Kyustendil

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Kyustendil (Кюстендил)
Kjustendil coat of arms Map of Bulgaria, position of Kyustendil highlighted
Basic data
State : BulgariaBulgaria Bulgaria
Oblast : Kyustendil
Residents : 41,380  (December 31, 2016)
Coordinates : 42 ° 17 '  N , 22 ° 41'  E Coordinates: 42 ° 17 '0 "  N , 22 ° 41' 0"  E
Height : 513 m
Postal code : 2500
Telephone code : (+359) 078
License plate : KH
administration
Mayor : Petar Paunow
Ruling party : Kyustendil coalition
Kyustendil-view-and-Konyavska-mountain.jpg

Kjustendil [ ˌkjustɛnˈdiɫ ] also [ ˌkystɛnˈdiɫ ] ( Bulgarian Кюстендил , also Kjüstendil or Küstendil ; earlier: Pautalia, Pautalius, then Velebusdus ) is a city in southwestern Bulgaria near the border with North Macedonia and Serbia . Kyustendil is the capital of the district of the same name.

geography

location

Kyustendil is located in the southern part of the plain of the same name at the foot of the Osogowo Mountains. Immediately south of the city is Mount Hisarlak. Two rivers flow through the city; Banshtitsa and Kolushka, tributaries of the Struma River .

The city lies on the pan-European corridor No. 8 and the European route 871 to the Bulgarian-Macedonian border ( border crossing Gjueschewo ) and on the road from the Serbian Niš via Bosilegrad and Kyustendil to Sofia ( border crossing Oltomanzi ). An old trade route to Constantinople runs from Dupnitsa to Kyustendil .

climate

Kyustendil is located in the continental climate zone . The annual average temperature is 11.2 degrees Celsius and the average annual rainfall is 624 millimeters. The warmest months are July and August with an average of 21.8 and 21.5 degrees Celsius and the driest August and September with an average of 36 to 38 millimeters of precipitation. The greatest amount of precipitation is recorded in May and June with an average of 68 and 65 millimeters respectively. The coldest month is January with an average of −0.8 degrees Celsius.

history

The changing names of the city were:

  • Pautalia (Paeonia) - Thracian
  • Pautania - Gothic
  • Welbaschd - Slavic
  • Patelense - Byzantine
  • Kolasia - Bulgarian
  • Konstantinova Zemja - Serbian
  • Kyustendil - Ottoman

Antiquity

Kyustendil is one of the oldest cities in Bulgaria. The first settlers in the region were the Thracian tribes of the Peons, Agrianas and Denteles. In the 5th to 4th centuries BC The Thracians founded a settlement here because of the healing mineral springs.

After Thrace fell under Roman rule in 45 AD, the place was expanded into an important fortress. The city was called Pautalia during Roman times . It was a well-known seaside resort and was located on an important trade route that connected Serdica ( Sofia ) and Thessaloniki and the Roman roads Via Egnatia and Via Militaris along the Struma Valley. From Pautalia there was a turnoff to Stobi . In the 1st and 2nd centuries the city grew into the administrative, cultural and economic center of the area. The city's importance remained intact during late antiquity.

During the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan , Pautalia received city rights in 106 and the nickname Ulpia . Under Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161) and until the reign of Emperor Caracallas (198–217), Ulpia Pautalia was allowed to mint its own coins.

In the 4th and 5th centuries a second fortress was built on the hill Hisarlak (Хисарлък) due to increasing attacks on the area above the city. The fortress Hisarlak remained obtained in the Middle Ages. It has been expanded since the 6th century, survived the first and second Bulgarian empires and was only destroyed by the Ottoman conquerors in the 15th century. After 533 the city was called Welbaschd .

middle Ages

At the end of the 7th century, the city was probably incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire under Khan Krum . In a document of the Byzantine emperor Basil II from 1019, the place is mentioned under the Slavic name Welbaschd (Велбъжд; Velbăžd; origin of the word: camel).

The city was incorporated into the Second Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Kaloyan (1197–1207) . The battle of Welbaschd between the Bulgarians and Serbs (under the leadership of Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski ) in 1330 is closely linked to the history of the city. The Bulgarians lost the battle; their Tsar Michail Schischman fell on July 28, 1330. It is believed that he was first buried in the Georgskirche in the city. After the battle, Bulgaria came under Serbian influence for a short time. At the same time it was divided into several parts.

At the end of the 14th century, the independent despotate Welbashd was formed in the southwest of the Bulgarian territories under Konstantin Dragaš , son-in-law of the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander and father-in-law of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II. From Welbashd, Constantine ruled large parts of today's Macedonia between the river valleys of Vardar and Goiter (Strymon).

Ottoman time

Ahmed Bey Mosque

After the Battle of the Mariza , Constantine became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire , but was able to maintain close ties with its Christian neighbors. At the behest of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I , he took part in the campaign against the Wallachian voivod Mircea cel Bătrân along with his neighbor and ally, the King of Prilep Marko Kraljević , and was killed in the Battle of Rovine in 1395 .

It is believed that with the death of Constantine came the end of his principality. After the Battle of Ankara around 1402, in which the Ottomans suffered one of the worst defeats in their history, the despot of Kyustendil Yusuf rebelled . Since the title of despot was hereditary, it could be a son of Constantine named Stefan, who had adopted the Islamic faith. There is evidence that the principality was restored to its old borders. Around 1427/28, by autumn 1431 at the latest, the Ottoman troops, led by the Beylerbey Rumeliens , Turhan Pascha, recaptured the city and destroyed the fortress walls.

