necklace on both sides of the slopes of the quiet and gentle Svezhenska creek.
In terms of climate, the settlement is quite different from the surrounding settlements in the vicinity. Because Svejen is located at a higher altitude (752 meters), it is also much cooler here. In winter, it gets quite cold and usually the winter is snowy and lasts from November to the beginning of April. Heavy snows rarely fall and do not last long.
Spring is cool, short and often changeable; summer is short and cool, and autumn is cool and rainy. Despite these features, the climate here allows the harvest of the fields sown with cereals to be harvested on time.
Here is a photo moment from a typical very angry Svesen May storm, which on my previous visit here quickly, quickly drove me out of the village.
Due to its location, Svejen is exposed to the winds. The strongest are the northeast and northwest, and the south and north transfer the places around the houses. The old Svezhians call the north-eastern wind Gornia, because it comes from the upper course of Svezhenska Reka, the north-western one - Dolniya (from the lower course of the river), the northern one - Ovchilarski, because it blows from the village of Aleksandrovo, and the southern one - Kokalski, from the area of Kokala.
In the village, the fruit trees, vines, and roses bloom much later than those in the surrounding area. The most rain falls in spring and autumn.
It's a hot sunny August weekday, and I have almost the whole day at my disposal to go around this, hidden in the bosom of the beautiful Sarnena Sredna gora, a Bulgarian jewel, to sink into its history, to talk to the people here, to photograph everything and I'm ecstatic!
Joy has filled my heart and song is pouring out of it! I feel light as a feather!
Arriving in Svezhen, I park right in front of the monument to Colonel Vladimir Serafimov - the Liberator of the Rhodopes.
Monument to Colonel Vladimir Serafimov
In order to pay their respects to the work of Colonel Vladimir Serafimov, residents of Svezhne erected a monument in his honor, which is located in the center of the village.
In August 2010, the recognized residents of the village of Polkovnik Serafimovo* donated a memorial area that can be seen near the monument.
*Colonel Serafimovo is a village in southern Bulgaria. It is located in Smolyan municipality, Smolyan district. Until 1934, the name of the village was Alami Dere. For several months from August to December 1934, it was called Yablka, and then it was named after the hero of the Balkan War, Colonel Vladimir Serafimov.
On a hill in the center of the village there is a monument in honor of the local residents who died in the wars and the glorious 21st regiment and its commander Colonel Vladimir Serafimov. On the nearby Srednogorets peak (with the old name Kavgadjik peak, which was named Srednogorets in honor of the 21st regiment) a monument, called Rhodope Shipka, was erected for the famous Battle of Alamidere on October 21 (November 3 according to the new style) 1912 during the First Balkan War.
Now look to the right, where a small green recreation area with a children's swing has been formed.
The monument to those who died in the wars
A monument to all the brave Bulgarians from Svezhen, who put the fatherland above everything else and who gave their lives for liberation, was also erected in the middle of it.
Svezhen gave birth to many brave patriots who put their fatherland above everything!
Let's remember them!
Next to the monument to the colonel, you will also see two memorial plaques - to Captain 1st rank Rashko Serafimov - the first Bulgarian submarine officer, commanding the Navy of the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1919 and to Captain Doychin Boyadjiev - military pilot first class, pilot of the squadron, a patriot and vigilant citizen who died in 1992 while performing his military duty.
Just above the monument, the old white building of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul looms before me. On my previous visit here I was her guest.
Church "Holy Holy Apostles Peter and Paul"
The construction of the church "Holy Holy Apostles Peter and Paul" started in 1864 and two years later it was completed and consecrated.
Four years later, a marble slab with a double-headed eagle was placed in the temple as a sign of gratitude to the people who raised funds for its construction, as well as to the Ecumenical Patriarch, who managed to obtain such an important permission from the Ottoman authorities.
The main task for the construction of the temple during the difficult years of slavery was the special committee organized in 1860, whose member was Petar pop Stoyanov.
Sakellari (church treasurer) Petar pop Stoyanov was born in 1798 and ordained as a priest in Adjar in 1847. And as I mentioned, he is the main originator of the Christian faith and spirit, and the Bulgarian language.
The first rural community center in Bulgaria
Opposite is the building shared by the town hall (entrance on the left) and the first village community center in Bulgaria (entrance on the right), built in 1868, named after the first Bulgarian national artist born here, Hristo Stanchev (Krusev).
The establishment of the community center was documented in the newspaper "Macedonia", issue 43 of 1869:
Last year, with the efforts of two or three excellent young people, a community center was established here. The purpose of which is to open a girls' school in the village and support it.
