Veliko Tarnovo Unveils Museum Park of Scale Models of Bulgaria’s Top Archaeological, Historical, and Cultural Landmarks
The Museum Park “Tarnovgrad – the Spirit of Millennial Bulgaria” is located at the foot of the Tsarevets Fortress, close to the famous Baldwin’s Tower (visible in the background). Photos: Veliko Tarnovo Municipality
The city of Veliko Tarnovo in Central North Bulgaria, which was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396/1422), has unveiled a new cultural tourism site – a museum park of miniature, or scale models of a number of Bulgaria’s top archaeological, historical, and cultural landmarks.
Veliko Tarnovo is already home to a large number of cultural tourism spots, including the Tsarevets Hill Fortress and the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress, the two citadels of medieval Tarnovgrad, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396/1422) from 1185 until 1393.
The Tsarevets Fortress in particular remains Bulgaria’s most visited cultural landmark, and the only museum venue in the country to welcome tourists 365 days per year.
Against this backdrop, Veliko Tarnovo has opened its newest cultural tourism site, a Museum Park of Miniatures (i.e. miniature building models, or scale models) called “Tarnovgrad – the Spirit of Millennial Bulgaria.”
The opening of the Museum Park, which features scale models (1:25) of a total of 43 of Bulgaria’s most popular archaeological, historical, and cultural heritage buildings and sites, has generated “huge interest,” Veliko Tarnovo Municipality has announced.
The new Museum Park is situated at the foot of the Tsarevets Hill, southeast of the fortress wall of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress and the famous Baldwin’s Tower, in the so called Frenkhisar, or the “Frankish Quarter”, of medieval Tarnovgrad.
The new facility has been inaugurated by Veliko Tarnovo Mayor Daniel Panov and the private investors who funded it, Ukrainian businesspeople Alexander Menshinkov and Nataliya Menshinkova from the “Ukraine on the Balkans” company based in Kyiv (Kiev). Their Museum Park project is entitled “miniBulgaria”.
The “Tarnovgrad – the Spirit of Millennial Bulgaria” Museum Park was visited by more than 1,000 people, both Veliko Tarnovo residents and Bulgarian and international tourists, in the first hour after its opening.
Veliko Tarnovo Mayor Daniel Panov (middle right) and investors Alexander Menshikov and Nataliya Menshikova open the new Museum Park with scale models. Photo: Veliko Tarnovo Municipality
“Right by the Tsarevets Fortress, [the new Museum Park] features [scale models of] emblematic historical and architectural masterpieces [from around Bulgaria] as well as facilities from the present day such as airports, ports, public buildings, etc.,” Veliko Tarnovo Municipality says.
The 43 scale models scale down the original buildings and structures to 1/25th of their original size. About 30 more scale models of Bulgaria’s landmarks are planned to be added to the Museum Park in 2018.
The representation of the Tsarevets Fortress is an exception as it is scaled down to 1:70.
“The “Tarnovgrad – the Spirit of Millennial Bulgaria” Museum Park describes the history, spirit, and culture of our country and nation. The scale models represent buildings, churches, historical landmarks that are familiar to all Bulgarians and even the youngest kids,” Panov has said during the opening ceremony.
“The Museum Park is an example of a successful partnership between the local authorities and the business sector, and opens a new page in the development of cultural tourism in Veliko Tarnovo,” the Mayor has added.
