Location
Chelopech has been a separate municipality since 15 August 1991. It borders the municipalities of Zlatitsa, Chavdar, Mirkovo and Etropole.
The administrative centre of the municipality is in the Zlatitsa Field, on the southern slopes of the Balkan. It is a compact settlement, situated along the Main Road Sofia - Bourgas.
History
The history of the settlement dates back to antiquity, as the remains discovered on the territory of Chelopech testify. The name of the village occurs in preserved Ottoman documents of 1430. It is supposed to have existed during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom or to have been founded immediately before the falling of Bulgaria under Ottoman rule by the population of older settlements around it.
The chief occupations of the local population were agriculture and stockbreeding. Over 150 people lived on seasonal work in other settlements up to the National Liberation in1878.
The first monastery school in Chelopech was founded in 1825 in the cloister of the Rila Monastery. Secular education was organized in a separate building in 1870.
The municipality's temple - the Church of St. Nicolas the Wonder-Doer - was built in 1853. It stores precious books in Old Church Slavonic, and there is a note written in one of them about the first celebration of the Day of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius on 12.05.1853.
Tourism
Chelopech is a mountain settlement, situated at an altitude of 703 m above sea level. The relief and the climate are suitable for the development of tourism. There is a tourist club in Chelopech, and the well-equipped chalet Mourgana, built under the Balkan summit of the same name.
