Arbanasi (Veliko Tarnovo)
Arbanasi is a village in Veliko Tarnovo Municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province of central northern Bulgaria, set on a high plateau between the larger towns of Veliko Tarnovo and Gorna Oryahovitsa. It is known for the rich history and large number of historical monuments, such as 17th- and 18th-century churches and examples of Bulgarian National Revival architecture, which have turned it into a popular tourist destination; the village's name comes from the word Arbanas. This is. From this word comes the Turkish arnavut, used to denote Albanians. However, the village did not have any Albanian population but it rather received its name in honor of Ivan Asen II's military conquest of what was areas populated with Arbanasi people; as a result of his military victory at the battle of Klokotnitsa Bulgaria obtained access to three seas - Black and Adriatic. To commemorate this event, the village was named Arbanasi; as of 2005, Arbanasi has a population of 291 and the mayor is Tosho Krastev. It lies at 400 metres above sea level.
The lack of other documentary material leaves different opinions and speculations about the settlement's origin and population. It is accepted by some scholars that the village was populated by Bulgarian boyars that came from the westernmost parts of the Second Bulgarian Empire after Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria's important victory over the Byzantines near Klokotnitsa on 9 March 1230, when the tsar conquered "the land of the Albanians"; this assumption is supported by 19th century notes from Georgi Rakovski and other scholars, but by no direct evidence or contemporary source. The earliest written document that marks the beginning of Arbanasi's history is a royal decree by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent from 1538, according to which the sultan offered the lands of the modern localities of Arbanasi, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Dolna Oryahovitsa to his son-in-law Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha as a gift; the four villages are united under the name Arnaud Kariyeleri in the document, the first settlers may have been Albanians and Greeks from Epirus.
The tax registers of 1541–1544 describe Arnavud köy as a village of 63 households and 72 unmarried men. In 1579–1580, it numbered 271 households and 277 unmarried men, or a quadruple increase for forty years, indicating an influx of settlers; the village prospered in the 17th century. Other sources that mention Arbanasi are the notes of Pavel Đorđić from 10 January 1595 addressed to the Transylvanian Prince Sigismund Báthory; the village is mentioned by the Roman Catholic bishop of Sofia Petar Bogdan Bakshev, who visited Tarnovo in 1640. He remarked there was a village up in the mountains, from where the whole of Tarnovo could be seen, that had about 1,000 houses. Another Roman Catholic bishop, Anton Stefanov, refers to Arbanasi in 1685. According to his account, there were Arbanasi merchants trading in Italy, Poland and in Muscovy. There is richer documentary material, such as correspondence and chronicler's notes on religious books, preserved from the 17th and 18th century, that evidences that Arbanasi reached its economic blossoming between the second half of the 17th and the end of the 18th century.
The settlement had over 1,000 houses at the time, its population consisting of eminent merchant families who traded in Transylvania, the Danubian Principalities and Poland. Handicrafts were well-developed, with copper- and goldsmithing, vine-growing and silk production playing an important part; the homes of the rich merchants, as well as the five churches built in the years of progress, bear record of the economic upsurge and prosperity. In the 18th century, Arbanasi was donated by the Phanariote rulers of Wallachia, a number of expelled Wallachian nobles settled temporarily in the village, e.g. Nicolae Brâncoveanu, Ioan Văcărescu, etc. In 1790, there were 17 Wallachian nobles with their families in Arbanași. To this day, some of the houses in Arbanasi bear the names of their former Wallachian owners; as a result of well-organized brigand raids in 1792, 1798 ad 1810, the settlement was pillaged and burnt down. The plague and cholera epidemics further damaged the town's well-being; the richest merchants fled to Russia.