The 43 models of landmarks in the Tarnovgrad Museum Park in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo include:
The Bachkovo Monastery;
The Rila Monastery;
The Euxinograd Palace on the Black Sea coast which is a residence of the Bulgarian government;
The Dormition of the Holy Mother of God (Virgin Mary) Church in Gabrovo;
The Tsarska Bistritsa Palace, a former royal family residence, located near the Borovets Resort in the Rila Mountain;
The Antiquity Theater and the Ancient Roman aqueduct of ancient Philipopolis in today’s Plovdiv;
The St. Sophia Church and the Christ Pantokrator Church in the Black Sea town of Nessebar;
The Kaliakra Fortress on the Black Sea Cape of Kaliakra;
The Palace at the Botanical Garden in the Black Sea town of Balchik;
The Bridge on the Yantra River near the town of Byala built by self-taught 19th century Bulgarian architect Nikola Fichev (aka Kolyo Ficheto);
Asen’s Fortress in the southern town of Asenovgrad;
The Baba Vida Fortress in the Danube city of Vidin;
The Belogradchik Fortress in the northwestern town of Belogradchik;
The Devil’s Bridge on the Arda River near the town of Ardino in the Rhodope Mountains;
The St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in downtown Sofia;
The Russian church St. Nikolay in downtown Sofia;
The building of the Bulgarian Parliament in downtown Sofia;
The Cathedral of the Shipka Monastery near Kazanlak;
The Monument of Freedom dedicated to the Shipka Pass Battle of 1877 (during the Russian – Turkish War of 1877 – 1878 which ultimately resulted in Bulgaria’s partial liberation from the Ottoman Empire);
The 15th century Kadin Bridge (Kadin Most) over the Struma River located near the town of Nevestino, Kyustendil District;
The building of the Ivan Vazov National Theater in downtown Sofia;
The Pleven Panorama Museum, also known the Pleven Epopee of 1877, and the Monument of Russian General Mikhail Skobelev;
The Pobitite Kamani, known in English as the Stone Desert, a beautiful desert-like rock formation to the northwest of the Black Sea city of Varna;
The Dormition of the Holy Mother of God (Virgin Mary) Cathedral in the Black Sea city of Varna;
The Valley of Roses near the town of Kazanlak;
The Varna International Airport;
The Black Sea Port of Varna;
The Danube Port of Ruse;
The Bridge of Friendship, i.e. the first Modern Era bridge on the Danube connecting Bulgaria and Romania;
The Bansko Ski Resort;
The Holy Forty Martyrs’ Church in Veliko Tarnovo;
The Boris Denev Gallery of Arts in Veliko Tarnovo;
The Asenevtsi (Asen’s Dynasty) Monument in Veliko Tarnovo;
The Mother Bulgaria Monument in Veliko Tarnovo;
The Tsarevets Hill Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo.
The scale model of the Euxinograd Palace on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast near Varna.
The scale models of the Shipka Pass Battlle Monument (Freedom Monument) (front) and the cathedral of the Shipka Monastery (back).
The scale models of the Russian church St. Nikolay in Sofia (front) and the Ivan Vazov National Theater in Sofia (back).
The scale model of the Asenevtsi Monument (Monument of Asen’s Dynasty) of the Second Bulgarian Empire in Veliko Tarnovo.
The scale model of the Bachkovo Monastery in Southern Bulgaria.
The scale models in the “Tarnovgrad – the Spirit of Millennial Bulgaria” Museum Park are based on photometric shots. They were made of special kinds of plastic produced in Germany and Hungary, and were assembled in Ukraine. They can survive temperatures of between -30 and +45 degrees Celsius.
Each scale model of the Bulgarian landmarks took between two and six months to produce.
The Museum Park itself has been built on municipal property (with a total area of 11,460 square meters) leased for a period of 10 years to the private investors from Ukraine after a tender. Its construction has been approved by Bulgaria’s National Institute for Cultural Heritage Properties.
The spot where the scale models are situated is very close to the walls of the medieval Holy Mother of God (Virgin Mary) Monastery discovered by archaeologist Prof. Hitko Vachev back in 2014. Vachev himself has supervised the construction.
“I hope that thanks to its new landmark, Veliko Tarnovo will become part of the global network of cities which have such parks with scale models,” Veliko Tarnovo Mayor Panov has stated.
“We have selected Veliko Tarnovo for our project because it is the best cultural tourism destination in Bulgaria. As an old capital with invaluable historical monuments and various cultural events, the city sees over 500,000 Bulgarian and international tourists annually. [This park] will be a unique opportunity for all of them to get to know these sites and buildings, which are emblematic for Bulgaria’s history, right where the millennial spirit of Bulgaria is kept,” investor Alexander Menshikov is quoted as saying.
Learn more about Veliko Tarnovo’s Tsarevets Fortress and Trapesitsa Fortress in the Background Infonotes below!
Frenkhisar, or “Frankish Quarter”, of the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire Tarnovgrad. The Frankish Quarter is overlooked by the so called Baldwin’s Tower. It is named after Latin Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople (Baldwin of Flanders), ruler of the Latin Empire of the Crusaders from the Third Crusade, who was kept and died there in captivity, after was taken prisoner by the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207 AD) in the Battle of Adrianople.
These photos (above and below) show the construction of the Museum Park of scale models.
***
Relevant Books on Amazon.com:
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Bulgaria
Lonely Planet Romania & Bulgaria (Travel Guide)
Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity
The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age
***
The Tsarevets Hill is one of two main fortified historic hills in the medieval city of Tarnovgrad, today’s Veliko Tarnovo, in Central Northern Bulgaria, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire between 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Trapesitsa Hill, Tsarevets was one of the two fortresses of the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Tsarevets Hill is a natural fortress on the left bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on all four sides with the exception of a small section to the southwest. It is located southeast of the Trapesitsa Hill. The Tsarevets Fortress had three gates, the main one being its southwestern gate. The name of Tsarevets stems from the word “tsar”, i.e. emperor.
