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Blagoevgrad ( ) is а town in Southwestern Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Blagoevgrad Municipality and of Blagoevgrad Province. With a population of almost inhabitants, it is the economic and cultural centre of Southwestern Bulgaria. It is located in the valley of the Struma River at the foot of the Rila Mountains, south of Sofia, close to the border with North Macedonia.
Blagoevgrad features a pedestrian downtown, with preserved 19th-century architecture and numerous restaurants, cafés, coffee shops, and boutiques. It is home to two universities, the South-West University "Neofit Rilski" and the American University in Bulgaria. The town also hosts the "Sts. Cyril and Methodius National Humanitarian High School". The former Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki moved from Thessaloniki to Blagoevgrad (then Gorna Dzhumaya) in 1913.
The town was renamed Blagoevgrad in 1950, after the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party founder Dimitar Blagoev, who was an immigrant from Ottoman Macedonia.
In the middle of the 17th century, the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi passed by here and wrote that the town of Orta Jumaa had 200 tiled houses, a large mosque with many worshippers and 80 souks and many mineral springs.Evliya Çelebi. "Travelogue", Sofia, 1972, p. 28
A Bulgarian quarter called Varosha was formed during the Bulgarian National Revival, with many of its typical houses and the Church of the Presentation of the Mother of God from 1844 being preserved to this day. In the 1830s, the French geologist Ami Boué passed by here and described Dzhumaya as a town of 3,000 to 4,000 inhabitants, where a hereditary voivode lived. The mosques prove that there were many Turks and Pomaks along with the Bulgarians. The streets are paved and very irregular. According to him, the Bulgarians call the town Shuma (from "shuma" - forest).''French travelogues of the Balkans, 19th century". Sofia, Наука и изкуство, 1981, p. 348 Victor Grigorovich visited the town in 1845. A chitalishte was founded in 1866. Bulgarian scholar Georgi Strezov visited the town in 1891. According to him, there were 1200 houses. Два санджака отъ Источна Македония, pp. 18-19
The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 saw the annexation of the area Ottoman rule and its integration in the Bulgarian state in the Treaty of Constantinople. Before the Balkan Wars, Cuma-ı Bala was bounded as township to Serez Sanjak in Thessaloniki vilayet.
On October 5, 1912, Gorna Dzhumaya was seized by the Bulgarian army. After the Second Balkan War War in 1913, the Turkish population was largely displaced, and large masses of Bulgarian refugees from Aegean and Vardar Macedonia settled in the town. According to Dimitar Gadzhanov, in 1916 Gorna Dzhumaya numbered about 7,000 people, of whom only 30 were Turkish families, 100 families of wealthy Aromanians and a few Jews and Gypsies. In March 1943, during World War II, the Bulgarian Commissariat for Jewish Affairs (KEV) established at Gorna Dzhumaya (modern Blagoevgrad) a transit camp for Jews deported from Bulgaria during the Holocaust. The Jews had been arrested in the new "Belomora Oblast" in Bulgarian-occupied Greece and Bulgarian-annexed Pirot in Yugoslavia. The camp consisted of a tobacco warehouse and some school buildings, under the command of KEV official Ivan Tepavski, where inmates were imprisoned and malnourished for 11–12 days before being taken to Lom, embarked for Vienna, and finally exterminated at Treblinka.
Blagoevgrad has a hot-summer continental climate with influences of a mediterranean climate due to warm air masses coming from the Sandanski-Petrich valley. The town is protected from cold northerly winds due to the natural barrier of the Rila and Pirin mountains. Mountain breeze descends from Rila along the river Blagoevgradska Bistritsa bringing cool air during hot summer days. Wind is moderate - 1.6 metres per second. Thanks to the many mountain forests around the town and the lack of industrial pollution, the air is clean in Blagoevgrad. Winter is mild, brief and marked by little to no snowfall. The average temperature in January is . Summers are long and dry, with a small amount of rainfall. The average July and August temperature is and the maximum temperature measured in Blagoevgrad is , while the record low temperature measured is The average annual temperature is around .
