Kazanlak

People have lived on the site of Kazanlak since the Neolithic, in the sixth and fifth millennia BC. In the late 4th century BC the upper Tundzha valley belonged to the Thracian king Seuthes III, who founded Seuthopolis just to the west, and the valley filled with the burial mounds of the Thracian aristocracy — among them the painted beehive tomb that was discovered in 1944 and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. In the Middle Ages the valley was the centre of the Krun region, ruled by the boyar Aldimir, and after 1370 it fell to the Ottomans.

The modern town dates from the early 15th century, when it was founded as a military fortress to protect the Shipka Pass; its name comes from the Turkish Kazanlık. It grew into a town of craftsmen, with more than fifty trades, from tanning and coppersmithing to goldsmithing, weaving and shoemaking. Above all it took up the oil-bearing rose, which had come from central Asia by way of Persia, Syria and Turkey and found the valley's soils and moisture ideal; Kazanlak rose oil went on to win gold medals at exhibitions in Paris, London, Philadelphia and Milan.

The battles for the Shipka Pass in 1877 were fought in the mountains just above the town. After Bulgarian independence the old crafts declined with the loss of the Ottoman markets, and textile and military industries took their place. The population, about 9,000 in the 1880s, grew with migration from the countryside to more than 60,000 by 1985, then fell quickly in the hard years of the 1990s as people left for Sofia and abroad.

The rose is the town's emblem. Kazanlak has celebrated the Rose Festival since 1903, in the first week of June when the oil-bearing rose comes into bloom. The programme brings ritual rose-picking in the surrounding villages, folklore performances and traditional dances, and the crowning of the Rose Queen, and a parade lasting more than an hour on the Sunday ends the festivities. The festival has grown into an international event that draws thousands of visitors.

The town has a long tradition of education and culture. Early in the National Revival its people were already opening schools and reading centres, among them a teachers' college that trained teachers for the whole country. The Iskra chitalishte, founded in 1860, remains the cultural centre, with a library, theatre, cinema and museum, and it hosted the first Bulgarian opera, Siromahkinya. Kazanlak honours the writer and artist Chudomir with a literary and art museum in his house, and the composers Petko Staynov and Emanuil Manolov are among the many artists associated with the town. One of the country's largest musical-instrument factories has worked here for more than ninety years.

Religion is overwhelmingly Orthodox, and the memorial church and the monument on Shipka Peak make the surrounding mountains a place of national remembrance for the war of 1877–78.

About 41,000 people live in the town, according to the national statistics office's estimate for the end of 2025, down from a peak of more than 60,000 in the mid-1980s. It is the second-largest settlement in Stara Zagora Province and remains one of Bulgaria's leading industrial centres. Manufacturing dominates the local economy — metalworking, hydraulic components and machinery — and the defence manufacturer Arsenal, founded in 1924, provides work for a significant share of people in the town and nearby villages. Textile mills and the musical-instrument works add to the industrial base.

Farming is the other pillar. The fertile alluvial land around the town is planted mainly with roses and other perennial crops, and the harvest of rose blossom and the production of rose oil for perfumery matter greatly to the local economy, along with oilseeds and herbs. Tourism, centred on the tombs and the festival, is the third main sector.

Daily life follows the rhythm of a Bulgarian provincial town: coffee in the pedestrian streets of the centre, a hospital serving five municipalities of the valley, schools ranging from a national high school of plastic arts and design to technical colleges, and evenings in the parks. In late May and early June the rhythm changes, as pickers head into the fields early in the morning and the town fills for the festival.

The rose flavours the town's specialities. The town's rose products include rose jam, rose liqueur and gyulovitsa, a rose brandy, and these can be tasted in the Koulata quarter. The Damask rose, sometimes called the Bulgarian rose, is harvested for rose oil and is also used to make rose water.

The town also has a breakfast of its own: Kazanlak doughnuts, a particular type of doughnut named after the town, count among the classic Bulgarian breakfast foods alongside banitsa, a pie of filo pastry layered with whisked eggs, yogurt and white brined cheese, served hot or cold with yogurt, ayran or boza. Lyutenitsa, a relish of peppers, aubergines, carrots, garlic and tomatoes, comes smooth or chunky, hot or mild, and is often served on bread topped with white cheese.

Rakia, the fruit brandy of south-eastern Europe, is the usual spirit, normally around 40 per cent alcohol and often much stronger when made at home, and wine holds a prominent place, as it does across Bulgarian cuisine.