GENERAL INFORMATION
Razlog is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad District, the administrative center of Razlog Municipality. It is located in the Razlog valley at 830 m above sea level. The town received this name on March 26, 1925, before that date it was named Mehomiya. The settlements in the municipality are the town of Razlog and the villages of Banya, Bachevo, Eleshnitsa, Gorno and Dolno Draglishte, Dobarsko and Godlevo.
The town of Razlog (12,478 people as of June 15, 2020) is a historically established economic, cultural and administrative center in the region of the Razlog valley. It houses the institutions serving the municipalities of Bansko, Belitsa, Razlog and Yakoruda – the District Court, the District Prosecutor’s Office, the Regional Police Department, the Labor Office Directorate, the Multi-profile Hospital and others. Most of the significant companies operating in the municipality are concentrated in the city. Significant foreign investments have been attracted, both in production activities and in construction. Important cultural institutions are: the Historical Museum of the city, which is housed in two neighboring buildings: Parapunova House and Astinova House, and the local community center – “September 15, 1903”, existing since 1909.
There are 41 residential buildings in the town with Revival architecture type “Razlog-Chepin House”, which have the qualities of cultural monuments. Sights include the churches of St. George and the Annunciation, the city museum in Parapunov House, the Kipremakseva Church, river Yazo, the beautiful city park with the lake, many restaurants in different styles.
Geography and climate
Razlog Municipality is located in Southwestern Bulgaria, between the Pirin, Rila and Rhodope Mountains, in the Razlog Valley along the Mesta River. This valley is one of the highest in Bulgaria – approx. 900 m above sea level. In its middle part it has an almost flat relief with a slight slope to the east to the Rhodopes. To the North it is more hilly, and the surrounding high mountain parts of Rila and Pirin have a typical alpine appearance. The Razlog valley “Momina Klisura” to the South connects with the “Gotse Delchev” valley, and to the West passes into the saddle Predel. To the Northeast, through the Yundola Pass, it connects with the Upper Thracian Plain.
Nature is diverse and very attractive. The municipality covers a large part of Rila National Park and Pirin National Park, which includes the largest biosphere reserve in Bulgaria – “Bayuvi Dupki – Djindjiritsa” (2,873 ha). It houses many historical sites, ancient trees, diverse flora and fauna. The reserve is the only location of edelweiss in Bulgaria.
Razlog is the center of the State Forestry, established in 1913 as the Mehomi Administrative Forestry. It is located on the Northern slopes of Pirin and in the Eastern part of the Razlog Valley, at an altitude of 600 to 2500 m. The total area of the state forest territories is 12,589 hectares, 2% of which fall into Natura 2000 protected areas. Coniferous forests of white and black pine, spruce and fir predominate. The most common deciduous forests are beech, alder and winter oak. The forestry specializes in afforestation, construction timber and firewood. Carries out activities for management and protection of the natural environment.
Razlog Municipality has water resources – many rivers, tributaries of the Mesta River, Istok River, Yazo River, Krushe River, Byala River and Godlevska River, groundwater, karst cracks, etc., as well as mountain lakes. The abundance of drinking water is of strategic importance for the territory. The advantage of the region are the mineral springs: in the village of Banya, in the area “Katarino” near Razlog, in the area “Rust” near the village Bachevo and in the village Eleshnitsa. The temperature of some of them reaches 60 ° C and the flow rate is 70/80 liters per second.
The climate in the region is transitional-Mediterranean, which influence penetrates the valley of the river Mesta. It is characterized by mild but long and rich richer in comparison with the European-continental areas relatively short and cool summers. The average annual air temperature is 9 C, the coldest month is January (-1.9 C) and the warmest is July (18.9 C).
History in Brief
Traces of old historical layers are found in the region of Razlog and Razlog. Remains of a Thracian sanctuary from the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age have been found in the Stolovatets area (about 5 km West of Razlog). Two large marble slabs with images associated with a sanctuary dedicated to the Sun have been found. An ancient necropolis was discovered 2 km east of the city. At approx. 10 km West of Razlog near the Predela area there are remains of an ancient settlement (cultural monument). 11 km northwest of the city are the ruins of an early Christian church from the V-VI century, known as “St. Elijah ”(cultural monument).
From the late antique era are: the fortress on the Northern slopes of Pirin – in the area Kalyata, approx. 19 km Southwest of Razlog, and the village at the foot of these slopes – in the area of Krusha, approx. 8 km southwest of the city. A find of coins – tetradrachms from the period of Philip II of Macedon (359 – 336 BC) was found in this area. During the Middle Ages, life in this area continued – the remains of settlements, a flat necropolis and a small church called “Pisanata” were discovered, probably because of its frescoes. From the same period are the remains of the church “St. Trinity ”(2 km south of the city).
