 ndoubtedly the location of the town and its surroundings have their own impact to the destiny of the town, the lifestyle and the character of the people in Dryanovo. And if we are searching for the main in this long-standing pure Bulgarian town – formerly a fortress, afterwards a village, a town and nowadays one of the new dynamic developing towns, we will find it – this one that Dryanovo has given to our nation, this one that is wrriten about Dryanovo in the pages of the Bulgarian history.
There are a lot of beautiful caves in the area of Dryanovo. Now they attract tourists from everywhere. But man had been searching for caves thousand years before, as safe places against wild animals and hard nature. It seems that the caves around Dryanovo and its region were convenient for him, because today we find trails of prehistoric human life. Here a man had been living during the archaic Stone Age. In the caves there is trails of primitive fireplaces, bradawls of bones, different kinds of objects made from cattle horns, but it is not found any metal object at all. There are new materials found by new additional researches, which are evidences for caves had been inhabited since palaeolith epoch. Anyway he supposes that in the small cave to the Dryanovo Monastery had been living a primitive man, whose remains are found only in five caves in Bulgaria. It is supposed that this man had been living before 50 thousand years and he had been one of the earliest inhabitants in Europe and a representative of the human beings. Around Dryanovo there is a plenty of fortresses and settlements date from different periods and cultures, and the main reason is not only the favourable living conditions, but also the strategic location.
The approaches of five mountain passes are located in surroundings of Dryanovo, which were from a great importance during The Rome and Early Byzantine Epoch.
Nearby the present village of Slaveikovo, once was established the fortress "Diskoduratera" (A double massive citadel). It was built during the rule of the emperor Mark Avrelius (161-180 AC) by the inhabitants of Augusta Trayana (Stara Zagora today). Firstly it was an usual roadside station, later one of the most important marketplace in the region of the Down Danube provinces. After Goths’ invasion, who destroyed the present fortresses, the Byzantine fortifying system had been restored in 6th century and it was consisted of 8 fortresses: Grada and Boruna (Dryanovo Monastery), Lipovo Gradishte (the village of Mutsya), the strongholds near the villages of Yantra, Skalsko and Manoya. The Dryanovo legends tell that in the XII century the fortresses are generic domains of rulers from the dynasty Asenovtsi and important part of the obese - protection line for the capital city Tarnovgrad / Veliko Tarnovo. The fortifying equipments of the town impress even today with their monumental and massive walls. At the foot of the Citadel of the massive fortress and the residence of a provincial governor occurred the medieval village and the monastery "St. Arhangel Michael".
The first mention of the name Dryanovo in a historical document dates from 1470. According to the Ottoman tax registers from the second half of XV century the town was vakaf (exempted from taxes, inherited land) of the eminent military commander with a rank of a coruler for the European areas of the empire and a myulkov master Kasam Pasha A status of a town Dryanovo has gotten till 1869, when it became a center of a nahiya (a district).
The population of Dryanovo take an active role in the April Rebellion 1876. A hard battle had been waging for 9 days in the area of the Dryanovo Monastery between the battle group of Bacho Kiro and Pop Hariton and the numerous Turkish military units. The liberation of Dryanovo came on 12 July 1877.
After the liberation, on the territory of the municipality had arisen a few big plants: a tobacco factory of Shishmanovi brothers (in 1896 it is on the first site by production and returns of the tenth tobacco factories in the region, a candy factory of Mutafchievi brothers, a joint stock company "Zdravina", which had been changed in the first Bulgarian railway wagon factory.
In 1930 Dryanovo is nominated for a mountain resort.
The first woman to be a state official was from Dryanovo and her name was Penka Genkova – a manager of the established in 1880 telegraph-post station in Dryanovo |
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The Bacho Kiro cave nearby the Dryanovo Monastery
Pop Hariton
Dryanovo after the liberation
The Dryanovo Monastery in the beginning of 20th century
Dryanovo in 1933. The picture was taken by captain Gancho Manchev, who is from Dryanovo
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