With its stone-roof old houses, steep alleyways winding up into the mountain, and stone fences, Kovachevitsa stands out as one of the most delightful romantic villages in the country, a breathtaking corner in the Rhodopes that seems untouched by time. Some of the houses have been abandoned and are rundown, but others have been restored without any change to the way they looked originally. Kovachevitsa has been declared an architectural reserve and it is thanks to this fact that it has continued untouched by glass and concrete, or by mass tourism.

There are just 7 guest houses and 3 dining establishments in the village. Everything else is architecture, nature, silence and crystal-clear air. Our first stopover is at the one-time school, built in 1892 by benefactor Yordje Dimitrov. The building has been restored and is now a museum. Its first floor hosts exhibitions of works by contemporary Bulgarian artists. We talk to young curator Toma Zhuglev who gives us the rounds of the museum.

“What is left of the school are these desks, the blackboard, the main beams you can see here. There is a whole classroom with ink-pots, pen holders, exercise books, text books, compasses, maps… Everything that has come down to us from the time the school was established is on display here. 

We have another room where you can see what kind of life people led in those days, and a weaving room with a loom that is about 200 years old. We also have an exposition connected with the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement which includes a collection of old weapons.”

• Kovachevitsa – a tale hewn in stone going back 500 years

Kovachevitsa is first mentioned in Ottoman registers in the 15^th century. At approximately the same time some of the first settlers arrived in this part of the Rhodopes – people from the one-time Bulgarian villages which are now in Albania.

“That is where they came from and they settled in the lower, or Arnaut neighbourhood,” Toma says. “After the fall of Tarnovgrad (under Ottoman domination – editorial note), the boyars came from that town and settled in the upper neighbourhood of the village. Those living in the lower part of the village brought with them the construction, the cattle breeding, the stockbreeding. And those in the upper neighbourhood, the boyars, what they brought with them was the literature, the knowledge, the writing. There were no Ottoman authorities in Kovachevitsa, as was the case throughout Bulgaria, because people here were very well-off. 

In 1877, one year after the Batak massacre, the Turks shut up the entire male population of Kovachevitsa inside the St. Nikola church, which is still functioning today, and the same way as in Batak, they were getting ready to kill them. But then the rest of the inhabitants of Kovachevitsa collected some money and handed it over to the ruler of Nevrokop district, and he ordered that their lives be spared.”

Kovachevitsa was not destroyed by the invaders, unlike many other Bulgarian towns and villages at the time. And it is thanks to this fact that it has been preserved as it stood 200 years ago. The first thing that strikes any visitor to the village are its magnificent houses – with two, three and even four storeys. And each has its own style.

“They were among the best builders at the time,” explains Toma. “For example, the houses in Batak in those days were built by master-builders from Kovachevitsa, we have people who built houses in Italy or in Greece – in towns like Drama, Kavala, like Nevrokopi… Typically, the builders used stone and wood. Take a look at this stone masonry, made of stone, straw, wood and mud. The roofs weigh at least 30 tons and are covered entirely in stone slates.”

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova
Photos: Veneta Nikolova