Tourist Attraction in Plovdiv:
Bachkovo Monastery

The monastery of Backovo is a monastery located a short distance from Plovdiv, Bulgaria; rises among the first foothills of the Rhodopes Mountains, in the valley of the Cepelarska River. Secondly because of its historical importance and artistic value only to the monastery of Rila thanks to the venerated icon of the Virgin (VII century), which is preserved in the main church, the monastery is a place of great devotion, home to baptisms and weddings. The monastery was founded in 1083 by two Georgian princes, Grigorij and Abasij Bakuriani, at the center of the fief given by Byzantium for the military merits under the Imperial insignia. The monastery soon expanded its territory and became a cultural lighthouse, protected by King Ivan Aleksandar, who in 1344 expanded his rule over the Rhodopean region. When the country was invaded by the Turks, the monastery played an important role in preserving Bulgarian culture and religiosity. In the center of the monastic complex there are two churches joined together: the smallest, dedicated to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, dates back to the 12th century; the great dedicated to the Virgin Mary is 1604, with narthex added in 1643. The construction of the main church dedicated to the Virgin was possible for the protection accorded to the monastery by the Greek Patriarchate, which allowed to ignore the boundaries imposed by the Ottoman government to places of worship Christians: Its size (12 for 22) makes it the only Greek cross monumental church and three apses built in Bulgarian territory in 1600 before the 7th-19th century Bulgarian Renaissance. The inside of the church was frescoed in 1850, while iconostasis icons were from the late eighteenth century. The main attraction of the church is the icon of the Virgin (Byzantine bill), which is considered miraculous and could even date back to the 7th century. His coat was produced in 1819 by the jewelery school of the same monastery. Shortly before the monastery fell under the hands of the Turks, the icon was hidden in a forest so that it would not be destroyed and for more than a century the traces were lost. It was randomly found after more than a century, untouched despite long exposure to atmospheric agents. All the years, on the Monday of the Angel, there is a procession that leaves the monastery and reaches the place of discovery. Behind the refectory is the nineteenth-century church consecrated to St. Nicholas of Bari, currently open only for baptisms. Always open to the visits is the nartheus, famous for the fresco of "Universal Judgment", made in 1840 by Zahari Zograf in its characteristic style, marked by a strong narrative taste: in the weighing of souls, those who have to be judged try to cheat but an impeccable angel traps them; among the damned, besides the characters inevitable in the Scenes of Judgment frescoed by Zahari, such as licentious damines and bearded merchants, also note the notables of Plovdiv, who refused to give their financial contribution at the opening of a Bulgarian school in their city. The painter is depicted in the upper-left panel together with the prior and the foreword. In archives, Scenes from the Bible of "Creation of Adam to Cain that Kills Abel". In the dome, "Christ-popping". Outside the monastic fence lies the ossuary chapel of the Holy Trinity, two-storey of the eleventh century. the chapel has Oriental, Armenian, Syrian and Georgian influences; the alternation of stone and cooked in the exterior masonry is inherent in the style of the first Bulgarian kingdom. Inside there are beautiful frescoes of the second half of the 14th century, among the highest examples of Byzantine art.

Attractions in Plovdiv