A new settlement of Bulgarians began after 1810, when people came down from the Elena and Teteven parts of the Balkan Mountains, but Arbanasi could never again reach its former heyday. An Ottoman royal decree of 1839 deprived the town of its former privileges and the development of handicraftsmanship after the Crimean War ceased. Arbanasi experienced strong Greek cultural influence for centuries. There was a Greek school and divine services were in Greek. This, did not reflect the local population's national self-consciousness, as Arbanasi residents took part in the organized armed struggle of Bulgarians that led to the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule as a consequence of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Arbanasi Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery of Saint Nicholas Church of the Nativity of Christ Church of Saints Archangels Michae
Trei Ierarhi Monastery
Mănăstirea Trei Ierarhi is a seventeenth-century monastery located in Iaşi, Romania. The monastery is listed in the National Register of Historic Monuments and included on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Site; the church was erected between 1637 and 1639, in the Moldavian capital, in honour of three saints, was blessed by Bishop Varlaam. In 1640, Prince Vasile Lupu, the renowned defender of the Orthodox Church, set up here the first printing press in Moldavia and the Vasilian College, a higher education institute. In 1643, the first volume printed in Moldavia was issued in Iași; the Trei Ierarhi Church was dedicated by Vasile Lupu to the 20 monasteries on Mount Athos. Several Romanian royal figures are buried inside the church: their son; the church became renowned for the extraordinary lacery in stone which adorns the facades, from bottom to the top of the derricks. One can count over 30 non-repeating registers of decorative motives. Western architectural elements combine with the Eastern style, of Armenian, Persian, Arabian or Ottoman inspiration, in a bold conception, whose result is a harmonious ensemble.
The effusive scenery makes the church resemble a shrine of architectonic proportions conceived to protect the Sfanta Cuvioasa Parascheva's relics. After the 1882 restoration, the original fresco was derusted, some fragments still being kept today in the monastery's museum. Near the church one can find the Gothic Hall, it has, among objects related to the history of the monastery. In the gate's tower, that served as belfry, Vasile Lupu had installed a huge horologe, the first public use clock in Romanian Principalities. During the 1882 restoration, the whole mechanism was disassembled and transported to France, where it remained. Vasilian College Synod of Jassy Aurelian Trişcu. "The "Three Hierarchs" Church in Iaşi". ICOMOS- Journals of the German National Committee. Pp. 93–97. Retrieved 2008-05-23. "The Church of the Trei Ierarhi Monastery". I. C. I. Bukarest. Archived from the original on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-05-23. Trei Ierarhi Monastery Website The Trei Ierarhi Church
Steven Runciman
Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, CH, FBA, known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume A History of the Crusades. His three-volume history has had a profound impact on common conceptions of the Crusades portraying the Crusaders negatively and the Muslims favourably. Runciman was a strong admirer of the Byzantine Empire, held a bias against the Crusaders for the Fourth Crusade evident in his work. While praised by older crusade historians as a storyteller and prose stylist, he is viewed as biased by some contemporary historians. Born in Northumberland, he was the second son of Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, Hilda Runciman, Viscountess Runciman of Doxford. Both of his parents were or became members of parliament for the Liberal Party, were the first married couple to sit in Parliament, his father was created Viscount Runciman of Doxford in 1937. His paternal grandfather, Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman, was a shipping magnate, he was named after James Cochran Stevenson, the MP for South Shields.
It is said that he was reading Greek by the age of five. In the course of his long life he would master an astonishing number of languages, so that, for example, when writing about the Middle East, he relied not only on accounts in Latin and Greek and the Western vernaculars, but consulted Arabic, Persian, Syriac and Georgian sources as well. A King's Scholar at Eton College, he was an exact close friend of George Orwell. While there, they both studied French under Aldous Huxley. In 1921 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a history scholar and studied under J. B. Bury, becoming, as Runciman claimed, falsely, "his first, only, student". At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off, his work on the Byzantine Empire earned him a fellowship at Trinity in 1927. After receiving a large inheritance from his grandfather, Runciman resigned his fellowship in 1938 and began travelling widely. Thus, for much of his life he was an independent scholar, he went on to be a press attache at the British Legation in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, in 1940 and at the British Embassy in Cairo in 1941.
