Sliven

On October 26 the town of Sliven (Central Bulgaria) celebrates its public holiday. Sliven is known as the town of the 100 voivodes. The region is inhabited since high antiquity because of the favorable climate. Thracians, Romans, Slavs and Hellenes have lived here. During the Roman Age lots of roads, water conduits, bridges and fortresses were built. A lot of ruins dated to this period are protected near Sliven – in the districts Ramanusha, Daulite, Hisarlaka, Selishteto, and near the villages of Gavrailovo, Topolchane, Sotirya, and the town of Tvarditsa. Sliven became a part of the Bulgarian State in 705. During the First Bulgarian State the town has a key position on the passage from Thracia to Moesia. The town was one of the most significant clerical centers in Bulgaria during the National Revival. Yet in the first years of the Ottoman Yoke Sliven and the district turned into a center of the haidouk movement – the most popular form of opposition to the Ottomans. This made Sliven known as the town of the 100 voivodes. Sliven is also known for being the home town of national heroes as Hadji Dimitar and Panayot Hitov. The first Bulgarian poet Dobri Chintulov was also born in Sliven. Nowadays Sliven has a special meaning for the Bulgarian economy because of its century-old traditions. Sliven is the birth town of the Bulgarian industry, thanks to the proper geographical and historical situation and the insight of the local man Dobri Zhelyazkov. In 1834 he established the Balkan’s first textile factory. In 1879 Petko Rachev Slaveikov edited the first issue of the Sliven newspaper Balgarsko zname (Bulgarian Flag). Sliven has a lot of symbols, but the most popular are Sinite kamani (the Blue Stones), the monument of Hadji Dimitar (officially opened on November 8, 1935), the monument of the Sliven Seventh Horse Regiment, and the city clock (completed in 1936).