Blagoevgrad Province

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Blagoevgrad Province
Област Благоевград
Map of Bulgaria indicating Blagoevgrad Province
Capital Blagoevgrad
Population 364,076[1]
Area 6,449.5 km²
Municipalities Bansko, Belitsa, Blagoevgrad,
Gotse Delchev, Garmen,
Kresna, Petrich, Razlog, Sandanski, Satovcha,
Simitli, Strumyani,
Hadzhidimovo, Yakoruda
License plate province code E
Time zone EET
(UTC+2; UTC+3 in summer)

Blagoevgrad Province (Bulgarian: област Благоевград, oblast Blagoevgrad or Благоевградска област, Blagoevgradska oblast), also known in certain contexts as Pirin Macedonia[2] (Bulgarian: Пиринска Македония, Pirinska Makedoniya), is a province (oblast) of southwestern Bulgaria. To the north and east it borders with four other Bulgarian provinces, to the south with Greece and the west with the Republic of Macedonia. It has 14 municipalities with 12 towns. The province's major city is Blagoevgrad, while other significant towns include Bansko, Gotse Delchev, Melnik, Petrich, Razlog, Sandanski and Simitli.

Contents

[edit] Geography and climate

[edit] Geography

The province has a territory of 6,449.5 km² and a population of 341,245. It is the third largest in Bulgaria after Burgas and Sofia Provinces and comprises 5.8% of the country's territory. Blagoevgrad Province includes the mountains, or parts of, Rila (highest point of the Balkans — Musala summit, 2925 m), Pirin (highest point — Vihren summit, 2914 m), the Rhodopes, Slavyanka, Belasitsa, Vlahina, Maleshevo, Ograzhden and Stargach. There are two major rivers — Struma River and Mesta River — with population concentrations along their valleys, which are also the main transport corridors.

[edit] Climate

The climate varies from temprerate continental to Mediterranean in the southernmost parts. Natural resources are timber, mineral springs, coal, construction materials, including marble and granite. The beautiful and preserved environment is widely considered an important resource. A number of national parks and protected territories care for the biodiversity. Arable land is 38.8% and forests constitute 52% of the province's territory.

[edit] Municipalities

Map of Blagoevgrad Province showing the municipal subdivisions and centres
Map of Blagoevgrad Province showing the municipal subdivisions and centres

Blagoevgrad Province is divided into the following municipalities:

[edit] Economy

The region is characterized with diversified economic branch structure: food and tobacco processing industries, agriculture, tourism, transport and communications, textile industry, timber and furniture industries, iron processing and machinery industry, construction materials industry, as well as pharmaceuticals, plastics, paper and shoes production. Approximately 10% of the population is unemployed (close to the national average). There are 4 major hospitals in the province.

With its railway line and road connection, the region forms the heart of the land-based trading route between northern Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Since the early 2000s the province enjoys a mini boom in trade from thousands Greek day-trippers from across the border, purchasing cheaper goods and services (dental, opticians, etc.). Since the early 1990s, the region has also attracted Greek manufacturers who moved their production line from Greece, especially to Petrich. It was an important tourist destination during the communist years for East Germans and is slowly picking up again. The unique town of Melnik was once a wealthy centre built on the back of exiled phanariots from Constantinople. Now it is a centre for wine production and offers eco-tourism.

Infrastructure remains relatively underdeveloped, especially regarding road and rail communications. It remains an important target for potential EU funding. There are two major infrastructural projects in the region. The Struma motorway, which is planned to connect the capital Sofia with the Greek border and the port of Thessaloniki, is going to run through the valley of the Sruma River, and will be ready in a few years. The second project is the airport of Bansko. The cost is currently estimated at around €30,000,000.

[edit] Culture, education and monuments

Historical and archaeological monuments include the ruins of antique Thracian and Roman settlements, Early Christian basilicas, medieval Byzantine and Bulgarian towns, monasteries and fortresses, as well as many preserved buildings and whole villages — examples of the architecture from the Ottoman period (like Melnik, the Rozhen Monastery and Bansko).