The founders are Georgi (Geno) Serafimov and teachers Rusi Nikolov and Dimitar Popov.
In the best and prosperous years for the settlement, about five thousand people lived here.
Twenty-six pubs once operated here, as well as the only sober society at the time. Today, I look with sadness at the still-functioning Svežen choremag.
Adjara architecture
It is a typical summer day in Svežen - people from Svežen are working in the yards of their houses, there is no one on the streets, the sun is burning, it is burning, and I am walking around the village with a camera in my hand, wandering through small and narrow streets.
Traditional Adjarian architecture includes several types of houses. During the Renaissance, spacious two-story wooden houses with a large shop on the first floor facing the street or bazaar were located along the main street, winding in a north-south direction along the Svezhenska Reka.
Another type of houses, built in areas with a more pronounced unevenness, are constructed with two or three floors, the first of which is stone, and the others are stucco.
The poorer residential buildings are built of logs, being single-story or with a semi-excavated first floor. The courtyards are not spacious, but are dotted with outbuildings supporting domestic crafts or animal husbandry.
The oldest buildings are representatives of the typical one-room Revival house, including a living room and a stable for animals, as well as a loggia, turned in the mass case to the south.
Samples of all listed housing types have been preserved to this day, despite the dramatic historical changes that have overtaken Svejen in the last century and a half.
Adjarian legend - the story of Adjar
The settlement was founded around the 14th century. His old name is Adjar.
Ajar means strong and still stony (translated from Turkish). According to some sources, the word is of Arabic origin and means khanjar - also a dagger, a knife, and later the x and n gradually dropped out.
In 1934, Tsar Boris III with his wife Joanna visited Adjar. Their village looks extremely green and quite fresh, so the king issues an order from here on to be called Svezhen.
Heirs of Turnov boyars
It is not surprising that Adjarians are healthy, strong and strong, since according to the most famous legend, they are heirs of Boylar families and blue aristocratic blood flows in their veins.
Ancient legends tell about those distant and dark ages when Bulgaria fell under Turkish slavery.
The tales describe the dignity of Tsar Ivan Shishman's boyars, who were forced to hand over his sister Kera-Tamara to the Turkish Sultan Murad in order to appease him.
The action takes place in the flattest part of the Stryam Valley - somewhere in the area of the present-day village of Marino Pole, which until 1934 was called Menteslii (southeast of Karlovo).
Ashamed, humiliated, grief-stricken and oppressed by their act, the boyars cannot return to Tarnovgrad.
A small part of the group, companions of Kera-Tamara, set off in a western direction and created today's Voinyagovo. Another part remained in place, founding the village of Menteslii.
The largest part of the boyars set off in the southeast direction. Arriving in the wilds of Sarnena Sredna Gora, the Tarnovo aristocrats stopped and laid the foundations of today's Svezhen.
Adjar Literary School
In the period from the 16th century to the 17th century, Ajar was an established literary center of the Middle Ages.
An entire school for copying, illustrating and binding manuscripts functions here - the Adjara Book School, also known as the Karlov-Adjara Book School and is the predecessor of the Tarnovo Book School.
Its representatives are priest Jovko, daskal Nedyalko and his son daskal Philip.
These are the foundations of the medieval church "St. George" in Svezhen, which was burned down and destroyed in 1877.
Behind the church is a small and narrow path paved with stone slabs. This path leads to the ossuary, built on the site of the old ossuary, where the skulls of the local people who were brutally slaughtered during the great massacre of 1877 are still kept today.
To the left of the path is the old churchyard of the village. The priests and some of the notable and prominent residents of Svezhen - the elite of Adjar - found eternal rest in it.
On the right, laid on the ground and leaning against the high stone wall, you can see dozens of salvaged stone tombstones, collected from all over Svejen.
During the excavations, foundations were discovered at this very place - the remains of cells plastered with mud plaster on the walls, which are supposed to have been inhabited at the time by the scribes-calligraphers of the Adjarian literary school.
The activity of Adjara writers, illustrators and ornamenters is one of the most sublime achievements in the Bulgarian art of book decoration. She stands out among copyists-calligraphers and masters of manuscript decoration, working in the period XV century - XVIII century, with significant artistic achievements, great diligence and skill, original author's handwriting and creative specificity.
The main contribution of the Adjarian school of pen writers was the transformation of the ornament from a decorative to an illustrative element of manuscript decoration.
Authors of the photographs of the originals: Todor Nenov and Ivan Krachanov
In this gallery you can view priceless originals preserved even today in the "Ivan Vazov" National Library in the city of Plovdiv.