Industries of interest:
Since 2015, the largest shopping mall in Southwest Bulgaria - "Largo" - has been operating in the city.
Of the radio stations of regional importance, Radio Blagoevgrad, a division of BNR, stands out, which for 35 years has been on the air from Sofia to Kulata, Eastern North Macedonia and Northern Greece. The private radio networks Focus Pirin and Darik Blagoevgrad also have their own local programmes. The Blagoevgrad student radio Aura, the regional Ultra and Vega Plus, as well as numerous radios with national coverage complement the airwaves of Blagoevgrad.
Two daily newspapers are published in Blagoevgrad - "Struma" and "Vyara", distributed throughout Southwest Bulgaria. In addition, "Pirin Trud" and "Local 24 Hours" are published and distributed in the city and the region.
Total: 70,881.
Today, Blagoevgrad is one of the few places in Bulgaria where members of the small Aromanians minority of the country still live.
The Eastern Orthodox population of the town in the 19th-20th centuries was traditionally part of the Diocese of Nevrokop (since 1894 part of the Bulgarian Exarchate). After the division of the diocese between Bulgaria and Greece in 1913, from 1921 to 1928 Gorna Dzhumaya was its centre. From 1928 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1951, the seat of the diocese was temporarily in Nevrokop, and in 1951 it was finally moved to Blagoevgrad. The head of the diocese from 1994 to 2013 was Metropolitan Nathanael.
The crisis in basketball and handball provides others with the opportunity to pick up pace. Taekwon-Do, in the form of "Falcon" club has given Blagoevgrad and Bulgaria multiple European and World Championship medals, including a European Championship in 2004 (Todor Kozladerov). Baseball is a little-known sport in Bulgaria but it thrives in Blagoevgrad. The local team's name is the "Buffaloes" and its manager is Yassen Nedelchev, who also serves as the Bulgarian Baseball Federation's president. In 2010, the "Blagoevgrad Buffaloes" won their 17th National title (in 18 attempts).
The town has two multi-purpose sports halls, the second was opened in 2007, it has a capacity of over 1000 seats and meets all requirements of the International Federation of handball, basketball and volleyball, a game area may be used for competitions Rhythmic gymnastics and martial arts. The town has three well-maintained complexes for tennis, a football stadium, six small playgrounds for football, an Olympic size swimming pool, a go-cart track and one of the best games of baseball in the Balkans. In 2008 construction began on a new sports complex at the South-West University "Neofit Rilski" for the needs of its students.
Despite the well-developed infrastructure for the sports facilities, Blagoevgrad citizens often use the public space of Bachinovo park in order to jog, commit to sports activities, such as football, rugby, and frisbee and develop the community sports environment, typical for post-Soviet culture of Bulgaria.
The new facility of AUBG, the ABF center serves as occasional facilitator of the national volleyball training and competitions.
At present in Blagoevgrad there are four active male clubs, three of which bear the name "Pirin". The "A" group is PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad. Pirin Authentic, then discard it in "B" group in 2005 due to obligations to Social Security, was usurped by a group of businessmen D15, and then failed to return to professional football during the 2008/09 season and will play in the Western B Group . Pirin 2001 - the team owned by former international Ivaylo Andonov, competed in the Southwestern 'B' group. In the championship of the Blagoevgrad District League (zone "Bistritsa") features one Blagoevgrad football team - FC Athletic.
Women's football is represented by the football club Sportika - a participant in the National Championship for Women
Bansko International Jazz Festival Blagoevgrad is also one hour away from the prestigious Bansko Jazz Festival. which takes place every year in August. Former participants of Bansko Jazz Fest include Jamie Davis, Joss Stone, and Vasil Petrov.
Bulgarian National Radio Awards Blagoevgrad was also chosen by the BNR to host its annual awards show, which brought to the city Bulgaria's greatest musical talents. The recently inaugurated Art Salon of Radio Blagoevgrad is the host of monthly art shows, book opening presentations and exhibits.
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