From 1942 to 1945 he was Professor of Byzantine Art and History at Istanbul University, in Turkey, where he began the research on the Crusades which would lead to his best known work, the History of the Crusades. From 1945 to 1947 he was a representative in Athens of the British Council. Most of Runciman's historical works deal with Byzantium and her medieval neighbours between Sicily and Syria. Jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the leading historians of the Crusades, denounced Runciman for his perspective on the Crusades. Riley-Smith had been told by Runciman during an on-camera interview that he considered himself "not a historian, but a writer of literature."According to Christopher Tyerman and Tutor in History at Hertford College and Lecturer in Medieval History at New College, Runciman created a work that "across the Anglophone world continues as a base reference for popular attitudes, evident in print, television and on the internet."Runciman held sympathies toward the Byzantine Empire and blamed the Crusaders, whom he considered "intolerant barbarians", for causing the downfall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade.
Less than a decade after the Second World War ended, Runciman called the Fourth Crusade the greatest crime committed against humanity. In his personal life, Runciman was an old-fashioned English eccentric, among other things, as an aesthete and enthusiast of the occult. According to Andrew Robinson, a history teacher at Eton, "he played piano duets with the last Emperor of China, told tarot cards for King Fuad of Egypt, narrowly missed being blown up by the Germans in the Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul and twice hit the jackpot on slot machines in Las Vegas". Runciman was gay. There is little evidence of a long-term lover but Runciman boasted of a number of casual sexual encounters - telling a friend in life: "I have the temperament of a harlot, so am free of emotional complications." Runciman was discreet about his homosexuality perhaps because of religious feelings that homosexuality was "an inarguable offence against God". Runciman felt that his sexuality had held back his career. Max Mallowan related a conversation where Runciman told him "that he felt his life had been a failure because of his gayness".
He died in Radway, while visiting relatives, aged 97. He never married. Earlier the same year, he had made a final visit to Mount Athos to witness the blessing of the Protaton Tower at Karyes, refurbished thanks to a gift from him, he was interred in Dumfriesshire. Edward Peters claims Runciman's three-volume narrative history, "instantly became the most known and respected single-author survey of the subject in English."John M. Riddle says that for the greater part of the twentieth century Runciman was the "greatest historian of the Crusades." He reports that, "Prior to Runciman, in the early part of the century, historians related the Crusades as an idealistic attempt of Christendom to push Islam back." Runcim
Moldavia
Moldavia is a historical region and former principality in Central and Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An independent and autonomous state, it existed from the 14th century to 1859, when it united with Wallachia as the basis of the modern Romanian state; the region of Pokuttya was part of it for a period of time. The western half of Moldavia is now part of Romania, the eastern side belongs to the Republic of Moldova, the northern and southeastern parts are territories of Ukraine; the original and short-lived reference to the region was Bogdania, after Bogdan I, the founding figure of the principality. The names Moldova are derived from the name of the Moldova River. Dragoș was accompanied by his female hound called Molda; the dog's name would have been extended to the country. The old German Molde, meaning "open-pit mine" the Gothic Mulda meaning "dust", "dirt", referring to the river. A Slavic etymology, marking the end of one Slavic genitive form, denoting ownership, chiefly of feminine nouns.
A landowner named Alexa Moldaowicz is mentioned in a 1334 document as a local boyar in service to Yuriy II of Halych. In several early references, "Moldavia" is rendered under the composite form Moldo-Wallachia. Ottoman Turkish references to Moldavia included Boğdan Boğdan. See names in other languages; the name of the region in other languages include French: Moldavie, German: Moldau, Hungarian: Moldva, Russian: Молдавия, Turkish: Boğdan Prensliği, Greek: Μολδαβία. The inhabitants of Moldova were Christians. Archaeological works revealed the remains of a Christian necropolis at Mihălășeni, Botoșani county, from the 5th century; the place of worship, the tombs had Christian characteristics. The place of worship had a rectangular form with sides of seven meters. Similar necropolises and places of worship were found at Nicolina, in IașiThe Bolohoveni, is mentioned by the Hypatian Chronicle in the 13th century; the chronicle shows that this land is bordered on the principalities of Halych and Kiev.
