Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik Пазарджик
The old post office at Konstantin Velichkov square.
Coat of arms
Pazardzhik Location of Pazardzhik
Coordinates: 42°12′N 24°20′E
Country	Bulgaria
Province (Oblast)	Pazardzhik
Government
• Mayor	Todor Popov
Elevation	205 m (673 ft)
Population (Census February 2011)
• City	71,979
• Urban	113,078
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Postal Code	4400
Area code(s)	034
License plate	PA

Pazardzhik (Bulgarian: Пазарджик, also spelled as Pazardjik or Pazarjik) is a city situated along the banks of the Maritsa river, Southern Bulgaria. It is the capital of Pazardzhik Province and centre for the homonymous Pazardzhik Municipality. As of February 2011, the town has a population of 71,979 inhabitants.

History

Pazardzhik was founded by Tatars from what is today Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi in 1485 on the left bank of the river Maritsa, near the market of the region, an important crossroad at the middle of this productive region, and named Tatar Pazardzhik (Tatar: Tatar Pazardjik, "small Tatar market"). Thanks to this favourable location, the settlement quickly developed. While it was very small at the beginning of the 19th century, it became the administrative centre for the region at the end of the century and remained so until the Liberation from Turkish occupation.

The clock tower is one of the landmarks of Pazardzhik.

During the following centuries the town continued to grow and strengthened its position. Trade in iron, leather and rice prospered. The town impressed visitors with its beautiful houses and clean streets. In 1718 Gerard Kornelius Drish visited Pazardzhik and wrote "the buildings here according to construction, size and beauty stand higher than those of Niš, Sofia and all other places".

The Russians under Count Nikolay Kamensky took the city after a brief siege in 1810. By the mid-19th century Pazardzhik was a big, important centre of crafts and trade, with a population of about 25,000 people. It hosted two big annual fairs, and a big market Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There was a post office with a telegraph.

In 1837 the Church of the Mother of God was built — an important national monument, famous for its architecture and woodcarving. In the mid-19th century Pazardzhik became an important cultural centre: a school was opened in 1847, a girls' school in 1848, a community centre in 1868, the women's union "Prosveta" in 1870.

During the Liberation War in 1877-1878, the town was burned by retreating Turkish troops. It was liberated on 2 January 1878 by General Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko's platoon. Pazardzhik grew and spread to the right bank of Maritsa river; barracks and an agricultural school were built.

From the early 20th century on people built factories, stores and houses, and thus the industrial quarter of the town. From 1959 to 1987 Pazardzhik was again an administrative centre for the region, and is again since the 1999 administrative division of Bulgaria.

Population

The Pazardzhik theatre named Konstantin Velichkov.

During the first decade after the liberation of Bulgaria, in the 1880s the population of Pazardzhik numbered about 15,000 inhabitants. Since then it started growing decade by decade, mostly because of the migrants from the rural areas and the surrounding smaller towns, reaching its peak in the period 1985-1992 exceeding 80,000. After this time, the population has started decreasing in consequence of the poor economic situation in the Bulgarian provinces during the 1990s that leaded to a new migration in the direction of the country capital Sofia and abroad.

Pazardzhik
Year	1887	1910	1934	1946	1956	1965	1975	1985	1992	2001	2005	2009	2011
Population	15,659	18,098	23,228	30,376	39,499	55,430	65,727	77,340	82,578	79,476	76,161	75,346	71,979
	Highest number ?? in ??
Sources: National Statistical Institute, „citypopulation.de“, „pop-stat.mashke.org“, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Culture and pedestrian areas

Pazardzhik History Museum.

Videlina cultural centre (chitalishte).

The Church of the Theotokos preserves the most impressive icons in Bulgaria by master artists of the Debar School, wood-carvings of New and Old Testament scenes, and icons by Stanislav Dospevski. Among the town's landmarks are also the clock tower, the ethnographic and history museums.

As with most Bulgarian cities, Pazardzhik has developed a significant pedestrian center, in which several central squares typify the European coffee house society and pedestrian culture. In Bulgaria the café culture is particularly prominent, with many downtown squares easily providing up to a half dozen cafés, with ample outside seating.

Pazardzhik has a level of pedestrian streets (or network of carfree areas) even above the relatively high Bulgarian standard. There are several longer pedestrian streets, and at one point there is even an intersection where five different pedestrian streets converge. A few of these do not continue for very long, but most do, or are connected to the rest of the pedestrian areas of the city, and thus could be said to form the pedestrian network of the city.

During the warmer seasons, most afternoons of the week and especially weekends find a large number of people strolling about or sitting in cafés. There are few tourist attractions in this area but there are large supermarkets including Bila and a Lidl.

Pazardzhik Point on Snow Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Pazardzhik.

International relations

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Bulgaria

Twin towns — Sister cities

Pazardzhik is twinned with:

• West Bend, Wisconsin, USA
• Stavropol, Russia
• Chekhov, Moscow Oblast, Russia
• Moscow, Russia
• Barysaw, Belarus

Gallery

• 

  Old post building

• 

  Street scene

• 

  Street scene

• 

  Stanislav Dospevski's house

• 

  Pazadzhik prison

External links

• Pazardzhik municipality