Kotel

The town of Kotel lies in a small valley in the Eastern Balkan Range which connects north and south Bulgaria. Famous for its spirit of the National Revival, it is also known as a centre for carpet-making, and a wide selection of antique and modern carpets and tapestry icons in the spirit of medieval frescos are on exhibit in the village.

Here the National Revival houses were built of wood, something more particular to the Eastern Balkans, where the only difference is that they are a bit higher, up to 3 or 4 storeys high. Besides an ethnographic museum, there are some very well preserved houses, including the Kosichkov, Pisomov, Burnev, Bairumov and Karaivanov houses, the old water mill and an inn.

In the second half of the 18th and the 19th centuties more than 450 000 sheep were claimed to have been raised by the Kotel shepherds up there, far to the NorthEast, in the rolling terrains of Dobroudzha. Long-term contracts for cloth deliveries to the Ottoman Army had given the population of the village with great privileges and that improved their self-confidence and spirit of freedom and independence.

The Kotel people are renowned for their industrious, enterprising and studious qualities and interests. They keep giving donations of their own the 5 secular schools, to build clapboard houses with woodcut doors and carved ceilings. Women had created homemade carpets, fluffy rugs and cushions to the beauty and warmth of their homes. Kotel is turned into one of the richest, most beautiful, patriotic villages - a national center of the Bulgarian Revival.