Gabrovo

Gabrovo was a crafts and then a textile manufacturing town, which made it prosperous and gave it a national reputation for thrift that Bulgarians turned into a genre of jokes, told the way Scots or Aberdonians are in Britain, and the town has leaned into it: the House of Humour and Satire, opened in 1972, is a substantial museum of caricature, satirical art and comic material with a large international collection and a biennial festival. Gabrovo also claims the geographical centre of Bulgaria, marked by a monument. The town itself is a long industrial strip along the Yantra with a small Revival centre. The Etar open-air museum and Shipka pass are close, and most visitors use the town as a base for those.

History

Lived in since the Neolithic, the area gained importance once Veliko Tarnovo became the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 12th century, though medieval Gabrovo was a pass village of about 100 houses; after the Ottoman conquest it drew refugees and grew into a small town and a centre of crafts and learning. The first Bulgarian secular school, the Aprilov National High School, was founded here in 1835, the Ottomans proclaimed it a town in May 1860, Felix Kanitz called it a big workshop living from water power in the 1870s, and around and after 1878 its factories earned it the name of the Bulgarian Manchester (Wikipedia, Gabrovo).

Highlights

• The House of Humour and Satire - caricature and satirical art with a biennial festival.
• The thrift joke tradition - the reputation the town trades on.
• The geographic centre marker - the monument to the middle of the country.
• The small Revival centre - the old core along the Yantra.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. The humour museum closes on some Mondays and the biennial festival falls in odd-numbered years in May. Most visitors combine it with Etar and Shipka.

Things to know

The town is industrial and largely unattractive outside the small old centre. The humour museum is idiosyncratic and much of the material needs Bulgarian context. It is a base rather than a destination.

Nearby

Etar open-air museum is south; the Shipka pass lies beyond it.