Bachkovski monastery “Uspenie Bogorodichno” (“The Assumption”)

The beginning was in 1083, when the Georgian Grigorij Bakurian,a great leader of the Byzаntine armies in Europe, chose this place to build up a monastery where to spend the rest of its life. The temple is situated in the beautiful gorge along the Chaya river.The will of the monastery founder was the cloiser never to be ruled by the Byzantines. Тhree years after the building of the monastery the leader was killd in a battle. Untill the end of the XII century the monastic confraternity, mostly of Georgians, lived by itself.
The boom of the monastery was during the reign of tsar Ivan Asen II and especially of tsar Ivan Alexander,who renovated it and the monks were already Bulgarians. His image was portrayed in the ossuary of the monastery. The very cloiser, built by Grigorij Bakurian, was destroyed by the Ottomans in the XV century. Only the bone vault was left not far away from the monastery. In 1601 a reconstruction was begun. The wall-paintings in the narthex of the fairy church wrer made in 1643, but were very destructed.The image of the contributor – the noble George from Tcarigrad. The Middle Ages were a rich period of literacy and enlightenment in the monasterty. Much younger are the wall-paintings of the “St. Nikola”church in the southern part of the temple, made by Bachkovski masters.In 1840 Zahari Zograf also painted here. The Bachkovski monastery is situated 11 km. in the South from the town of Asenovgrad. From the monastery one can see the famous Asenova citadel, built up in the XI century.The town of Asenovgrad itself is settled in the place of an old settlement , called Stanimaka, from the IX century. It is accepted that the town is one of the oldest in Bulgaria.