Archaeological research identified the location of 13th-century fortified settlements in this region. Alexandru V. Boldur identified Voscodavie, Voloscovti, Volcovti and their other towns and villages between the middle course of the rivers Nistru/Dniester and Nipru/Dnieper; the Bolohoveni disappeared from chronicles after their defeat in 1257 by Daniel of Galicia's troops. Their ethnic identity is uncertain. In the early 13th century, the Brodniks, a possible Slavic–Vlach vassal state of Halych, were present, alongside the Vlachs, in much of the region's territory. Somewhere in the 11th century, a Viking named Rodfos was killed by Vlachs in the area of what will become Moldavia. In 1164, the future Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, was taken prisoner by Vlach shepherds around the same region. Friar William of Rubruck, who visited the court of the Great Khan in the 1250s, listed "the Blac", or Vlachs, among the peoples who paid tribute to the Mongols, but the Vlachs' territory is uncertain.
Rubruck described "Blakia" as "Assan's territory" south of the Lower Danube, showing that he identified it with the northern regions of the Second Bulgarian Empire. In the 14th century, King Charles I of Hungary attempted to expand his realm and the influence of the Catholic Church eastwards after the fall of Cuman rule, ordered a campaign under the command of Phynta de Mende. In 1342 and 1345, the Hungarians were victorious in a battle against Tatar-Mongols; the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz mentioned Moldavians as having joined a military expedition in 1342, under King Władysław I, against the Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1353, Dragoș, mentioned as a Vlach Knyaz in Maramureș, was sent by Louis I to establish a line of defense against the Golden Horde forces of Mongols on the Siret River; this expedition resulted in a polity vassal to Hungary, centered around Baia. Bogdan of Cuhea, another Vlach voivode from Maramureș who had fallen out with the Hungarian king, crossed the Carpathians in 1359, took control of Moldavia, succeeded in removing Moldavia from Hungarian control.
His realm extended north to the Cheremosh River, while the southern part of Moldavia was still occupied by t
Iași
Iași is the second largest city in Romania, the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural and artistic life; the city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859 of the United Principalities from 1859 to 1862, the capital of Romania from 1916 to 1918. Known as The Cultural Capital of Romania, Iași is a symbol in Romanian history; the historian Nicolae Iorga said "There should be no Romanian who does not know of it". Still referred to as The Moldavian Capital, Iași is the main economic and business centre of the Moldavian region of Romania. In December 2018, Iași was declared Historical capital of Romania. At the 2011 census, the city proper had a population of 290,422. With 474,035 residents, the Iași urban area is the second most populous in Romania, whereas more than 500,000 people live within its peri-urban area. Home to the oldest Romanian university and to the first engineering school, Iași is one of the most important education and research centres of the country, accommodates over 60,000 students in 5 public universities.
The social and cultural life revolves around the Vasile Alecsandri National Theater, the Moldova State Philharmonic, the Opera House, the Iași Athenaeum, a famous Botanical Garden, the Central University Library, the high quality cultural centres and festivals, an array of museums, memorial houses and historical monuments. The city is known as the site of the largest Romanian pilgrimage which takes place each year, in October; the city is referred to as: Bulgarian: Яш English, Polish: Jassy French: Iassy German: Jassy, Jassenmarkt Greek: Ιάσιο Hebrew: יאסי or יאשי. Hungarian: Jászvásár Italian: Iassi Russian: Яссы Serbian: Јаши or Jaši Turkish: Yaş Ukrainian: Ясси, Яси - Я́сси, Я́си Yiddish: יאס Arabic: ياشي/اياشي/ياسي Scholars have different theories on the origin of the name "Iași"; some argue that the name originates with the Sarmatian tribe Iazyges, one mentioned by Ovid as Latin: "Ipse vides onerata ferox ut ducata Iasyx/ Per media Histri plaustra bubulcus aquas" and "Iazyges et Colchi Metereaque turba Getaque/ Danubii mediis vix prohibentur aquis".
