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Tsarevets Hill Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo, |Arbanasi preserve see 500,000 visitors in 2015

Monday, Jan 04, 2016

The Tsarevets Hill Fortress, one of the two citadels (together with the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress) of the medieval city Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo) which was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), and the other archaeological and cultural monuments managed by the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History have attracted about 500,000 visitors in 2015.

The half a million Bulgarian and international tourists visiting the sites in question have been a constant number in the past few years, Ivan Tsarov, Director of the Regional Museum of History in Veliko Tarnovo, has told the Focus News Agency.

“In the past 5-6 years, ever since Europe and the world have been in an economic crisis, the annual visitors’ number [of about 500,000 visitors] has been constant. Of course, before that, in 2007-2008, we had even more tourists but after that it has declined,” Tsarov is quoted as saying.

“If in some year we have fewer foreign tourists, it so happens that the decline in their numbers is compensated by Bulgarian tourists, and vice versa. Of course, this is accidental, there is no causality here. But, for example, if we take the 2014 figures since those for 2015 are not final yet, in 2014, we have about 20,000 fewer Bulgarian visitors but we somehow got an increase in the number of international tourists by about 20,000,” adds the Director of the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History.

In his words, in addition to the Tsarevets Hill Fortress of medieval Tarnovgrad, which was partly restored between 1930 and 1981, the two other most popular archaeological and cultural attractions in Veliko Tarnovo are the Church of the Nativity of Christ in the Architectural Preserve in the nearby town of Arbanasi, and the Tsarevgrad Tarnov Multimedia Center of the Museum.

“After all, [Tarnovgrad] was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It was from Tsarevets that for 208 years (1185-1393 – editor’s note) the Bulgarian Empire was ruled…The Bulgarian Empire grew so much that it was equal to empires from earlier and later times,” notes the Museum Director who is also an archaeologist.

He points out that in 2015, the city of Veliko Tarnovo and the Museum had a wealth of cultural events such as the celebrations of the 830th anniversary since the Uprising of Asen and Petar which restored the Bulgarian state in 1185 AD, after it had been conquered by the Byzantine Empire in 1018 AD.

The Bulgarian boyars (nobles) Asen and Todor (Teodor) who led the Uprising became Tsar Asen I (r. 1187-1196) and Tsar Petar IV (r. 1186-1197). The Asen Dynasty (House of Asen) that they started ruled the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 until 1257 AD.

Their empire ruled territories from the Carpathian Mountains in the north to the Aegean and the Adriatic in the south restoring most, if not all, of the territorial, military and economic might of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD).

While Veliko Tarnovo Municipality and the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History organized a number of events for the 830th anniversary of Asen and Petar’s Uprising, their culmination was on November 8, 2015, in the restored St. Dimitar Solunksi (St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki) Church where the rebellion first began.

Other events held by the Veliko Tarnovo Museum in 2015 include the International Night of Museums on May 18, the holiday of Veliko Tarnovo on March 22 and the celebrations of the 785th anniversary since one of the most important victories in its 1400-year history: the victory of Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241 AD), ruler of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), against the powerful Theodore Komnenos Doukas (r. 1216-1230 AD), ruler of the Despotate of Epirus, in the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230 AD.

Tsarov points out that the Tsarevets Hill Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo can be visited 365 days a year, and the same goes for the Nativity of Christ Church in the town of Arbanasi.

The city of Veliko Tarnovo in Central Northern Bulgaria is a well established center of cultural tourism with the some 500,000 tourists visiting its cultural sites each year.

In comparison, another city in Central Northern Bulgaria, Pleven, which also has a lot to offer in terms of archaeological and cultural monuments, gets about ten times fewer visitors. In 2015, the Regional Museum of History in the northern Bulgarian city of Pleven, and the two archaeological sites that it manages – the Late Antiquity and medieval fortress of Storgosia (Dianensium), known as Pleun in the Middle Ages, and the huge Ancient Roman colony of Ulpia Oescus near the town of Gigen, saw about 54,000 visitors altogether.

Background Infonotes:

The Tsarevets Hill is one of two main fortified historic hills in the medieval city of Tarnovgrad, today’s Veliko Tarnovo, in Central Northern Bulgaria, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire between 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Trapesitsa Hill, Tsarevets was one of the two fortresses of the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Tsarevets Hill is a natural fortress on the left bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on all four sides with the exception of a small section to the southwest. It is located southeast of the Trapesitsa Hill. The Tsarevets Fortress had three gates, the main one being its southwestern gate. The name of Tsarevets stems from the word “tsar”, i.e. emperor.

Source: http://archaeologyinbulgaria.com/