THE TOWN OF MELNIK – ARCHITECTURAL RESERVE

Nowadays Melnik is a small town but its history takes us away back into the past. Once, Thracians and Romans lived here, and the Slavs gave it its name after the surrounding sand pyramids – melove.

At the beginning of XIII c. (1215) Melnik became the capital of the independent feudal principality of Despot Alexius Slav. This was the time when the town went through its first big economic and cultural boom. Ruins from the Despot’s fortress, as well as several temples, built or reconstructed during this period, can be seen today on Sveti Nikola hill, just over Melnik.

Because of its border location between Bulgaria and Byzantium, the town of Melnik, often changed its sovereignity and was part of the territories of Bulgaria, Byzantium, the Empire of Nicaea and Serbia. The most important monument from this time is the Boyar House – the biggest partly preserved medieval house in Bulgaria.

The town went through its second economic boom in ХVІІІ-ХІХ c. when the development of wine and tobacco production started. The Melnik wine was exported all over Europe, mainly in England and Austria. At that time Melnik was populous, it had more than 70 churches, three all-boys schools and one all-girls school, and four monasteries functioning in its vicinities. Melnik was also famous for its library.

In the second half of XIX c. the town began to decline. In 1912 it became part of free Bulgaria, although burned down due to the men of Yane Sandanski.

In 1964 Melnik was declared a town-museum and architectural reserve of international importance.