Near the “Pisanata” Church are the foundations of a late medieval church called the “White Church”. In the area of Katarino (about 7 km west of Razlog) is the church “St. Katerina ”, built in the early years of the Ottoman period, later destroyed, and today restored. Probably the area was a cult place of Thracians and Slavs.
For the first time the name Razlog is mentioned in a deed of gift of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (976 – 1025) from 1019. In the Rila deed from 1378 of Tsar Ivan Shishman (1371 – 1393) “The priests of Razlog”. In the Ottoman register of the Djelepkeshans (sheep breeders) from 1576, it was first mentioned under the name Mehomiya as a village belonging to the Razlog kaza (administrative-territorial unit in the Ottoman Empire; district). In a number of Ottoman documents from the 17th-19th centuries it is also found with the names Mehomiya, Mehom or Mihomiya. During the Ottoman rule there was Razlog said with the center in the city of Mehomiya, which according to Ottoman statistics belongs to the Pasha Sanjak (military-administrative territorial unit in the Ottoman Empire, consisting of a naval) with the center in the city of Edirne. In the middle of the 19th century it belonged to the Sersk Sandzak, and at the end of the 19th century it passed into the nahiya (the smallest administrative-territorial unit in the Ottoman Empire) to the Nevrokop Cossack. In 1894 Kanchov writes: “In Mehomiya is the government of Razlog”, and under the name Razlog he refers to the whole valley.
In the 18th century the Rila Monastery opened a convent in Mehomiya. At the end of the XVIII century a cell school was established with the first teacher Joseph Manzurski. In 1834 the church “St. Georgi ”, and in 1835 a building for a cell school was erected in her yard. In 1858, under the teacher Ivan Popmihailov, the school grew into a new Bulgarian one. In 1891 a two-storey building was built for the Mehomiya Bulgarian class school “St. St. Cyril and St. Methodius ”, in 1894 a full junior high school was opened.
As early as the first half of the 19th century, an organization of local self-government was established, called the Razlog Bulgarian Municipality, recognized by the Ottoman authorities after the Crimean War (1853-1856) as a representation of the Bulgarian population in Mehomiya. The first major work of the municipality was the erection of the church “St. Georgi ” in 1834. Although the municipality was built on a religious basis and is under the leadership of the Constantinople Patriarchate, before the Ottoman authorities it was the only recognized body of Bulgarian self-government and took over a number of administrative functions. After 1878, its activity declined as the new Ottoman authorities no longer recognized it.
In 1869 Levski founded a secret revolutionary committee in Mehomiya. The town was part of the organization of the April Uprising, but since local leaders were arrested, he did not take part in the uprising. Mehomiytsi participated as volunteers in the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation 1877 – 1878. Residents of the city signed a petition from Razlog (March 2, 1878) to the Russian Commander-in-Chief Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich for their release from the power of the sultan.
In the Ethnography of the Provinces of Adrianople, Monastir and Thessaloniki, published in Constantinople in 1878 and reflecting the statistics of the male population from 1873, Méhomia is listed as a settlement with 405 households, 650 Bulgarians and 450 Pomaks.
In 1891 Georgi Strezov wrote about the town: “Mehomiya, a palanquin of the NW from Nevrokop 10 o’clock. Located on the entire Razlog level, on both banks of a river, a tributary of Mesta. There are no marked buildings; the houses are mostly wooden and two-storey. In terms of appearance and location, Mehomiya gave way to Bansko. Sandy land, which produces the most rye and corn. There are all kinds of craftsmen; on Sunday it becomes a market, the main one for the whole of Razlog and quite crowded. Bulgarian church and one-storey old school with 3 teachers and 180 students. 700 houses, more Bulgarian and less Pomak. “
According to the statistics of Vasil Kanchov “Macedonia. Ethnography and statistics” around 1900. Mehomiya is a village with a mixed population – it is home to 3,200 Bulgarian Christians, 1,460 Bulgarian Muslims (Muslims), 80 Turks, 30 Vlachs and 200 Gypsies.
According to the data of the Nevrokop diocese in 1907, the city has 3235 Bulgarian Christian inhabitants.
After the signing of the Berlin Treaty, the region remained under Ottoman rule. The population of Mehomiya actively participated in Bulgaria’s struggle for an independent church and national liberation. In 1896 Gotse Delchev founded a committee of the VMORO in Razlog. During the Ilinden-Preobrazhensk Uprising on September 14, 1903, a group of rebels entered the city and began insurgent operations, together with local activists. Turkish troops and bashibozuk attacked the city, killing about 45 people and setting fire to about 200 houses. Some of the local Bulgarians fled to the Principality of Bulgaria.
