Facts about Pleven
Pleven is the seventh most populous city in Bulgaria. The city is historically known as Plevna in English. It is the administrative centre of Pleven Province, as well as of the subordinate Pleven municipality. It is internationally known for the Siege of Pleven of 1877. Pleven is the third largest city of Northern Bulgaria after Varna and Rousse. Pleven is located in an agricultural region in the very heart of the Danubian Plain. Pleven is located 170 km away from the capital city of Sofia. Pleven is located 320 km west of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and 50 km south of the Danube. Pleven is located in the northern part of the country. The river Vit flows near the town and the tiny Tuchenitsa river (commonly known in Pleven as Barata, literally "The Streamlet") crosses it. The climate is temperate continental, with cold winters (down to –15°C) and hot dry summers (up to +35-44°C). The earliest traces of human settlement in the area date from the 5th millennium BC, the Neolithic. The largest golden treasure found in Bulgaria, evidence for the rich culture of the Thracians, who inhabited the area for thousands of years. During the Middle Ages, Pleven was a well-developed stronghold of the First and the Second Bulgarian Empire. When Slavs populated the region, they gave the settlement its contemporary name (Pleven is derived either from the Slavic word "plevnya" ("barn") or from "plevel", meaning "weed", which share the same root). The name was first mentioned in a charter by Hungarian king Stephen V in 1270 in connection to a military campaign in the Bulgarian lands. During the Ottoman rule, Pleven, known as Plevne in Ottoman Turkish, preserved its Bulgarian appearance and culture. Many churches, schools and bridges were built at the time of the Bulgarian National Revival. Pleven was the place where the Bulgarian national hero Vasil Levski established the first revolutionary committee in 1869, part of his national revolutionary network. The city was a major battle scene during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 that Russian Tsar Alexander II held for the purpose of the liberation of Bulgaria. The joint Russian and Romanian army paid dearly for the victory, but it paved the path to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in this war, and the restoration of Bulgaria as a state. It cost the Russians and Romanians 5 months and 38,000 casualties to liberate the town after four assaults in what was one of the decisive battles of the war. The ethnic breakdown of Pleven's population is 94% Bulgarians and 5% Roma, with other ethnic groups being represented by about 1%. An overwhelming majority of 90% of Pleven's residents are Eastern Orthodox Christian, while 5% of the population follows Islam. Near Pleven, there is a large facility for mediumwave and shortwave broadcasting. Pleven mediumwave transmitter, working on 594 kHz, uses as antenna two 250 metres tall guyed mast radiators insulated against ground. These masts belong to the tallest structures of Bulgaria. Famous singer Lucy Diakovska is from Pleven. A city in Kansas and a town in Montana in the United States, as well as a village in Ontario, Canada were named after Pleven, or more precisely its historical name in English Plevna, the reason for which is the battle in 1877. A road in Hampton, Middlesex, London is named Plevna, adjoining another called Varna Road both comprising of Victorian terraced housing built in the 1870's and named after the battles in Bulgaria of the period. |
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