A now lost inscription on a Roman milestone found near Osijek, Croatia by Matija Petar Katančić in the 18th century, mentions the existence of a Jassiorum municipium, or Municipium Dacorum-Iassiorum from other sources. Other explanations show that the name originated from the Iranian Alanic tribe of Jassi, having same origin with Yazyges tribes Jassic people; the Prut river was known as the city as Forum Philistinorum. From this population derived the plural of town name, "Iașii". Another historian wrote that the Iasians lived among the Cumans and that they left the Caucasus after the first Mongolian campaign in the West, settling temporarily near the Prut, he asserts that the ethnic name of Jasz, given to Iasians by Hungarians has been erroneously identified with the Jazyges. The Hungarian name of the city means "Jassic Market". Archaeological investigations attest to the presence of human communities on the present territory of the city and around it as far back as the prehistoric age. Settlements included those of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, a late Neolithic archaeological culture.
There is archaeological evidence of human settlements in the area of Iași dating from the 6th to 7th centuries and 7th to 10th centuries. Many of the vessels found in Iași had a cross indicating that the inhabitants were Christians; the name of the city is first found in a document from 1408. This is a grant of certain commercial privileges by the Moldavian Prince Alexander to the Polish merchants of Lvov. However, as buildings older than 1408 still exist, e.g. the Armenian Church believed to be built in 1395, it is certain that the city existed before its first surviving written mention. Around 1564, Prince Alexandru Lăpușneanu moved the Moldavian capital from Suceava to Iași. Between 1561 and 1563, a school and a Lutheran church were founded by the Greek adventurer Prince, Ioan Iacob Heraclid. In 1640, Vasile Lupu established the first school in which the Romanian language replaced Greek, set up a printing press in the Byzantine Trei Ierarhi Monastery. Between 15 September - 27 October 1642, the city hosted the Synod of Jassy.
In 1643, the first volume printed in Moldavia was published in Iași. The city was burned down by the Tatars in 1513, by the Ottomans in 1538, by Imperial Russian troops in 1686. In 1734, it was hit by the plague, it was through the Peace of Iași that the sixth Russo-Turkish War was brought to a close in 1792. A Greek revolutionary manoeuvre and occupation under Alexander Ypsilanti and the Filiki Eteria led to the storming of the city by the Turks in 1822. In 1844 a severe fire affected much of the city. Between 1564 and 1859, the city was the capital of Moldavia.
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm. Several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek East and Latin West diverged. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, legalised Christianity. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed.
Under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use in place of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centred on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity; the borders of the empire evolved over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Justinian I, the empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the Roman western Mediterranean coast, including North Africa and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries; the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 exhausted the empire's resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when it lost its richest provinces and Syria, to the Arab caliphate. During the Macedonian dynasty, the empire expanded again and experienced the two-century long Macedonian Renaissance, which came to an end with the loss of much of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia. The empire recovered during the Komnenian restoration, by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. However, it was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence, its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 ended the Byzantine Empire; the last of the imperial Byzantine successor states, the Empire of Trebizond, would be conquered by the Ottomans eight years in the 1461 Siege of Trebizond. The first use of the term "Byzantine" to label the years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources.