At the outbreak of the Balkan War in 1912, the inhabitants of the city were volunteers in the Macedonian-Edirne militia. Mehomiya was liberated from Ottoman rule on October 11/24, 1912 by units of the Rhodope detachment. The local Turkish population withdrew with the retreating Turkish army along the valley of the Mesta River.
During the September Uprising of 1923, with the help of rebel forces from the region Mehomia was captured in 3 days. Residents of the town joined the resistance 1941 – 1944. On March 26, 1925 Mehomia was renamed after the valley – Razlog.
The City and the Urban Space
The city center in the past and today is called “Pazare” (Market). At the end of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century, the important city buildings were located here – the konak, the post office, the military club, the mosque, the Turkish schools, the pharmacy and the shops. The construction of the most prominent building – the konak, began in 1903. In the middle of the “Market” was the clock tower. There were small shops around it, which the municipality rented out, but at the same time there were Bulgarians who owned their own shops – such as the families Kodjebashitski, Dunkini, Krachanski, Zahovi, Lesikovi, Elchini (their was Draglishki Khan) , Maksevi, Tumbevi, Kanazirevi, Pene Bonkov, Malchovi, Midzhilizovi, and Bilyu Hadzhitsky also had a smithy.
At that time a larger share of trade in the city was in the hands of the Bulgarians, Jewish merchants did not live in the city, few Greeks tried to trade in Mehomiya, but they did not succeed. Apart from Bulgarian, there were and Turkish shops – of Ibrahim Effendi, Rustem Effendi, Mustafa Churukov and the Arnautina (Albanian) Biberdzhiata, who rented a shop and with whom all kinds of goods could be found, even medicines. If he didn’t have anything, he delivered it immediately after ordering. The goods in the city were brought by Nevrokop, Ser, Drama, Kavala, Thessaloniki, Kochani and others, usually with mules, but there was a case in the summer of 1912, when Ibrahim Effendi from the city of Ser brought goods with camels. Then the inhabitants of Mehomiya saw this animal for the first time. On the eve of the Balkan Wars, there were 21 Bulgarian houses and shops with 13 families on Pazare. The seven neighborhoods of the city were located around Pazare.
The Varoshe neighborhood was the largest and most densely populated neighborhood, which housed the religious, educational and commercial center of the city before the establishment of the “Market“. The neighborhood “Srbo” was located on both banks of the White River. According to a legend, a Turkish bey called a Bulgarian craftsman from the village of Sarbinovo (now in the Republic of Northern Macedonia). He settled him in the area then called Naporoy, and established a neighborhood around his house. Hence her name.
The two neighborhoods, Varoshe and Srbo, were separated from each other by the Black River and lands called the Great Meadow. On the eve of the Balkan Wars in 1912, there were 51 Bulgarian houses with 70 families in the Srbo neighborhood. Meadows separated it from the Krapa neighborhood, located west of the Marakatets fountain and stretching along both banks of the Yazo River. Similar to the Dolna Mahala (which in 1912 had 36 houses with 64 Bulgarian families), located east of Pazare, Krapa Mahala was originally called Gorna Mahala. It later received this name. One legend says that it had an even older and forgotten name – “Kremidmahlesi”, which was due to the first family that made tiles and covered their house. In 1912 the neighborhood had 77 Bulgarian houses with 129 families, and the neighboring Dalgata
Mahala had 148 houses with 212 Bulgarian families.
The long neighborhood emerges along the old road to the Predel pass, along which caravans used to walk and herds of shepherds came out to graze at the foot of Pirin and Rila. Krapa mahala and Dalga mahala were separated by meadows called “Lenishta” because the locals grew flax there. It was used to weave cloth for home use. After the flax had passed, pickled cabbage (“brine”) was planted in the same place.
Koshuya Mahala stretched in the Northern foothills of Serovitsa in a westerly direction to the Dalga Mahala. The name of the neighborhood is due to the Koshuyvi family, who settled here first, and after them came other settlers. In 1912 there were 20 houses in the neighborhood with 30 Bulgarian families. To the south of Pazare stretched Ilytska mahala. According to local legend, Elijah first settled here, his family multiplied, new houses sprang up next to each other, and so the neighborhood emerged. Initially, the neighborhood was called “Iliova”, then “Ilytska” and remained with that name. A barracks was built in this neighborhood in 1879, as after the Berlin Congress and after the Kresna-Razlog Uprising (1878) a Turkish infantry company that suppressed the uprising was housed as a permanent garrison in the city. The stones for the construction were brought from the Bulgarian houses in the village of Banya, which burned down during the uprising. In 1912 Ilicka mahala had 50 houses with 74 Bulgarian families.