Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik
Пазарджик

Coat of arms
Pazardzhik

Location of Pazardzhik

Coordinates: 42°12′N 24°20′E / 42.200°N 24.333°E / 42.200; 24.333
Country Bulgaria
Province
(Oblast)		 Pazardzhik
Government
 • Mayor Todor Popov
Area
 • City 37.382 km2 (14.433 sq mi)
Elevation 205 m (673 ft)
Population (Census February 2011)[1]
 • City 71,979
 • Density 1,900/km2 (5,000/sq mi)
 • Urban 114,817
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 • Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Postal Code 4400
Area code(s) 034
License plate PA
Website Official website

Pazardzhik (Bulgarian: Пазарджик) 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.

Name

The name comes from the word pazar, ultimately from the Persian bāzār, "market" + the Turkic diminutive suffix -cık, "small".

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 meaning "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 dissolution of Ottoman Empire.

The old 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.

Pazardzhik is exempt from Zapdniya Russian detachment commander with Lt. Gen. Joseph Gurko on 14 January 1878 (new style). Thanks Ovanes Sovadzhiyan Armenian, Turkish command failed to execute his perfidious and monstrous plan – to light the town and destroy its Bulgarian population – before retiring.

The railway station in 1928

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.

In the 1880s the population of Pazardzhik numbered about 15,000 inhabitants and it was one of the largest of Bulgaria.[2] 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.[3] After this time, the population has started decreasing in consequence of the poor economic situation in the Bulgarian provinces during the 1990s that led to a new migration in the direction of the country capital Sofia and abroad. As of February 2011, the city has a population of 71,979 inhabitants, while the Pazardzhik Municipality of 114,817 inhabitants.[1][3][4]

Pazardzhik
Year 1887 1910 1934 1946 1956 1965 1975 1985 1992 2001 2005 2009 2011 2013
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 70,728
Highest number ?? in ??
Sources: National Statistical Institute,[1] „citypopulation.de“,[3] „pop-stat.mashke.org“,[4] Bulgarian Academy of Sciences[2]

Ethnic linguistic and religious composition

According to the latest 2011 census data, the individuals declared their ethnic identity were distributed as follows:[5][6]

Total: 71,979

The ethnic composition of Pazardzhik Municipality is 89787 Bulgarians, 10132 Gypsies and 5686 Turks among others.

According to some reports, as of the middle 19th century the city is composed by 33 neighborhoods — 18 Turkish, 12 Bulgarian and 3 Gypsy. Although the Bulgarian neighborhoods were numerically smaller they were more densely populated, while there were Bulgarians in the Turkish neighborhoods too. In 1865 the population of the city was 25.000, Bulgarians comprised 57% of it and the Turks 28,5%.[7] As a trading town the city was attractive for other peoples and sizable minorities of Jews, Armenians and other peoples remained for decades, they are currently present although in much smaller numbers.

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.[8]

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Pazardzhik is twinned with:

Promiment Citizens

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pazardzhik.

Coordinates: 42°12′N 24°20′E / 42.200°N 24.333°E / 42.200; 24.333

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.