Panagurishte

Panagyurishte Панагюрище
View of Panagyurishte from the Apriltsi Memorial Complex.
Coat of arms
Panagyurishte Location of Panagyurishte
Coordinates: 42°30′N 24°11′E / 42.500°N 24.183°E / 42.500; 24.183
Country	Bulgaria
Province (Oblast)	Pazardzhik
Government
• Mayor	Nikola Belishki
Elevation	550 m (1,800 ft)
Population (December 2009)
• City	17,959
• Urban	25,343
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Postal Code	4500
Area code(s)	0357

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 due to their bravery in the struggle with the invaders.

When the Turks seized the village of Asenevtsi near Sliven which guarded the road to the capital Tarnovo, its population moved to Panagyurishte. Another wave of refugees came in the 15th century after rebellions in Albania (Debar, Prilep, Kostur and others). Even today the population uses language which is characteristic for both eastern and western Bulgarian dialects and the town is in the so-called Yat border. It was also known as "Otlukköy" during Ottoman rule.

Panagyurishte is primarily known for being the center of the April Uprising against the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria in 1876. It was capital of the Fourth Revolutionary District which was the main centre of the rebellion. The uprising was bloodily suppressed after 10 days of declared freedom, and the town was burnt down and almost completely destroyed by the Ottoman Turks. Lady Strangford arrived from Britain later that year with relief for the people of Bulgaria following the massacres that followed the April Uprising. She built a hospital at Batak and eventually other hospitals were built at Radilovo, Panagiurishte, Karlovo, Petrich and here at Perushtitsa.