Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik Пазарджик
City
Coat of arms
Pazardzhik Location of Pazardzhik
Coordinates: 42°12′N 24°20′E / 42.200°N 24.333°E / 42.200; 24.333
Country	Bulgaria
Province (Oblast)	Pazardzhik
Government
• Mayor	Todor Popov
Area
• City	37.382 km2 (14.433 sq mi)
Elevation	205 m (673 ft)
Population  (Census February 2011)[1]
• City	71,979
• Density	1,900/km2 (5,000/sq mi)
• Urban	114,817
Demonym(s)	Pazardzhiklia
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)
Postal Code	4400
Area code(s)	034
License plate	PA
Website	Official website

Pazardzhik (Bulgarian: Пазарджик [ˈpazɐrd͡ʒik]) is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality.

Name[]

The name comes from the word pazar, ultimately from the Persian bāzār, "market" + the Turkic diminutive suffix -cık, "small".

History[]

Pazardzhik was founded by Tatars from what is today Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi in 1485 on the left bank of the river Maritsa, near the market of the region, an important crossroad at the middle of this productive region, and named Tatar Pazardzhik meaning "small Tatar market". Thanks to this favourable location, the settlement quickly developed. While it was very small at the beginning of the 19th century, it became the administrative centre for the region at the end of the century and remained so until the dissolution of Ottoman Empire.

The old clock tower is one of the landmarks of Pazardzhik.

During the following centuries the town continued to grow and strengthened its position. Trade in iron, leather and rice prospered. The town impressed visitors with its beautiful houses and clean streets. In 1718 Gerard Kornelius Drish visited Pazardzhik and wrote "the buildings here according to construction, size and beauty stand higher than those of Niš, Sofia and all other places".

During the Ottoman period Pazardchik had 18 mosques but only Kurshumlu Mosque, build in 1667 survived till today.

The Russians under Count Nikolay Kamensky took the city after a brief siege in 1810,during the Russo-Turkish War. By the mid-19th century Pazardzhik was a big, important centre of crafts and trade, with a population of about 25,000 people. It hosted two big annual fairs, and a big market Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There was a post office with a telegraph.

In 1837 the Church of the Mother of God^{[disambiguation needed]} was built – an important national monument, famous for its architecture and woodcarving. In the mid-19th century Pazardzhik became an important cultural centre: a school was opened in 1847, a girls' school in 1848, a community centre in 1868, the women's union "Prosveta" in 1870.

Pazardzhik is exempt from Zapdniya Russian detachment commander with Lt. Gen. Joseph Gurko on 14 January 1878 (new style). Thanks the Armenian Ovanes Sovadzhiyan, Ottoman command failed to execute his plan – to light the town and destroy its Bulgarian population – before retreating.^[2]

The railway station in 1928

From the early 20th century on people built factories, stores and houses, and thus the industrial quarter of the town. From 1959 to 1987 Pazardzhik was again an administrative centre for the region, and is again since the 1999 administrative division of Bulgaria.

Population[]

The Pazardzhik theatre named Konstantin Velichkov.

In the 1880s the population of Pazardzhik numbered about 15,000 and it was one of the largest of Bulgaria.^[3] Since then it started growing decade by decade, mostly because of the migrants from the rural areas and the surrounding smaller towns, reaching its peak in the period 1985–1992 exceeding 80,000.^[4] After this time, the population has started decreasing in consequence of the poor economic situation in the Bulgarian provinces during the 1990s that led to a new migration in the direction of the country capital Sofia and abroad. As of February 2011, the city has a population of 71,979 inhabitants, while the Pazardzhik Municipality of 114,817 inhabitants.^[1][4][5]

Ethnic linguistic and religious composition[]

According to the latest 2011 census data, the individuals declared their ethnic identity were distributed as follows:^[6][7]

• Bulgarians: 57,332 (86.3%)
• Turks: 4,822 (7.3%) (Muslim Roma or the so-called Turkish Gypsies)
• Roma: 3,423 (5.2%)
• Others: 325 (0.5%)
• Indefinable: 495 (0.7%)
  • Undeclared: 5,582 (7.8%)

Total: 71,979

The ethnic composition of Pazardzhik Municipality is 89787 Bulgarians, 10132 Romani and 5686 Turks among others.

According to some reports, as of the middle of the 19th century the city was composed by 33 neighborhoods – 18 Turkish, 12 Bulgarian and 3 Gypsy. Although the Bulgarian neighborhoods were numerically smaller they were more densely populated, while there were Bulgarians in the Turkish neighborhoods too. In 1865 the population of the city was 25.000, Bulgarians comprised 57% of it and the Turks 28,5%.^[8] As a trading town the city was attractive for other peoples and sizable minorities of Jews, Armenians and other peoples remained for decades, they are currently present although in much smaller numbers.

Culture and pedestrian areas[]

Pazardzhik History Museum

Videlina cultural centre (chitalishte).

Kurshumlu Mosque from 1667 is one of the oldest mosques in Europe. It is one of the highlights of Pazardzhik.

The Church of the Theotokos preserves the most impressive icons in Bulgaria by master artists of the Debar School, wood-carvings of New and Old Testament scenes, and icons by Stanislav Dospevski. Among the town's landmarks are also the clock tower, the ethnographic and history museums.

As with most Bulgarian cities, Pazardzhik has developed a significant pedestrian center, in which several central squares typify the European coffee house society and pedestrian culture. In Bulgaria the café culture is particularly prominent, with many downtown squares easily providing up to a half dozen cafés, with ample outside seating.

Pazardzhik has a level of pedestrian streets (or network of carfree areas) even above the relatively high Bulgarian standard. There are several longer pedestrian streets, and at one point there is even an intersection where five different pedestrian streets converge. A few of these do not continue for very long, but most do, or are connected to the rest of the pedestrian areas of the city, and thus could be said to form the pedestrian network of the city.

During the warmer seasons, most afternoons of the week and especially weekends find a large number of people strolling about or sitting in cafés.

Pazardzhik Point on Snow Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Pazardzhik.^[9]

Museums and Theaters[]

Konstantin Velichkov Drama and []

The city is home to one of the oldest theaters in the country, built with funds raised voluntarily by citizens. Today the theater is united with the puppet theater under the name .

133 years of theatrical tradition and over 40 years of state theater; 35 theatrical seasons. The first production of the in Pazardzhik is Albena by Yordan Yovkov. From January by Radichkov, directed by Krikor Azaryan, to Epic Times again by Radichkov, directed by , from As You Like It by Shakespeare directed by Leon Daniel to The Storm by Alexander Ostrovsky directed by . From by Anton Strashimirov, directed by , through by Stanislav Stratiev, to by , directed by . Some of the greatest directors have worked on the : Krikor Azaryan, , Leon Daniel, Nikolay Polyakov, , and others, some of the most famous actors: Nevena Kokanova, , Georgi Kaloyanchev, Katya Paskaleva, , , , Georgi Cherkelov and more, and more... of text, theme, direction, with always spiritually young actors and directors.

Regional historical museum[]

is one of the leading and oldest museums in Bulgaria. It was established in 1911 by a decision of the management board of Chitalishte "". In 2000 it was transformed into a Regional Historical Museum with territory of activity in the towns of Pazardzhik and Plovdiv. The profile of the museum is general history and has the following main departments: Archeology; History of Bulgaria 15 - 19 century; Ethnography; ; Funds and scientific archive; Public Relations. The historical expositions are housed in a specially built building with an area of 1200 m2. The museum has its own specialized library, restoration studio and , has a stand for the sale of advertising materials and souvenirs and a cafe.

The ethnographic exposition of the Regional Historical Museum is arranged in the largest residential building in Pazardzhik from the Renaissance era, built in 1850 in the style of the house. The owner of the house, , was a wealthy merchant from Pazardzhik. Declared a national architectural and artistic cultural monument.

Stanislav Dospevski Art Gallery[]

The Stanislav Dospevski Art Gallery was founded in 1966. It is named after the Samokov school artist and public figure Stanislav Dospevski (1823-1878), who worked in the field of the portrait genre. The current gallery building was opened in 1980. Later (1911) it housed the . The total exhibition area is 800 m2. The art fund of the gallery exceeds 10,000 works.

The exposition presents the Bulgarian fine arts from the end of the last century to the present day. It consists of 731 works by 204 authors and is located in 5 exhibition halls. All genres (portrait, landscape and composition^{[disambiguation needed]}) are presented, as well as the different currents in the Bulgarian fine arts: , romanticism, academism, realism, symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, socialist realism, abstractionism and others.

Stanislav Dospevski Art Gallery has two branches: Stanislav Dospevski House Museum and Georgi Gerasimov House Museum, as well as the open-air exhibition of Velichko Minekov.

Konstantin Velichkov House Museum[]

Birth house of Konstantin Velichkov (1855 - 1907) - a prominent Revival activist, active participant in the national liberation struggle, politician and statesman in post-, poet, writer, translator and artist.

The house is located on Vl. Gyoshev ”4. One-storey and with a veranda, it was built around 1850. In 1964 - 1965 the house was completely repaired and restored. Since 1967, the urban living conditions from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century have been arranged in it. In the native house of Konstantin Velichkov in 1876 his sister Teofana sewed the flag of the Pazardzhik Revolutionary Committee, and on 21 April 1876.

was the first to announce in Pazardzhik the outbreak of the April Uprising. The house is a branch of the Regional History Museum. It has been open for visits since 2 March 1967.

Twin towns – sister cities[]

Pazardzhik is twinned with:^[10][11]

Notable people[]

• Stefan Zahariev (1810–1871), revival, educationalist
• Konstantin Velichkov (1855–1905), enlightener, poet, politician
• Zaharina Dimitrova (1873-1940), Bulgarian doctor, Order of Civil Merit recipient, philanthropist.
• Ivan Batakliev (1891–1973), geographer, historian
• Nicolas Digests (1903–1968), poet
• Artine Artinian (1907–2005), scholar of French literature
• Violeta Gindeva (1946–2019), actress, deputy mayor of Pazardzhik in 2003–2007
• Ekaterina Mihaylova (born 1956), politician
• Serafim Todorov (born 1969), boxer
• Ekaterina Zakharieva (born 1975), politician
• Georgi Petkov (born 1976), footballer

Gallery[]

• 

  Old post building

• 

  Street scene

• 

  Stanislav Dospevski's house

• 

  Dormition of the Theotokos Church

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pazardzhik.

• Pazardzhik municipality
• "Tatar Pazarjik" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.

Coordinates: 42°12′N 24°20′E / 42.200°N 24.333°E / 42.200; 24.333