Chiprovtsi

Chiprovtsi is a town in Montana Province situated in the northwestern Bulgaria, about 30 km from Montana, on the shores of the river Ogosta at the foot of western Stara Planina mountain. The population of Chiprovtsi is about 2500 people.

Chiprovtsi was founded by the Thracians and it started flourishing after the first three centuries of the Turkish yoke. In the XVI and XVII centuries Chiprovtsi was the biggest jeweller center in the whole Balkan Peninsula. In 1688 the Bulgarian catholics organized the Chiprovtsi uprising. Eventually it failed but even though it changed the status of the whole Northwestern Bulgaria as a buffer zone between the Ottoman Empire and Habsburgs lands. In the XIX century carpet industry rapidly developed. Carpets of Chiprovtsi, made by hand, were what brought fame to the town throughout the whole world.

Today it is a quiet and pleasant town with picturesque nature. 5 km to the northeast the Monastery of Chiprovtsi can be seen. It was burnt and rebuilt six times during the Turkish yoke. At 20 km distant from the town of Chiprovtsi is the Lopushka Monastery with wonderfully painted icons made by iconographers from Samokov.

As for the Chiprovtzi Monastery it lies in the valley of the Chiprovska Ogosta river, at the foot of the Yazova mountain (a part of the Western Balkan mountain range), about 4km to the northeast of the town of Chprovtsi, famous for its carpet-weaving industry. The Chiprovtsi monastery, named St. John of Rila, has its origins in the 10th century AC and is one of the 30 monasteries that were built during the very first Bulgarian state that strengthened the position of Christianity and helped the deed of Cyril and Metodius who introduced the cyrillic alphabet in the country.