The term comes from "Byzantium", the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older name of the city would be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts; the publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, in 1680 of Du Cange's Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of "Byzantine" among French authors, such as Montesquieu. However, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world; the Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans", "Romania", the "Roman Republic", as "Rhōmais". The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and as late as the 19th century Greeks referred to Modern Greek as Romaiika "Romaic." After 1204 when the Byzantine Empire was confined to its purely Greek provinces the term'Hellenes' was used instead. While the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its history and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified by its western and northern contemporaries with its predominant Greek element.
The occasional use of the term "Empire of the Greeks" in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Byzantine Emperor as Imperator Graecorum were used to separate it from the prestige of the Roman Empire within the new kingdoms of the West. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known as Rûm; the name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire
Razgrad
Razgrad is a city in Northeastern Bulgaria in the valley of the Beli Lom river that falls within the historical and geographical region of Ludogorie. It is an administrative center of Razgrad Province; the suffix "grad" means city in Bulgarian, while the origin and the meaning of the first part "raz" is obscure. During the Second Bulgarian Empire, around the present city there was a settlement, mentioned by the names of Hrasgrad and Hrizgrad'; these names come from the name of the Slavic god Hors. Razgrad was built upon the ruins of the Ancient Roman town of Abritus on the banks of the Beli Lom river. Abritus was built on a Thracian settlement of the 4th-5th century BC with unknown name. Several bronze coins of the Thracian king Seuthes III and pottery were found, as well as artifacts from other rulers and a sacrificial altar of Hercules; some of Razgrad's landmarks include the Varosha architectural complex from the 19th century, the ethnographic museum and several other museums, the characteristic clock tower in the centre built in 1864, the St Nicholas the Miracle Worker Church from 1860, the Momina cheshma sculpture, the Mausoleum Ossuary of the Liberators and the Ibrahim Pasha Mosque from 1530.
The mosque is said to be one of the largest in the Balkans. In 251, the town was the site of the Battle of Abrittus, during which the Goths defeated a Roman army under the emperors Trajan Decius and Herennius Etruscus; the battle is notable for being the first occasion of a Roman emperor being killed in a battle with barbarians. Razgrad Peak on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Razgrad. In January 2012, Razgrad was inhabited by 33,416 people within the city limits, while the Razgrad Municipality with the affiliated adjacent villages had 50,457 inhabitants; the number of the residents of the city reached its peak in the period 1988-1991 when exceeded 55,000. The following table presents the change of the population after 1887. According to the latest 2011 census data, the individuals declared their ethnic identity were distributed as follows: Bulgarians: 24,701 Turks: 5,902 Roma: 288 Others: 140 Indefinable: 195 Undeclared: 2,654 Total: 33,880 The Razgrad Province has the second largest Turkish population in Bulgaria behind the Kardzhali Province, though the municipality and the city of Razgrad have a lower proportion of Turks than the rest of the province.
Razgrad is recognizable for being home to the association football club Ludogorets Razgrad, who in recent years have become the dominant force in Bulgarian football after winning seven consecutive Bulgarian First League titles in a row. After reaching the Europa League round of 16 during the 2013-14 season, the club made their UEFA Champions League debut appearance a season later. Ludogorets play their home matches at Ludogorets Arena, a venue with a capacity of 9,000 people. Sofu Mehmed Pasha, Ottoman administrator Ivan Ivanov Bagryanov, Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister Petar Gabrovski, Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister Dimitar Nenov, Bulgarian classical pianist, music pedagogue and architect Boncho Novakov, Bulgarian former cyclist Osman Duraliev, Bulgarian freestyle wrestler Emanuil Dyulgerov, Bulgarian former athlete Stoycho Stoev, Bulgarian former footballer and manager Diyan Angelov, Bulgarian former football player Mecnur Çolak, Turkish former footballer Nikolay Antonov, Bulgarian former athlete Şoray Uzun, Turkish comedian and television host Dzhena, Bulgarian singer Neriman Özsoy, Turkish female volleyball player Razgrad is twinned with: the news from Razgrad and Razgrad district Razgrad municipality website Actual photos of Razgrad
