Museum of History Asenovgrad

Favorable climate and location of Asenovgrad are one of the main prerequisites for the early appearance of life here, which has continued without interruption from antiquity to present days. It covers about 9,000 years of historical existence, during which time different tribes and peoples lived here or passed by.

Evidence about the history, material and spiritual culture of the earliest settlers in the area are found by the studies of prehistoric settlement mounds near the villages – Muldava, dating back to the early 6th millennium B.C. and Rouen, dated to 5th-4th millennium B.C. Archaeological findings shed light on their material and spiritual culture, religion, habits and settlement life. The registered sanctuaries around Asenovgrad and the votive tablets with dedications to the Thracian Heros, to Zeus, Hera, Mithras, Hecate, Hermes, etc. found in them, talk about the rich spiritual life and religious beliefs. For the first time the old name of Asenovgrad – Stanimahos, is mentioned in the Statutes of the Bachkovo monastery, drawn up in 1083 under Gregory Bakuriani’s order, who was the founder of the monastery. The first data about the Voden fortress also dates back to that time. Close to Voden fortress is an ancient settlement, attested with inscriptions and coins from the 1st and 4th centuries, a basilica from the 4th-6th century and a medieval church from the 12th century in the area “Armenka”.

After the liberation of Bulgaria from Byzantine rule, the city acquired strategic importance for the Second Bulgarian State, acceded to it under the reign of Tsar Kaloyan. The history of Stanimaka is inextricably linked to the Petrich fortress known today as Assen’s fortress, which existed from the late Bronze Age to the beginning of the 15th century. Built on a naturally fortified site, it played an important role in the defense of the passage connecting the Upper Thracian lowland with the Aegean Sea throughout its existence. Its strategic importance was appreciated by Tsar Ivan Asen II, who one year after the battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230, expands and strengthens the fortress, turning it into a medieval city. His work is the construction of a two-storey cross-domed fortress church with a unique for its time – watch and bell tower in one, above its porch, dedicated to “The Mother of God from Petrich”. He perpetuated his construction work with an inscription carved on a rock above the entrance to the fortress.

The museum was established as an archeological organization “Svarog” at the local high school in 1926. In 1971 it was moved to the specially adapted for the purposes building of the former Military Club. In 2005 the exposition was renovated. The building has one floor and is a cultural monument of local significance. More than 1,000 exhibits, covering the period from the early Neolithic to the first half of the 20th century, are arranged in a U-shaped hall. Since its establishment until now, the museum has stored a significant collection of artifacts – a representative sample of its rich collection is exhibited in its central building, emphasizing the main periods in the history of the Municipality of Asenovgrad.

The exposition dedicated to “Representative urban life from the end of the 19th and the beginning of 20th century”, Ethnographic House, is presented in a residential house built in the middle of the 19th century, former property of a rich local merchant of Greek origin, with The National Institute of Immovable National Heritage status. In 1906 it was a primary school for a short time. The building has two floors and a deep cellar below it. The originally restored house features re-creations of a dining room, a bedroom, guest rooms from the period, musical instruments and paintings by town artists complementing the spirit of the era.

In the Ambelino neighborhood is the first school building built according to plan in the city just before the Liberation – the school “St. George”. Six years after its reconstruction in 2000, it is part of the permanent exposition of the museum and is dedicated to exhibiting the social, educational and cultural life of the town in the period from the end of the 19th to the 30s of the 20th century. The two exhibition halls on the first floor are the only gallery in town for presentations of authors, thematic and other exhibitions and concerts. The museum exposition is in line with the principle of “museum-forum” ensuring continuity between the past and the present.