Kremikovtsi ( ) is an industrial district of

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

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 ...

. It is located to the northeast of the capital. The Kremikovtsi Steel Complex which is close to the neighbourhood is one of the largest industrial enterprises in Bulgaria and the

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

. More than 20,000 people used to work there but this has been reduced to 8,500 due to higher efficiency. There has been much dispute over the future of the plant, yet no ecological sanctions have been imposed on the plant owners to bring into accord Kremikovtsi's pollution status by investing in filtering installations. Insofar, no action has been taken to either close the plant or exercise government power to control the level of harmful emissions to the air, which gave rise to concerns of corruption in the government of the Bulgarian Socialist Party's ruling coalition. Three kilometers outside the Kremikovtsi, overlooking the village from its surrounding hills, lies the Monastery of St. George the Victorious, notable for its older church's 16th century

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

es showing patron

St. George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...

as well as other saints. Kremikovtsi was first mentioned in 1452 and was in continuous existence throughout the 16th–19th centuries, as evidenced by written sources. Its name is derived from the initial placename ''*Kremikovo'' or ''*Kremik'', from the dialectal word ''kremik'' ("

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

", from Old Bulgarian КРЄМЪІКЪ). Previously a separate village, it was merged with Sofia in 1978.

References

{{Districts of Sofia Districts of Sofia