Zheravna

Zheravna is a village in a fold of the eastern Balkan holding around two hundred houses of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, built almost entirely in timber with stone ground floors, projecting upper storeys, carved ceilings and heavy stone-slab roofs, and the whole settlement is an architectural reserve with no modern building permitted. It was a wealthy sheep-farming and trading village and declined after the nineteenth century, which preserved it. Several houses are open as museums, including the birthplace of the writer Yordan Yovkov. A large festival of traditional costume is held on a hillside nearby each August, at which participants are asked to wear period dress and leave modern items out of sight.

History

The area held an old Thracian village called Potuka, and Zheravna itself grew up between the 12th and 14th centuries; long called Zheruna, it took its present name gradually after 1878. It prospered in the 17th century on the main road to the old capital of Tarnovo and by the 18th century was a centre of crafts and culture, which gave it its wooden houses with carved ceilings, doors and iconostases, and it had schools of woodcarving (Wikipedia, Zheravna).

What's there

• Two hundred timber Revival houses - the whole village of one period.
• Carved ceilings and projecting storeys - the interiors and the street fronts.
• Stone-slab roofs - the heavy roofing typical of the region.
• The August costume festival - the gathering on the hill nearby.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. The costume festival falls in August and fills the area completely. House museums have limited hours and some close on Mondays. Autumn colour is good.

Practical notes

Some houses are derelict and the village has an ageing population. Museums are individually ticketed with irregular hours. Roads in are winding. The festival weekend makes accommodation impossible for a wide area.

Nearby

Kotel is north; Sliven and the Blue Rocks lie south-west.

Key facts