Targovishte

Targovishte (Търговище, pronounced tuhr-GO-vi-shteh) is a city in north-eastern Bulgaria, on the border between the rolling Danube Plain and the foothills of the Balkan Mountains. With a population of about 35,000 (2021), it's the centre of Targovishte Province,  to the north-east of the capital Sofia,  east of the Black Sea coast (at Varna) and  south-east of Ruse on the Danube. A relatively green and quiet provincial city that sees few international tourists, it can be a pleasant rest stop when travelling. Unless you are a major lover of Bulgarian history, most of the local attractions are of the "if you are already there anyway" variety.

Name
Targovishte's name comes from Slavic roots that can be interpreted as "trading place", or less literally, "market town" - this is why several settlements with almost identical names can be found all around the Balkans. Until 1934, the settlement was known as Eski Dzhumaya ('Ески Джумая'), from the Turkish Eski Cuma (or Cumayı), "Old Friday [Market]" or "Old Gathering".

Orientation
Targovishte lies in a relatively flat valley in the north-eastern part of the Bulgarian Danubian Plain, between the low heights of the Ludogorie (Turkish: Deliorman) to the north-east and the Preslavska Mountain to the south-west, a part of the Predbalkan, the foothills of the Balkan Mountains. A small river, Vrana ("black" or "crow"), runs through the city before flowing into the Kamchia.

Like many Bulgarian cities, Targovishte consists of a somewhat irregular "old town" core around which more modern neighborhoods with panel-built high-rises were added in the 1970-1980s. It also has a pedestrian main street that concentrates many cafes, shops and other businesses. The pedestrian zone runs north to south, starting from a small park next to the municipal market (incl. the St. John of Rila Church), through the Vazrazhdane square (under a large electronic clock at the top of a high-rise), and reaches the city's central square before terminating at the riverside boulevard.

History
The area has been inhabited since prehistory - the oldest finds date back to the Neolithic era, 7-6th millennium BC. The Thracians inhabited the region in Antiquity, leaving behind their burial mounds (and the Kralevo Treasure, 3rd century BC). It was then conquered by the Roman Empire, first as a part of the province of Thracia (Thrace), then in Moesia Inferior and later, Moesia Secunda.

In the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, a fortified city stood on the hills south of modern Targovishte, in the area known today as Krumovo Kale ('Крумово кале', lit. "Krum's Castle", after the medieval ruler of Bulgaria). Successively held by the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the First and Second Bulgarian Empires, the city has been tentatively identified as Missionis, a prosperous merchant city described by the medieval Arab geographer al-Idrisi in the 12th century. The fortress was razed during the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 14th century.

The modern city was established in its current location sometime in the 15th-16th century. In the 18th century, the city started holding a yearly fair for trading livestock and crafts that gradually increased in size and importance, attracting goods and merchants from foreign countries, as far as Austro-Hungary and the UK. The city suffered during the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule (1878): after the Ottoman army retreated towards Shumen, irregular troops stayed behind and started looting and burning the city, massacring almost 500 people and setting the dedicated fairgrounds on fire. After the liberation, the fair was restored with a royal decree.

After the 1940s, like elsewhere in Bulgaria the communist regime tried to develop heavy industry in the city, including a military vehicle repair plant. Industrialization had already put the fair into decline, and under a command economy its trade aspects were deemed unnecessary. Nevertheless, in the late 1980s the local government started attempts to reboot the fair as a minor industrial trade expo, like the better-known one in Plovdiv. After the fall of the regime in the 1990s, most of the city's heavy industry failed to weather the subsequent economic crisis. Today, Targovishte is an industrial town in decline that it vigorously resists: many smaller enterprises have found their niche, and a large glass factory opened in the mid-2000s, but the fair is a shadow of its former self.

By train
Targovishte is a major station on the main line Sofia-Varna and its branches. There are multiple daily direct trains to/from Sofia (5 hours), Pleven (2.5 hours), Shumen (30-50 min) and Varna (2 hours). Going to/from Vratsa, Montana and Vidin require changing trains at Mezdra; going to Veliko Tarnovo or southern Bulgaria requires changing at Gorna Oryahovitsa; going to Ruse requires changing at Gorna Oryahovitsa or Kaspichan.



By bus
Targovishte is one of the stops on the Sofia - Varna route operated by Union Ivkoni/Etap Adress/Group Plus, ensuring at least two or three buses daily from each direction, including buses that may also pass through Pleven, Veliko Tarnovo, Shumen and Dobrich. There are also smaller local companies that maintain daily lines to the nearby settlements, including Omurtag, Popovo, Shumen and Razgrad.



By car
As of early 2023, the eastern fragment of the unfinished Hemus Motorway (A2) ends east of Targovishte, at Buhovtsi; Targovishte is right on the E772 road that connects the two sections, ensuring connection to Shumen  and Varna  to the east, and Veliko Tarnovo, Pleven , and Sofia  to the west.

To the north, Republic road 49 connects Targovishte to Razgrad, merging into E70 to Ruse. South of Targovishte, Road 48 branches off E772 at Omurtag to cross the Balkan Mountains through the Kotel Pass into Southern Bulgaria, with connections via E871 and Motorway A1 to Sliven, Yambol and Burgas.

By foot
Even outside of the pedestrian centre, Targovishte is a compact and flat city so it's completely possible to hit all main points on foot. The exceptions are the fortress ruins and the hiking paths outside of town, which require either a car or using public transport (unless you fancy a hike just to get there).

By bus
Public transport is provided by passenger vans and mini-buses serving five lines. It's cheap, but the system is opaque to non-locals: schedules are available only online and only in Bulgarian, and no route map is available anywhere, even on OpenStreetMap. The fare is paid to the driver on boarding the vehicle; as of 2022, it was something like 0.40 лв, so make sure you have small change.


 * Lines 3, 4 and 10 all start at the remote railway station and their routes overlap for the two stops necessary to reach the central part of the city.
 * Line 4 starts at the railway station, zig-zags through the city and goes to the base of the wooded hills to the south, making it the only public transport allowing access to the local hiking paths and the ruins of a fortress (see below).

By taxi
As of early 2023, the municipally mandated limits on the price per kilometre are 0.75 – 1.50 лв for both day and night, which means that by law the allowed initial fee should be 1.50 – 2.25 лв, and the maximum dispatch fee is 2.25 лв. The only local taxi company that has bothered to have a website made is Elit Taxi ("ЕЛИТ ТАКСИ", +359 601 62030, +359 88 500 0077).

See

 * Picturesque 19th-century houses in various states of preservation can be found in the historical Varosha neighbourhood, south-west of the central square and across the river. Unlike the historic quarters in some other Bulgarian cities, the houses are scattered and mixed with more modern buildings; some of the houses have been turned into museums, and some - into restaurants.
 * The Regional History Museum is spread over several buildings; in theory they are standalone objects, but it makes more sense to buy the package ticket, especially if you also want a guided tour. All objects also share the same working hours.

Spring fair
Just in case you happen to be in the city when it happens: the traditional spring fair/expo is held for a week in May, ending on or containing the day of the city (14 May) - for 2023, that is 8-14 May. Trade goods are sold in the halls of the Art Gallery (mostly "made in Bulgaria" light industry products like clothing, cosmetics and furniture), but the more entertaining things are outside - an arts-and-crafts bazaar, a series of music concerts on the grassy area east of the gallery, and various common fairground attractions (food, amusement rides, etc) next to the nearby stadium (south-west of the gallery). Other events organized for the fair vary year by year.

Hiking and cross-country cycling
Modern Targovishte lies in the plain, several kilometers north of the western end of the small Preslavska Mountain (Preslav itself is at the base of the eastern end), and that's where most of the local hiking opportunities are (if you don't have a car). On the Targovishte side, there's a popular hiking area that starts where Republic Road 4 (E772) reaches the gap where it passes through the hills - at the parking lot of the Lovna Sreshta restaurant (see the Eat section), which can also be reached by public transport (bus line 4). A number of trails branch off the road that leads into the forest from the parking lot, but only two are marked:
 * Red markings - branches off to the south-west, then at the Rotary Club shelter merges back into the dirt road leading to the ruins of Missionis; after the ruins, the path climbs to the radio towers on the Kodzhakuz peak (Коджакуз, . A short road connects it to the Mladost hut (see the Sleep section; you can also eat there, or at least buy a snack or coffee).
 * Green markings - at the parking lot, cross over the bridge to the east, then follow the dirt road south until you see the markings branching off to the east. The path climbs uphill, passing through the protected area Iglikina Polyana ("Primrose Glade"), then arcing to the south and terminating by the wind turbine close to the Mladost hut (follow the paved road west to the hut).

Each route can be done for an hour or two. A number of other paths are marked on OpenStreetMap and BGMountains.org (vicinity of Targovishte online; downloadable maps for Garmin with Latin place names), so if you have a GPS-enabled device you can try following other routes:
 * If you want a longer hike, you can try descending from the Mladost Hut towards the village of Strazha (several possible routes, one going by a tank testing ground that's still occasionally used by the local AFV repair plant), though in that case you'll have to either walk from Strazha to Targovishte, or try your luck with public transport - there's a private shuttle bus to Targovishte, though you'll have to find where it stops (probably the main square).
 * A hardcore option: following various paths and dirt roads to go along the length of the mountain all the way to Veliki Preslav, about as the crow flies. There are marked trails around Preslav too, and the highest point of the mountain.

If you are traveling by car, you can also try the hike to the old bridge at Stevrek (see the Nearby section below).

Eat
The Varosha neighbourhood has a number of traditional restaurants in old (or pseudo-old) houses, and the rest of the city doesn't suffer from a lack of places where you can eat out. Just a small sample:



Connect
The area code for landline numbers is 601 (0601 if you are dialling from another area in the country).

Targovishte is covered by the networks of all three mobile operators in Bulgaria, which also means that there's also at least 4G coverage.

There's supposed to be free WiFi provided by the municipality under the WiFi4EU scheme, in three locations - around the market and the St. John of Rila Church, around the Borovo Oko pond, and around the city hospital.

Omurtag
A small town south-west of Targovishte, right by the E772. Notable mostly for being the birth place of Aleksandar Aleksandrov, the second (and last, to date) Bulgarian to fly in space - in 1988, as a part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme that invited cosmonauts from friendly nations to fill the third seat in the Soyuz spacecraft.
 * Aerospace Park by the road (E772)
 * Cosmonaut Statue
 * History Museum - has Aleksandrov's flown spacesuit.

Go next

 * Razgrad ( north) - another small province centre; it boasts the ruins of the Roman city of Abritus. Nearby is Isperih and the Thracian Tomb at Sveshtari, a.
 * Shumen ( east) - under the slopes of the green Shumen Plateau and the shadow of its huge Monument, centre of the historic Shumen region with the medieval capitals of Pliska and Preslav and the Madara Rider, a
 * Veliko Tarnovo ( west) - a picturesque city on the steep banks of the Yantra river, the medieval capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire
 * If you are travelling by car and not in a hurry, you can take a scenic (and potholed) detour by going to Tarnovo via Elena, a neat town in the Balkan Mountains with some preserved 19th century architecture. You need to take Road 508 that branches off E772 west of Targovishte and runs for another  through the countryside before merging into Road 53 to Elena. This route will also allow you to try the hike to the old bridge by Stevrek (see above).
 * Kotel ( south, through Omurtag) - a historically significant town in the Balkan Mountains, guarding a mountain pass to Southern Bulgaria (Yambol)