The first settlement on the Tsarevets Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo dates to the Late Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), around 4,200 BC. The hill was also inhabited during the Bronze Age and Iron Age by the Ancient Thracians, and there have been hypothesis that it was the site of the legendary Ancient Thracian city Zikideva – even though a recent hypothesis claims that Zikideva was in fact located in the nearby fortress Rahovets. An Ancient Bulgar settlement was built on the Tsarevets Hill in the 9th century AD, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) which later grew into a city. The Tsarevets Hill rose to prominence as the center of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) in 1187, after the successful Uprising of Asen and Petar, later Tsar Asen I (r. 1190-1195 AD) and Tsar Petar IV (r. 1185-1197), who ruled as co-emperors, against the Byzantine Empire in 1185-1186 AD.
Thus, the construction of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress began in the 12th century AD. The total length of the Tsarevets Hill fortress wall is 1,1 km, and it reaches a height of 10 meters (on top of the natural defenses of the hill’s slopes) and a width of 2.4-3.6 meters. The most vulnerable point of the Tsarevets fortification was the southeast section with its gate; however, it was protected by the so called Baldwin’s Tower because it is known that after defeating the Crusader knights from the 3rd Crusade in the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 AD, the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan captured the Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin of Flanders, and kept him captive in the tower for several months, until Baldwin’s death. The Baldwin’s Tower was restored in 1933 by Bulgarian archaeologist and architect Alexander Rashenov; the restored Baldwin’s Tower was modeled after the surviving fortress tower in another medieval Bulgarian city, the Cherven Fortress.
The medieval church of the Bulgarian Patriarchate is located in the center of the Tsarevets Hill. It is called the Church of the Ascension of God, and was restored in 1981. The church was known as the “mother of all Bulgarian churches”, and was part of a complex with a territory of 2,400 square meters. Right next to it are the ruins of the imperial palace of the monarchs from the Second Bulgarian Empire which had a territory of almost 3,000 square meters. Both the imperial palace and the Patriarchate’s complex were surrounded by fortress walls and protected by towers. The archaeological excavations on the Tsarevets Hill have revealed the foundations of a total of 470 residences which housed the high-ranking Bulgarian aristocracy, 23 churches and 4 urban monasteries as well as a medieval inn. In the northern-most point of the Tsarevets Hill there is a high cliff cape known as the Cliff of Executions which in the 12th-14th century AD was used for executing traitors by throwing them into the canyon of the Yantra River.
For some 200 years the medieval Tarnovgrad, also known as Tsarevgrad Tarnov (i.e. the Tsar’s City), together with its fortresses Tsarevets, Trapesitsa, and Momina Krepost (“Maiden’s Fortress”), also known as Devingrad (“Virgins’ Town”), rivaled Constantinople as the most important city in this part of Europe, with some of the most glorious and famous Bulgarian Tsars – Tsar Asen (r. 1190-1195), Tsar Petar (r. 1185-1197), Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207), Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241), Tsar Konstantin Asen Tih (r. 1257-1277), Tsar Ivaylo (r. 1277-1280), Tsar Todor (Theodore) Svetoslav (r. 1300-1322), Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371), and Tsar Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395) – ruling their empire from Tsarevets.
Tsarevets and the rest of Tarnovgrad had a tragic fate, however, after in 1393 AD, after a three-month siege, it became the first European capital to fall prey to the invading Ottoman Turks. This was somewhat of a logical outcome after the de facto feudal disintegration of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the second half of the 14th century. After Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD) lost his two eldest sons – Ivan in 1349 AD and Mihail in 1355 AD – in battles with the Ottoman Turks, he failed to prevent a number of Bulgarian feudal lords from seceding, and on top of that divided the remainder of the Bulgarian Tsardom between his two surviving sons. His third son Ivan Sratsimir (r. 1371-1396) received the smaller so called Vidin Tsardom, with the Danube city of Bdin (Vidin) as its capital, and his fourth son Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395) received the rest, the so called Tarnovo Tsardom, with the capital proper of Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo). Just two decades later all Bulgarian lands, disunited and even warring among themselves, fell prey to the invading Ottoman Turks, ushering Bulgaria into five centuries of Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912), and signifying a practically irreversible loss of its former great power status.