After the city was conquered, Kyustendil became the administrative center of a sanjak . The sanjak Kyustendil was one of the largest in the Ottoman province of Rumelia and enclosed the territory of the former principality. It was divided into 14 kazas (judicial districts, counties). The Ottomans named Welbaschd Konstantin in honor of Küstendil (German: "Land of Konstantin"). However, they also used Kyustendil banya. The Bulgarian population was expelled, Islamized or killed. Turks from Asia Minor settled in their place , primarily from today's Konya .

In the course of the Great Turkish War from 1683 to 1699, the Austrian general Antonio Valerio Zuč reached the region in March 1690, defeated the Ottomans and took the city. The status quo ante was restored in the same year .

Kyustendil, engraving from 1690

The Bulgarian population returned to the city only slowly, so that it did not form the majority again until the end of the 18th century. The Bulgarians called the city Kolosia and so from 1557 to 1766 all metropolitans carried the surname of Kolosia , whose seat was the Georgs Church . However, this name appeared in Konstantin Kostenezki (1380–1431) in his work "Slovo vo pravopisu". The Church of the Assumption of Mary was built in 1816, the Church of the Great Martyr Mina in 1859 and the Church of Sweti Dimitar in 1866 . In 1821 a monastery school was opened, which was expanded into a mixed secondary school in 1849. The first Tschitalischte in the region was opened here in 1869 .

The strong Heiducken movement was also active in the area around Kyustendil. Iljo Wojwoda and Rajna Wojwoda , one of the few women voivods , fought here . The Boboshev monastery "Sweti Dimitar" (Бобошевският манастир “Свети Димитър”) was an important center of educational work in southwest Bulgaria during this period .

In 1872 the teacher Todor Peew founded a secret revolutionary committee of the Internal Revolutionary Organization (IRO). The city was captured by Russian troops on January 29, 1878.

Recent history

In February 1908, the place here Kyustendil Congress of BMARK instead.

During the Second World War , the city was hit by Allied air raids . The attack on April 6, 1941 was carried out by the Third Yugoslav Army, although Bulgaria was not officially at war with Yugoslavia. 58 Bulgarian citizens, 8 German and 2 Bulgarian soldiers died. 59 citizens, 31 German and 5 Bulgarian soldiers were injured.

In the 2007 local elections, the "Kjustendil coalition" ( SDS , DSB , Agrarian Union , Democratic Party , Gergjowden and SSD ) won. Since then she has provided the mayor with Petar Paunow.

The city has been named after the Pautalia Glacier on Livingston Island in Antarctica since 2005 thanks to its old name . Since 2012 it has also given its name to the Kyustendil Ridge , a mountain ridge in Grahamland on the Antarctic Peninsula .

Population development

year 1880 1892 1900 1910 1920 1926 1934 1946 1956 1969 1975 1978 1982 1985 1988 1992 2000 2010
Residents 9590 11383 12042 13748 14887 15440 16241 19309 25025 43001 48239 51147 54657 54111 55620 57106 50562 50671

Cityscape

The city has 41,380 inhabitants (as of 2016) and the Kjustendil municipality has around 73,000 inhabitants. The city is separated by the Banshtitsa brook into a residential area in the north with mostly single-family houses and the business center in the south. A small industrial area and the train station are on the northern edge of the residential area. A main axis of the city, the boulevard Balgarija, leads from the train station as a pedestrian zone to the south to the central square where the historical museum is located. The Ahmed Bey Mosque from the 15th century is about 200 meters to the east . It is surrounded by the uncovered remains of the Roman thermal baths. A few meters south of the mosque, a side street leads to the Pirgowa Tower from the 14th century. Another, smaller mosque, the Fatih Mehmed Mosque, built in the 15th century on the main shopping street of Tsar Oswoboditel, is unused and dilapidated. One of the main attractions is the 10th-century Church of St. Georgi in the Kolusha district to the south-west.

Kyustendil does not have the facilities of a health resort, but there are over 40 hot mineral springs in the area and the Tschifte Banja public bathhouse , an Ottoman hammam from 1489, is in operation in the center near the Ahmed Bey mosque .

The Hisarlak fortress on a hill southeast of the center has the shape of an irregular square (approx. 117 × 175 m). It extended over an area of ​​2.1 hectares. It had 14 towers (round, triangular and rectangular), 2 gates and 5 side entrances. The main gate was in the east wall, which is near today's main road. The thickness of the fortress walls varies in places between 1.60 m and 3 m.

The municipal football club is called Welbaschd Kjustendil .

Other attractions are:

On the initiative of Ludmila Zhivkova , the Krum Kjuljakov Theater was built in the neoclassical style in the 1980s .

Town twinning

Personalities

literature

Web links

Commons : Kjustendil  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christo Matanow: Възникване и облик на Кюстендилски санджак през XV-XVI в. (on German about the founding and form of the sanjak Kyustendil in the 15th – 16th centuries), Sofia, 2000
  2. ↑ Jordan Ivanov: Северна Македония. Исторически издирванияя, Sofia, 1906, p. 254
  3. ↑ List of monuments in the Kyustendil municipality (Bulgarian) ( Memento of March 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive )