Ivailovgrad’s Public Holiday

The first data about the existence of a settlement on the place of the nowadays town of Ivailovgrad (Southeastern Bulgaria) are dated back to 9th-10th century. In the Middle Ages the fortress Lititsa (or Lyutitsa) erected here on the place of the today’s district Ladja. When the Ottomans conquered the Balkans the settlement was destroyed, and for the period of the Ottoman yoke there is a scanty information about the town. After the Liberation (1878), according to the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, the region of Ivailovgrad remained within the Turkish territory. In 1912, during the Balkan Wars, the Eastern Rhodope Mountain was included in the operating district of the Combined Horse Detachment led by general-major Alexander Tanev. In the summer of 1913 in the Gyumyutdjinska district was formed the so-called Gyumyutdjinsko Autonomic Government, chaired by Hafaz Sali. The annihilation of the Bulgarians in the Aegean region was diplomatically given an unofficial nature. Bulgarians from the nearby villages were also slaughtered. Hundreds of houses, farms, churches, schools and community centers were ruined. A lot of local administrative, church and educational leaders were killed. It was the 28th Infantry Regiment, and the detachments of the prominent Thracian voevodas Dimitar Madjarov and Rusi Slavov that avoided the entire annihilation of the Bulgarians in the Ivailovgrad region. Then the people started living in peace. After signing the peace treaties the process of political, administrative, educational, and cultural development was restored. The institutions and departments of the Bulgarian government were established today, the Ivailovgrad region is known for its extraordinary rich cultural and historical inheritance – over 50 cultural monuments, with 26 churches. Some of the most popular monuments are the antique villa Armira from 2nd-4th century, the Big Mound near the village of Svirachi, the medieval fortress Lyutitsa, and of course the dam lake.