A theatre, a library with 345,000 tomes, and an opera house are situated in the provincial centre, Blagoevgrad. There are art galleries in Bansko, Blagoevgrad and Sandanski. Many small cultural institutions, chitalishta, are dispersed around the province. The Pirin State Ensemble is the most prominent among the numerous folklore and music bands. There are 10 museums in the province that preserve the rich historical, ethnographic and archaeological heritage. Cultural events include the Theatre Festival in Blagoevgrad, the Jazz Festival in Bansko and the Melnik Evenings of Poetry.

The Southwestern University and the American University in Bulgaria are situated in Blagoevgrad; the latter is the second largest American university campus in Europe and is located in the former headquarters of the communist party. Annually the city draws around 10,000 students from the country and abroad. The number of schools in the province is 182.

[edit] Historic figures

A number of the province's municipalities were re-named in honor of major Macedonian figures such as Sandanski, Gotse Delchev and Blagoevgrad (named after Dimitar Blagoev).

[edit] Notable Bulgarians from Blagoevgrad Province

[edit] Demographics

According to the 2001 census, the population of the province consists of 286,491 Bulgarians (including a number of Muslim Bulgarians), 31,857 Turks (also including a number of Muslim Bulgarians), 12,405 Roma and 3,117 ethnic Macedonians, among others. 4,242 people did not specify their ethnicity.

268,968 of the province's residents are Eastern Orthodox, 62,431 are Muslims, 1,546 — Protestants. 7,018 people did not idenfity their religion in the census.

Bulgarian is the mother tongue of 306,118 people, Turkish is spoken by 19,819, while 9,232 identified as speakers of Romany. 2,921 specified their mother tongue as "other" and 2,424 did not identify their language.

[edit] Sport

Blagoevgrad Province is currently one of the best-represented provinces in Bulgarian football, with 3 teams playing in the Bulgarian A PFG (second only to Sofia with 4) — FC Vihren Sandanski, PFC Belasitsa Petrich and PFC Pirin 1922 Blagoevgrad. One more team from the province, PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad (as distinct from Pirin 1922), began the 2005/06 season in the highest Bulgarian division, but disbanded shortly afterwards due to financial problems.

Owing to the alpine features and accessible location, the northern and eastern regionof Blagoevgrad Province is also a centre of winter sports. The main centre is Bansko which is becoming a leading skiing resort at European level with rapidly rising property prices.

[edit] Pirin Macedonia and irredentist allegations

Blagoevgrad Province roughly corresponds with a geographic region referred since the 1920s as Pirin Macedonia; some nationalists from the Republic of Macedonia regard it as a 'foreign-occupied' part of their irredentist concept of United Macedonia, although today the idea of “united” Macedonia is espoused openly only by relatively marginal nationalistic parties and organizations in that country. Also, most of the Macedonian mass media[3] and members of the political establishment[4] systematically propagate two basic elements - denial or negativization of the recorded Bulgarian past in Macedonia (some key examples for such denial of any bulgariannes are cases like Saint Clement of Ohrid, Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria, Miladinov Brothers, Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, Gotse Delchev, etc.) and claims for recognition of vast 'ethnic Macedonian' minority in Pirin Macedonia with accusations of violations of its human rights.

According to the militant Macedonian ethnic human rights activists outside Europe, Chris Popov and Michael Radin, the probable number of ethnic Macedonians is about 200,000. According to a study by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee performed in 1998, the people with a Macedonian national self-consciousness, however, are only between 15,000 and 25,000, whereas the vast majority of the Slavic population has a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and a regional Macedonian identity similar to the Macedonian regional identity in Greek Macedonia. Finally, according to personal evaluation of a local ethnic Macedonian political activist, Stoyko Stoykov, it is between 5,000 and 10,000 (source). In the census in 2001 3,117 of the province's population of 341,173 described themselves as ethnic Macedonians; the overwhelming majority declared Bulgarians, 286,491 (the official data in Bulgarian here). In recent censuses Bulgarian citizens are allowed to write in themselves their ethnicity (the questionary could be seen here, see section №14), which means that the actual number is disputed by Macedonian nationalists or their supporters. However, some have complained that they want the option "Macedonian" to be listed (only the three major ethnic groups are) rather than inserted manually.

