Ravnogor () is a village located in Bratsigovo 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 ...

Southern Bulgaria Southern Bulgaria (, ''Yuzhna Balgariya'') is the southern half of the territory of Bulgaria, located to the south of the main ridge of the Balkan Mountains which conventionally separates the country into a northern and a southern part. Besides th ...

Geography

Ravnogor is located in a mountainous area. The elevation is 1319 m. There is a peak named St. Nedelya with an elevation of 1578 m. The Ravnogor plateau has many potato farms scattered across it. The climate is continental mountainous, characterized with late and cold spring, cool summers and long and snowy winters.

History

The tribe

Bessi The Bessi (; , or , ) or Bessae, were a Thracian tribe that inhabited the upper valley of the Hebros and the lands between the Haemus and Rhodope mountain ranges in historical Thrace. Geography The exact geographic location of the Bessi is ...

lived in the territory of Ravnogor, who have left behind over 30 Thracian sanctuaries and tombs, the famous one being the Ravnogor Tomb, which was first discovered in 1986 by a group of villagers during a potato sowing. It is the biggest domed tomb in Bulgaria. The village itself was established and officially registered as a settlement in 1777. Unlike the nearby villages Fotinovo and Nova Mahala, unique traditions have been followed. They all remained Orthodox Christians, after unsuccessful attempts by the Ottoman rulers to convert them to Islam. During communist rule,

Bratsigovo Bratsigovo ( ) is a town in Southern Bulgaria. It is located in the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains, on the banks of the Umishka River in Pazardzhik oblast, and is close to the towns of Peshtera and Krichim. Bratsigovo Hills on Trinity Penin ...

was affected by it, with Ravnogor being an exception.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of Ravnogor is settled with partly asphalted streets and lighting, sewerage system, electric and water-supply systems, telephone lines, coverage of mobile operators and Internet. There is a road to Fotinovo, but in critical condition and considered a

dirt road A dirt road or track is a type of unpaved road not paved with asphalt, concrete, brick, or stone; made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Terminology Simi ...

. Bus transportation is the only public transport facility in Ravnogor.

Resorts

The only resort near Ravnogor is Atoluka (), also known as Vasil Petleshkov. It was first established in 1906. In 1923, it was used as a base for the Bratsigovo Partisan Detachment. On August 5, 1969, the land around the resort was declared a protected area of Atoluka in order to preserve the centuries-old coniferous forest of

pinus sylvestris ''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US), Baltic pine, or European red pine is a species of tree in the pine family Pinaceae that is native plant, native to Eurasia. It can readily be identified by its combination of fairly s ...

and

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

References

Villages in Pazardzhik Province {{Pazardzhik-geo-stub