Dorkovo (; ) is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the

Rakitovo Rakitovo ( ) is a town in the Pazardzhik Province, Bulgaria. the population was 8,952. It is located in the northern part of the Rhodopi mountains at 12 km to the east of Velingrad and 7 km to the southwest of the Batak Reservoir. Th ...

municipality,

Pazardzhik Province Pazardzhik Province ( ''Oblast Pazardzhik'', former name Pazardzhik okrug) is a province in Southern Bulgaria, named after its administrative and industrial centre: the city of Pazardzhik. The territory is that is divided into 12 municipaliti ...

, western

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. The population of the village is 2,955.

Aromanians The Aromanians () are an Ethnic groups in Europe, ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian language, Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgari ...

live in the village.

Geography

Dorkovo is situated in the western

Rhodope Mountains The Rhodopes (; , ; , ''Rodopi''; ) are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, and the largest by area in Bulgaria, with over 83% of its area in the southern part of the country and the remainder in Greece. Golyam Perelik is its highest peak ...

on the two banks of the river Matnitsa in the north-eastern parts of the

Chepino Valley The Chepino Valley (), or Chepino (), is the largest valley in the Rhodope Mountains in southern Bulgaria. It is situated along the course of the river Chepinska reka near the Batak Mountains in the northwestern part of the Rhodopes. Located at ...

. It is located at the southern foothills of the Karkariya ridge which is part of the Batak Mountain. The closest settlement is the small town of

Kostandovo Kostandovo ( ) is a small town in the Pazardzhik Province, southern Bulgaria. In 2010, it had 4342 inhabitants. It gained its town status in 2005. It is located in the Rhodope Mountains The Rhodopes (; , ; , ''Rodopi''; ) are a mountain range ...

at only 3 km to the south. Further in southern direction is situated the municipal centre

, while

Velingrad Velingrad ( ) is a town in Pazardzhik Province, Southern Bulgaria, located at the western end of Chepino Valley, part of the Rhodope Mountains. It is the administrative center of the homonymous Velingrad Municipality and one of the most po ...

the largest town in the area is at 14 km to the south-west.

Demographics

Members of the small Aromanian minority of Bulgaria live in Dorkovo, with this village being one of the few places in the country with an Aromanian community.

Public institutions

Chitalishte

The ''

chitalishte A ''chitalishte'' (, ) is a traditional Bulgarian public institution and building that fulfills several functions at once, such as a community centre, public library, and a theatre. It is also used as an educational institution, where people o ...

'' of the village is called ''St St Cyril and Methodius'' and was established in 1919 and initially used the edifice of a local cafe. The chitalishte was officially inaugurated in 1927 and moved to its own building in 1928. It was demolished on 3 August 1958 and a new two-storey edifice was constructed by December 1962. It has a cinema saloon with 300 seats, dressing rooms, rehearsal saloon and a modernised library. There are three amateur groups to the ''chitalishte''.

Ovcharska Pesen Ensemble

The ''Ovcharska Pesen'' (Shepherd's Song) folklore ensemble to the ''chitalishte'' was founded in 1971. It consist of an orchestra, dancing group, male and female singing groups. The number of people varies between 45 and 120. The ensemble uses traditional Bulgarian musical instruments from the Rhodopi region -

kaval The kaval is a Diatonic and chromatic, chromatic end-blown flute, end-blown oblique flute traditionally played throughout the Balkans (in Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Southern Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Northern Greece, and elsewhere) and ...

gaida Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

davul The davul, dhol, tapan, atabal or tabl is a large double-headed drum that is played with mallets. It has many names depending on the country and region. These drums are commonly used in the music of the Middle East and the Balkans. These drums ...

goblet drum The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, or zerbaghali; / Romanized: ) is a single-head membranophone with a goblet-shaped body. It is ...

and tambura.

Landmarks

Tsepina fortress

The medieval fortress of

Tsepina Tsepina () or Tzepaina () was a castle and town in the western Rhodope mountains, southern Bulgaria, now in ruins. It is from the Dorkovo village in the north-eastern part of the Chepino Valley. Tsepina is above sea level. The town was built ...

is situated to the north-west of the village and can be accessed by a 6-km asphalt road. It was constructed on the cone-like peak of the same name at an altitude of 1,136 m. The fortress was seized by the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

in the 11th century but was liberated by the

Bulgarian Empire Bulgarian Empire may refer to: * First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire (; was a medieval state that existed in Southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded in 680–681 after part of the Bulgars, led b ...

during the rule of

Kaloyan Kaloyan or Kalojan, also known as Ivan I, Ioannitsa or Johannitsa (; 1170 – October 1207), the Roman Slayer, was emperor or tsar of Bulgaria from 1196 to 1207. He was the younger brother of Theodor and Asen, who led the anti-Byzantine upr ...

who appointed

Despot Alexius Slav Alexius Slav (, ; 1208–28) was a Second Bulgarian Empire, Bulgarian nobleman (''boyar, bolyarin''), a member of the Asen dynasty, and a nephew of the first three Asen brothers. He was first probably the governor of the Rhodopes domain of the S ...

as a governor of the Rhodopes but after Kaloyan's death in 1207 Slav became ''de facto'' an independent local ruler. Between 1246 and 1254 Tsepina was occupied by the Nicaeans but was recovered by Emperor

Michael II Asen Michael II Asen (; 1239 – December 1256/January 1257) was emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria from 1246 to 1256 or 1257. He was the son of Ivan Asen II and Irene Komnene Doukaina. He succeeded his half-brother, Kaliman I Asen. His mother or other rel ...

. In 1373 the fortress was captured by the

Ottoman Turks The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...

in the course of the Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars and destroyed.

Paleontological site

There is a

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

site in the vicinities of Dorkovo. In the locality of Ilin Kladenets have been discovered fossils from

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

s dating to the

Early Pliocene Early may refer to: Places in the United States * Early, Iowa, a city * Early, Texas, a city * Early Branch, a stream in Missouri * Early County, Georgia * Fort Early, Georgia, an early 19th century fort Music * Early B, stage name of Jamaican d ...

, more than 4

million years ago Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds. Usage Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used w ...

, making them the oldest fossils of that species in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. The site was discovered in the 1970s during search for mineral resources. The first scientific expedition was organised in 1984 followed by an international one in 1985 in cooperation with

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

which discovered parts of mastodon skeletons. The site was declared a natural landmark on 31 January 1990. Some fossil

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

bones about 5-4.5 million years old have also been found here. ''Balcanas pliocaenica'', a

waterfowl Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which i ...

described from fragmentary remains, may be a distinct and extinct lineage, the first record of the still-living

common shelduck The common shelduck (''Tadorna tadorna'') is a waterfowl species of the shelduck genus, ''shelduck, Tadorna''. It is widespread and common in the Euro-Siberian region of the Palearctic realm, Palearctic, mainly breeding in temperate and wintering ...

(''Tadorna tadorna''), or from a more ancestral

shelduck The shelducks, most species of which are found in the genus ''Tadorna'' (except for the Radjah shelduck, which is now found in its own monotypic genus ''Radjah''), are a group of large birds in the Tadorninae subfamily of the Anatidae, the biolog ...

Footnotes

External links

International folklore festival - Dorkovo

Tsepina Fortress pictures and facts

Monitor 5 August 2006 - The lost world of the Rhodope village of Dorkovo
{{Rakitovo Villages in Pazardzhik Province Aromanian settlements in Bulgaria