As the last ruler of Tarnovgrad, Tsar Ivan Shishman was not in the capital at the time it was besieged by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402 AD), its defense was led by the legendary Bulgarian Patriarch St. Euthymius (Evtimiy) of Tarnovo (ca. 1325-ca. 1402-1404 AD), the founder of the Tarnovo Literary School. After they conquered the Bulgarian capital on July 17, 1393, the Ottoman Turks slaughtered its population – an especially dramatic scene was the beheading of 110 captured Bulgarian aristocrats, and razed to the ground the Bulgarian imperial palace and the churches and monasteries of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Tsarevets and Veliko Tarnovo were liberated from the Turks in the summer of 1877 in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 that restored the Bulgarian state.
The archaeological restoration of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress began in 1930 and was completed in 1981, the year that was celebrated, now somewhat questionably, as the 1300th anniversary since the founding of the Bulgarian state. Tourists visiting Tsarevets can view the so called “Sound and Light” audiovisual show, an attraction using lasers and music to tell the story of the medieval Bulgarian Empire as well as Bulgaria’s fight for freedom against the Ottoman Empire, and the story of Bulgaria’s National Liberation. It was first launched in 1985 for the 800th anniversary since the Uprising of Asen and Petar. The Tsarevets Fortress was granted a protected status by the Bulgarian government for the first time in 1927, and in 1964 it was declared a “monument of culture of national importance”.
Download the ArchaeologyinBulgaria App for iPhone & iPad!
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest!
***
The Trapesitsa Hill is one of two main fortified historic hills in the medieval city of Tarnovgrad, today’s Veliko Tarnovo, in Central Northern Bulgaria, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire between 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Tsarevets Hill, Trapesitsa was one of the two fortresses of the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Trapesitsa Hill is a natural fortress on the right bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on three sides. It is located northwest of the Tsarevets Hill. The Trapesitsa Fortress had four gates, the main one being its southern gate, which was also connected with the Tsarevets Fortress with a bridge across the Yantra River. There are two hypotheses about Trapesitsa’s name. The first one is that it comes from the Bulgarian word “trapeza” meaning a “table” or “repast”, possibly referring to the receptions of the medieval Bulgarian Tsars; the second hypothesis is that the word comes from “trapezium” because the hill is in fact is a trapezoidal plateau.
The first archaeological excavations on the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo between 1884 and 1900 revealed the foundations of 17 medieval Bulgarian churches with fragments of rich murals, colorful mosaics, and beautiful floor tiles. The documented artifacts discovered there include crosses, necklaces, coins, rings, earrings, vessels. The churches on Trapesitsa were richly decorated with various architectural forms such as pilasters, niches, blind arches, colored slabs, among others.
The largest preserved church on the Trapesitsa Hill known as “Church No. 8″ is named after the 10th century AD Bulgarian saint, St. Ivan Rilski (St. John of Rila) (876-946 AD); it was surrounded with other buildings which are believed to have been part of a monastery complex. It is known that in 1195 AD, Bulgaria’s Tsar Asen I (r. 1189-1196 AD) transported the relics of St. Ivan Rilski from the city of Sredets (today’s Sofia) to Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo), and had them placed in the specially constructed church on the Trapesitsa Hill. The Bulgarian archaeologists believe that a room in the southern part of Church No. 8 was the reliquary for St. Ivan Rilski’s relics. The relics of St. Ivan Rilski (St. John of Rila), who is Bulgaria’s patron saint, were kept in Veliko Tarnovo until 1469 AD when they were transported to the Rila Monastery where they are kept to this day in what became a major event for the Bulgarians during the early period of the Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912), as the Second Bulgarian Empire had been conquered by the invading Ottoman Turks in 1396 AD.
The numerous and richly decorated small churches indicate that the Trapesitsa Hill harbored the homes of the medieval Bulgarian nobility, the boyars, and the supreme clergy. More recent excavations, however, also indicate that the imperial palace of the early Bulgarian Tsars from the House of Asen (the Asen Dynasty, r. 1185-1257 AD) was in fact located on the Trapesitsa Hill, and the imperial seat was possibly moved to the nearby Tsarevets Hill only later, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241 AD). In the recent years, the Trapesitsa Hill has been excavated by Prof. Konstantin Totev from the Veliko Tarnovo Branch of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and by Prof. Hitko Vatchev from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History.
****************************************************************************
Support ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com on Patreon
or
Make One-time Donation via Paypal!
Your contribution for free journalism is appreciated!
****************************************************************************