The low numbers of self-declared 'ethnic Macedonians' in the region is explained by supporters of Macedonism as resulting from repression. They also assert that the number of Macedonians in the province was much larger as recorded by the 1948 and 1956 censuses, claiming that then-Stalinist Bulgaria recognised a distinct Macedonian minority and allowed free self-determination (and implying this is not the case today). This is explained by Bulgarians as being part of the Comintern's and the Bulgarian Communist Party's policy of the time, which supported a USSR-backed admission of Bulgaria to Yugoslavia with the corresponding incorporation of Pirin Macedonia into Yugoslavia as part of the Macedonian Socialist Republic. With the easing of this trend the idea of promoting a separate national consciousness in Pirin Macedonia lost support from the authorities.

[edit] Gallery

Tevno Vasilashko Lake in Pirin

Kamenitsa Peak and lake Tevno ezero in Pirin

Sinanitsa Peak in Pirin

Edelweisses under the Koncheto ridge in Pirin

Dzhengal Peak in Pirin up-close in late April

Vihren Peak in Pirin mountain

The defeat of the army of Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria in the medieval Battle of Kleidion

Fresco from the Church of Theodore Tyro and Theodore Stratelates in Dobarsko, 1672

The Rozhen Monastery from the outside

The Rozhen Monastery, inner yard

Melnik and the famous sand pyramides

The Church of the Holy Trinity in Bansko

Varosha, the old quarter of Blagoevgrad

Genеral Ivan Tsonchev's revolutionary band

Lieutenant Boris Sarafov's revolutionary band

Monument to the IMRO revolutionary Gotse Delchev in Blagoevgrad

Monument to the perished Bulgarian soldiers during World War I in Petrich

View from the centre of Blagoevgrad

Bansko Ski Zone as seen from Razlog

The St Petka Of Bulgaria temple in Rupite, built by a famous Bulgarian clairvoyant Baba Vanga

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Population by address registration up to September 14, 2007. Source: ГРАО. Retrieved on October 3, 2007. (Bulgarian)
  2. ^ Despite a history of use by Bulgarian nationalists, the term Pirin Macedonia is today regarded as offensive by certain Bulgarians, who assert that it is widely used by Macedonists as part of the irredentist concept of United Macedonia. However, many people in the country also think of the name as a purely geographical term, which it has historically been. Its use is, thus, controversial.
  3. ^ In 2004 and 2005 36,2% of all Macedonian publications were negative, while average percentage of negative materials in the world was 13,1% according to research "The image of Bulgaria in the foreign media" of Bulgarian Media Coalition, part of the state Communication Strategy for the Accession of the Republic of Bulgaria to the European Union, issued in June 2005. This made Macedonian media the most negative towards Bulgaria in the world. In the same period they were fourth by nymber of publications connected with Bulgaria globally. (Link, retrieved on 18 August 2007.)
  4. ^ Some examples. In July 2006 Bulgarian minister of foreign affairs Ivailo Kalfin officially warned Macedonian authorities and media to stop their permanent anti-Bulgarian propaganda and especially their attacks againts Bulgarian nation and history. (Link, news.netinfo.bg, retrieved on 18 August 2007.) Nevertheless, the Macedonian Prime-minister Nikola Gruevski participated in July 2007 in traditional meeting of Macedonian refugees from the Greek civil war, where parts of all neighbouring countries were defined as "ethnic Macedonian". (Link, newspaper "Utrinski vesnik", retrieved on 18 August 2007.) In August 2007 Macedonian deputy minister of foreign affairs Zoran Petrov in an interview for a Macedonian newspaper claimed that in all neighbouring countries there are 2,000,000 ethnic Macedonians. (Link, newspaper "Dnevnik", retrieved on 18 August 2007.) In the same month a prominent Macedonian politician Slobodan Chashule claimed that in Bulgaria there are at least 1,000,000 unrecognized and oppressed ethnic Macedonians. (Link, newspaper "Spic", retrieved on 18 August 2007.)

[edit] Printed sources

  • Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton. London: 1995.

[edit] External links

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