The Kardzhali Regional Historical Museum

The Kardzhali Regional History Museum is housed in a stately building constructed in 1965. The exhibition consists of 45,000 items tracing life in the Eastern Rhodopes from Antiquity to the early 20th century.

The museum is in building from 1920, an architectural monument of culture. The exhibition was open to visitors in 1987 and occupies 1800 sq. m.The exhibition halls are on three floors. The museum building has a 15 decarес yard with a water park.

On the first floor there are nine halls that trace the development of life in the region from the 6th century BCE to the Middle Ages.

Of particular interest is a community burial site from the Neolithic Age, photos of other rock burial sties, sanctuaries, sacrificial slabs, Roman pottery, jewels and artifacts from Christian tombs, and so forth.

Here are petrified fossils of oysters, snails, sea urchins, sea stars, coral, trees, and even fish. There are also medicinal plant collections, ore-bearing minerals, and photos of unique rock formations resembling a hay stack, mushrooms, an elephant, and stone forests. There are photos of fractured alpine landscapes caused by shifting tectonic plates, among illustrations of other natural wonders.

Icons from the end of the 17th and 18th centuries with brilliant aesthetic qualities, exhibits from the 19th century - carving, stone and wooden sculpture, metal sculpture, church plate are among the exhibits.

There is an ethnographic exhibition that takes up in ten rooms, with displays from the 19th and 20th centuries. Here visitors can observe the region’s characteristic activities, such as agriculture, herding, coal mining, metalworking, shoemaking, sewing, weaving, and making cloth on a loom. There are also installations displaying the traditional folk celebrations and customs of inhabitants living in the Kardzhali region.

 

Availability for visits: Yes, Paid, all year round, available guide

Transport accessibility: Road

Tourist infrastructure: Yes - hotels, restaurants