Batak, Bulgaria
Batak [ bɐtak ] (Bulgarian: Батак ) is a town in southern Bulgaria, near Peschtera.
Geographical Location
The city is located in the Rhodope Mountains at an altitude of 1,100 m, about 32 kilometers south of Pazardzhik.
History
During the Hellenistic and Roman period the district of Batak was inhabited by the Thracian tribe Bessi. In the 6th and 7th centuries settled in the Rhodope Mountains, the Slavs settled. Later, at the time of the Bulgarian Khan Krum the Bulgarian border was south of Batak. From the end of the 14th century, the Rhodopes were ruled by the Turks.
The name of the city of Batak was first mentioned in the 16th century.
In Batak develop the logging and wood processing, trade, various crafts, and education and culture flourish. In 1813, the church Sveta Nedelja was (now the historic church ) was built, and 1835, the school " Cyril and Methodius " was opened.
In 1876, it came during the Bulgarian April Uprising against Ottoman rule on the massacre of Batak. Nearly the entire population was killed. Batak was consequently in Bulgaria to a central place of remembrance of the Bulgarian struggle for freedom against the Turks.
On September uprising of 1923, the population of Batak took part with a rebellious department and moved the border guards in the district Newrokop, today Gotse Delchev, on their side.
Reservoirs and hydropower plants
After the construction of hydropower Bataker path (1953-1959), the largest construction project of the second and third five-year plan, the city and its surroundings had completely transformed. So successively developed the dam Vasil Kolarov, Batak, Schiroka Polyana, Beglika and Toschkow Chark. Finish is also the first Bulgarian underground hydroelectric power plant Batak, the Peschtera, Aleko, inter alia, followed.
Tourism
Batak is a popular resort with numerous accommodation options. On the banks of dams always new rest homes and tourist complexes, hundreds of public and private villas.
In the rest homes of the health resort complex Batak every year to spend more than 30,000 Bulgarian and foreign citizens their holidays. Thousands more scattered in the vast mountains of Batak.
Attractions
- Rhodope, among others with the 2082 m high Bataker Schneeberg ( Bataški Snežnik ) in unspoilt islands
Sons of the city
- Ilija Balinow (* 1966 ), Austrian grandmaster in chess Bulgarian origin
- Angel Marin, Vice- President of Bulgaria