The Adjarian literary center gradually became one of the most influential Damascene and artistic centers in the 17th century.
In Ajar, one of the earliest cell schools on the Bulgarian lands was also registered, providing Church Slavonic literacy to local boys as early as the 1730s.
Two nuns from the Sopot virgin monastery "Introduction theotokos (metoch)" taught in the cell school in Ajar.
Medieval Church of Saint George
These are the ruins of the old medieval Adjarian church "St. George" in Svezhen.
During the Scary, the church was completely destroyed.
Today, only the stone foundations and the original stone flooring of the church have been preserved.
In the period around the 18th century - 19th century, Adjar was the center of the Karajadag nahiya. As a small district center (kasaba) it controls 62 settlements along the Maritsa River and the Chirpan district. At that time, Adjar was a populous, economically well-developed settlement with an alert Bulgarian population and bright cultural events. The livelihood of the inhabitants is mainly trade, farming, rose production and cattle breeding.
Their business contacts with Constantinople, Anatolia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire are dynamic. Their commercial connections reached Austria-Hungary, Russia, Dalmatia. Other crafts are also being developed - papukki, kaftan, kundur, millinery, tepavicari, coffee shop, innkeeper. Adjarians raised the production of gaitans and shayaks to a height and sewed clothes for the Turkish army, thanks to which many became rich and built large houses.
In 1840, one of the first mutual village schools was founded here, which later grew into a class school and kept the fire of enlightenment alive in the last pre-liberation decades. In 1868, the community center was established, and in 1870, the girls' school. In 1868, the log school building was erected, which lasted until the end of the 19th century.
Before the Liberation, there were fearless voivodes in Ajar.
The highly educated and dynamic Adjarians are also involved in the liberation initiatives of the Bulgarian people in the last two decades before the Liberation. There are preserved testimonies about the penetration of a press with revolutionary content into the village and about the eventual creation of a revolutionary committee.
Mount Kardafil - the headland of Hadji Dimitar
The story goes that seriously wounded in a battle near Mount Buzludja in the summer of 1868, supported by his comrades, he was carried over Ajar near Mount Kadrafil, and for a month he was fed and cared for, his wounds bandaged by Svezhene and Murchenishki shepherds.
Grandfather Hristo from Svezhen still keeps the mug with which his grandfather quenched the voivode's thirst.
Later, on November 6, 1880, the bones of Hadji Dimitar were buried in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
The event was published in the "Maritsa" newspaper, from where the voivode's mother found out where her son's mortal remains were. She left Sliven for Svezhen at the end of December 1880. She recognized her son by the skull, which was missing one of the front teeth. He took the bones and buried them next to the "St. Nicholas" church in the "Klutsohor" district in his native Sliven.
In 1970, as a result of the complete reconstruction of the house-museum "Hadji Dimitar" and the restoration of the demolished buildings, his bones were handed over to the District Historical Museum - Sliven. After that, however, their traces are lost.
Within the confines of the Ottoman Empire, Ajar grew to the size of a small town. In an addendum in the newspaper "Pravo" from 1872, the settlement was called Gradentse. Its main drawback is definitely the lack of water. It is noted that many residents make a living by working in Anatolia and Constantinople.
The Apostle of Freedom - Vasil Levski - often visited the village. Here he fictitiously becomes engaged to the local beauty Gena. According to the rumor, the couple spent seven romantic days and nights in the so-called Chorbaji-Wolf House, after which their paths diverge.
Adjarians took an active part in the April Epic from 1876.
The horror of the summer of 1877
Convicted of old offenses against the empire, in the summer of 1877 during the Russo-Turkish war of liberation by the advancing hordes of Suleiman Pasha after the reckless and unjustified from a military-strategic point of view, the provocative invasion of General Yosif Gurko's detachment to the south of Stara Planina, the sub-balkan basin is subjected to unheard of violence.
Army and Bashibozuk attacked, set fire to and destroyed a number of settlements - Stara Zagora, Kalofer, Karlovo, Sopot. At the beginning of August, the Turkish troops reached Adjar. The village was set on fire and looted.
Out of over 1,200 houses, only a hundred survive. Hundreds of people perished in the flames. Over 700 Adjarians were captured and beheaded.
Thousands are leaving their homes.
The enormous tragedy has been compared by historians to the brutal Batak massacre of 1876.
The events go down in history as the Terrible, the Carnage and the Great Massacre.
