Sopot, Plovdiv, Bulgaria - Memorial House Ivan Vazov - postcard c.1970s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Sopot [Plovdiv Province] - Das Memorialhaus 'Iwan Wasow' (Ivan Vasov)
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• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n.a
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Sopot (Bulgarian: Сопот) is a Bulgarian town situated in the fertile sub-Balkan mountain valley of Karlovo (which is the western part of the famous Rose Valley), immediately below the steep southern slopes of the Troyan Balkan Mountain (Central Stara Planina). Sopot is part of Plovdiv Province and is the administrative centre of a municipality.

It lies 2 km west of Karlovo, 136 km east of Sofia, 63 km north of Plovdiv and 61 km south of Troyan. It is the birthplace of arguably the best known and most renowned Bulgarian novelist, Ivan Vazov. Sopot is also a machine building centre.

The population of Sopot professes mostly Eastern Orthodox Christianity. There are several families Roman Catholics and evangelicals. No Muslims^{[citation needed]}.

Sopot monastery "St. Spas" or Sopot monastery for men "Vaznesenie Gospodne" (Ascension Day)(in its present form since 1879 ), in which on 7 December 1858 Vasil Levski became a monk. – The exact date of the occurrence of the monastery is not known. It is believed that was founded in the 13th century. Most likely "St. Spas" is the successor of the previous monastery in the Sopot area – "St. Trinity", extinct about the 11th or 12th century. The "St. Spas" monastery was "royal"- i.e. it was endowed with rights and property by Smilets of Bulgaria himself. These certificates were kept in the monastery until 1870. After that they were transmitted to Nayden Gerov for publishing. During the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria the church was burned and destroyed many times. After its restoration in 1870 it was painted by the artist George Danchev, a close friend of Vasil Levski. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), the church was destroyed again as only the altar survived, but the eyes of the saints were gouged by the bayonets of the Turks. The Church and the fountain of the monastery were restored again in 1879 by Abbot Raphail, whose grave is now behind the altar. By the south wall the church can be seen the great bell, cast in Craiova in 1873 and donated to the monastery by Sopot citizens living in Romania.^[1] Nunnery "Vavedenie Bogorodichno" (Blessed Virgin),dating from 1665 – one of the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria of the Bulgarian Tourist Union.^[2] – The monastery church "Blessed Virgin" was built in the 15th century on the site of an old chapel. The monastery itself was founded in 1665 when living quarters were built around the temple. In the southern cell, on the second floor of the monastery, a primary school was housed. On the first floor of the monastery was located the cell of the Abbess – Hristina. Her cell was the entrance to Vasil Levski's hideout. In 1877 the monastery and the town were burnt down and the Abbess was brutally slaughtered by the Turks. From the monastery survived the temple, the hiding place of Vasil Levski, the fountain (1852), part of the cells and the old vine, which is considered to be one of the oldest in Bulgaria and is over 350 years old. The monastery was rebuilt after the Liberation of Bulgaria.^[3]