Gorna Lipnica Village
Gorna Lipnitsa village is located in the central part of The Danube plain, which is 12 km. northeast along the road from a town Pavlikeni to a town Polski Trumbesh, in the western part of the small valley of Jalija. It is situated in both sides of the highway, by the left side of the little river Jalija. The village covers the area of 1500 decares. The only level area, which is low-pitched to south, lend an attractive view to the village, especially if you look towards it from the south height of Chukata. From there the whole village is plainly visible with the lineaments of yards, streets and squares. The village have got two quarters – Upper and Lower, which are distinguished with a central square and a wide street around the axis north-south. On that street, in the past, people gathered the cattle because of leading it out to pasture.
The closest neighbor places are: in the east – Dolna Lipnitsa, in the north – Karajsen, in the west – Patresh, in the south – Duskot, in the south-east, and to the south-east on the highway to Veliko Turnovo – Paskalevets. Within those borders, the Gorna Lipnitsa’s land includes 33 thousand decares. The highest parts of the land are the mounds opposite – 160 meters altitude.
History
In ancient times, here, in this extremely beautiful region, people were attracted by the fertile ground, the plentiful spring water and the lush oak woodland. In the place Burlovets were found a stone hammer, millstone chisel and an awl, which testify to tracks of a cave-man in the New stone Age ( 3000-2000 BC.), who had lived in the caves near by Veliko Turnovo and Mussina village and gone downhill to the local woodland for hunting. In that place, also, and mostly along the river valley of the little Burlovska river, were found an iron hoe, a candlestick, fragments of a pottery consecrated slab “A Thrace trooper” – tracks of the Thrace tribes Uzdicensi and Krobisi, who inherited that region.
In the place Mrjamor, round Kladentsite and Jazovira, were found walls of big buildings, which had been constructed of huge stone blocks and bricks with mortar soldering. It is considered that one of them was a Roman public bath. That place, most likely, was a residence of a Roman military sentry, who guarded traveling convoys with goods.
In the land were found also a lot of oddments of Slav-Bulgarian parentage, mainly ceramic utensils. They were found mostly in the places Bijukaleven, Tsirits, Gorno livadi.
Thrace, as well as Slav- Bulgarian settlements, were small and located along the little gullies’ streams, near by large lakes and woodland. Not till later, during the development of the village, were the pastures, round the village, expanded and penetrated cultivable land into the woodland. Recently, boundaries of the abandoned in the past fields, appeared in the place Pripeka, which is now also used as a pasture –ground.
The scattered, around the land, mounds served probably as observatories or finger posts, because during excavating no tracks of funerals were found.
There is a tradition that the name of the village – Gorna Lipnitsa was geographically denominated because of its one-time lime woodland, which had used to extend to South from it. Nowadays, there is no track of that lime woodland, except for the outlying parts.
According to scanty information in Turkish sources of knowledge for the Bulgarian history, the village was established in the middle of XV century. It was written down by the name of Jukara Libnitche, which, translated in Bulgarian, means exactly Gorna Lipnitsa. The fact that the village existed 37 years after the falling of Bulgaria into a Turkish slavery, suggests to us that it existed then still during the Second Bulgarian State. History tells us of how the Turkish invaders attacked the villages and because of sacking them, and the native population hided in the mountains, far away from the central roads. The Turkish colonials settled into their parts. If the first settlers in the village were Turkish, its name would have been fair Turkish, i.e. Jukara Ihlambur. In Turkish, ihlambur means lime. According to a tradition, the first Bulgarian, who came back in already Turkish village, was Karapetko. The tradition tells us of how he was chased by persecutors and after long ramble he found himself into the woodland around the village. In the morning, he went out for water, near by the village. One day the Turkish men captured and then hired him as a shepherd to their cattle. After some time, Karapetko got married and built a house in the low part of the village. There were many Bulgarians, who settled and also served such as servants, sharecropper or craft-men in the Turkish properties. Today’s origins Haiduroolu, Gospodinoolu, Ganulu, Bekoolu, Gashkoolu, Gutteoolu, Karaivanoolu and Hadjiieolu have probably descended from those first Bulgarian settlers in XV century, at time of Karapetko. There were 36 Turkish and 98 Bulgarian houses in Gorna Lipnitsa, up to the Liberation of Turkish slavery in 1878. Two quarters were in the village – Bulgarian and Turkish as there was left huge space between both of them. It is now the Central Square. During the slavery, the inhabitants’ live was popular for its calmness and agreement, which motivated many Bulgarians to come in those parts.