In the advertisement published on the pages of the "Maritsa" newspaper (No. 142 of December 11, 1879), it is about a boy from Adjar named Dimitar, who during the massacre was kidnapped and converted to Islam and after the Liberation was looking for surviving members of his family.
Due to the topographic features of the settlement, after the fires of the war, some of the houses further away from the central street survived. The new church "Holy Apostles Peter and Paul" also survived, but the old medieval Adjarian church "St. George" was completely devastated.
The Svezhen clock tower
Near the monument, erected on the place where more than 700 Adjarians were killed during the Strasno, the Svezhen Clock Tower stands today.
The Svezhen clock tower was built on the place where the house of the biggest butcher in Ajar used to be - Yova and Bozhko Ivanovi Papukchievi. The family's house was completely burned by the Turks during the Terrible.
The heirs of Colonel Ivan Bozhkov donated the place to build a kindergarten.
For many years, the clock on the tower was maintained, repaired and duly checked by an old great watchmaker from Svegen.
After his death, no one maintains the old clock anymore.
The clock was unique - it sounded with a different melody every hour of the day and its voice echoed through the slopes of Sarnena Sredna Gora!
Authentic Adjarian cuisine
I can't end my glorious Adjarian adventure without sharing with you some typical dishes from this wonderful region!
I'll start with the typical Adjarian bidi, which are baked in a clay pot. This is a mixed dough (it looks like today's pancake mix, but has nothing to do with our modern pancakes). This mixture is made from flour, water and possibly one egg (but it can be without an egg) and a little salt to taste. The pot is spread with bacon. In the past, when they baked them, many bidi would make something like sugar syrup - molasses - and pour it over them to make it a little sweet. That's it!
The main products in Adjarian cuisine are potatoes (baraboi - according to the local dialect) and beans. A typical dish for the region is potatoes with rice, cooked in the oven.
Another famous authentic Adjarian dish that is prepared here is dried green beans with meat, and this meat must have been from the kachet. The meat is taken out of the pot in advance – from one day to the next, to desalt it and then cook it.
The name of the dish is:
Vasul on shumki
These pods are still taken out – when the beans are green, they are strung together, then hung, like this – under the eaves in the shade to dry. It remains green. Then the meat is taken out and desalted. Then the shumki of the dried green beans are soaked and when the dish is cooked, garlic cloves are put inside, but not peeled.
Probably the most famous recipe from the region is fake rabbit in Svezhen style.
Another typical dish is Svezhenski katyk – a dish made from boiled and salted fresh sheep's milk, which stays for 2-3 days at a temperature of 10-15 degrees and is ready to eat.
Typical are pumpkin jam-rachel and the pasta dishes treynitsa and ushmer.
AIR Svezhen Information Center
In 2020, the newly constructed building of the AIR Svezhen Information Center opens next to the house-museum of Colonel Vladimir Serafimov, known as the Seraphim House, and next to the ruins of the medieval church of St. George.
In 2020, the newly constructed building of the AIR Svezhen Information Center opens next to the house-museum of Colonel Vladimir Serafimov, known as the Seraphim House, and next to the ruins of the medieval church of St. George.
A large panoramic terrace has been formed above the building, offering a wonderful view.
A panoramic platform offers a panoramic and impressive view of the Seraphim House, the valley of the Svezhenska River, the beautiful green slopes of Sarnena Sredna Gora opposite and allows you to get an excellent idea of the location of the medieval church of "St. George".
It is important to note that the entire site is publicly accessible to people in wheelchairs.
There are currently no entrance fees!
How to get to the Svezhen Architectural and Historical Reserve?
AIR Svezhen is a village in Southern Bulgaria, in Brezovo Municipality, Plovdiv District. It is located in Sarnena Sredna Gora.
It is about 22 kilometers north of Brezovo (about 29 minutes by car).
AIR Svezhen is located:
197 kilometers (about 2 hours and 28 minutes by car) from the capital
65 kilometers (about 1 hour and 20 minutes by car) from the city of Plovdiv
355 kilometers (about 4 hours and 38 minutes by car) from the city of Varna
248 kilometers (about 2 hours and 36 minutes by car) from the city of Burgas
In the nearby surroundings are the huts "Svezhen", "Bratan" and "Kavakliika", Bratan peak, the dams "Svezhen" and "Domlyan" and other beautiful places.
The Svezhenska River flows through the village, and not far from the Svezhen resort there is a mineral spring with a built fountain - "Nevenkina Cheshma".
And finally, my dear friends,
you shouldn't miss checking out
the special photo album with moments –
discovered, experienced, filmed and shared with you!
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