Panagyurishte

Panagyurishte (Bulgarian: Панагюрище, international transliteration Panagjurište) is a town in Pazardzhik Province, Southern Bulgaria, situated in a small valley in the Sredna Gora mountains. It is 91 km east of Sofia, 43 km north of Pazardzhik, and 37 km south of Zlatitsa. The town is the administrative centre of the homonymous Panagyurishte Municipality. As of December 2009, it has a population of 17,959 inhabitants. The root of the name, "panagyur", comes from the Greek πανηγύρι, panēgýri, a festival or fair. In the Middle Ages there was a settlement near the modern town. In the course of the Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars large part the population was killed and the rest had to move to a new location. The survivors called themselves levents...