Location
Haskovo municipality is located in the central part of Southern Bulgaria and occupies the most western part of Haskovo county. It is located on a territory of 737 square meters, which is 13% of the territory of Haskovo county. Its geographic location is extremely favourable and important.
Haskovo municipality includes the town of Haskovo and 35 villages. It is a transport cross road between Europe, the Near East and the Middle East, which is a good prerequisite for an international commercial and cultural exchange. The basic bus and railway connections between the entrance and the exit boundary points in Bulgaria, which determine to a great extent the successful trade with Republic of Greece and Republic of Turkey, are located in it.
History
Haskovo is one of the oldest residential places within the territory of contemporary Bulgaria. According to the archeologists on the place of the today town there was a village seven thousand years before, in the eolith epoch.
Information about Haskovo exists since the end of ХІV century. It originates as a market residential place at an important cross-road from Plovdiv to Odrin and Tzarigrad and from Ruse to the Aegean region. It becomes a craftsman's centre, but much smaller than the near village of Uzundzhovo, famous with its annual fair.
Many traces of prehistoric, Thracian, Thracian-Roman, the late antiquity and the Middle centuries residential places have been found within the limits and in the suburbs of the town. Unknown till the 50s of XX century, these archeological sites have provided abundant information for the antiquity and the Middle Ages.
In IX century in Haskovo a fortress has been constructed, which turns into a town during the First Bulgarian kingdom - a centre of an important region between the rivers Klokotnitza, Harmanliiska and Maritza. The excavations and the surveys of Haskovo fortress provide the richest information about the history of Haskovo not only during the Middle Ages (IXXIV century), but for the proceeding epochs.
In 1782 the town is named Marsa. Probably its today name comes from the Arabian word has (possession) and the Turkish word kjoy (villages). Some historians find an explanation of the name in the meaning pure of the Turkish word has, even more, during the Revival the residential place is also mentioned as Chistgrad /Pure town/.
The mass settlement of Bulgarians in Haskovo starts in the beginning of XIX century. During that time the residential place carries on an active trade with Odrin, Enos and Tzarigrad. It is famous with the production of cotton and silk fabrics and carpets.
The Liberation of Haskovo from the ottoman yoke in the beginning of 1878 marks the establishment of the new, modern development of the town. Its administrative, social and economic organization starts. Flour-mills, creameries, spinning workshops of silk are established.
Typical for the outlook of the town of this period are the tobacco warehouses, which provide work to a big number of workers. The construction of new churches, schools, residential and administrative buildings is stimulated.
The centuries old economic and cultural contacts form the present social-economic character of Haskovo, its citizens' spirit and the specific atmosphere of the town.
Tourism
Haskovo municipality disposes of a well developed tourist base, as well as of base for sport, business and cultural events.
Places of interest:
-The Middle Ages fortress Hisaria - Haskovo
-Asenova krepost /fortress/ - the village of Klokotnitza
-The Paskalevs' house, turned into an ethnographic museum
-The Shishmans' house, in which there is an exposition of the local crafts
-The visitors of Haskovo, who come here on a business trip or attracted by the pleasant atmosphere of the region and by the healing Haskovo mineral springs, seldom miss to visit the picturesque place Kenane - a splendid oak forest with a spacious park, restaurants, tennis grounds, houses for recreation.
Here are the complexes “Romantika” and “Klokotnitza”, located in “Kenana” park. Hotel "Oazis" and complex "Haskovo" function in the town. They offer good services in the hotel part, the restaurant, the night bar and Vienna pastry shop.
Source: bulgaria.domino.bg
