Memorial-ossuary of Botev rebels

Overview

Botev's rebels were defeated on Vola Peak in 1876. Twelve rebels, led by Georgi Apostolov, set out for the village of Lyutibrod, but in the Rashov Dol area, they were ambushed and killed. The leader of the Ottomans, Saadatin Effendi, ordered their heads to be cut off, impaled, and taken to Orhanie / today's Botevgrad /. The ominous procession passed through Skravena. All the locals were taken outside to see the slain rebels, as a warning of what would happen to them if they disobeyed the Ottomans.

The villagers offered a ransom to the Ottomans and asked them to leave the heads so that they could bury them. The Ottomans, knowing that it was not good to make a lot of noise because of the European journalists monitoring the empire,  agreed that the heads would stay in Skravena. One of the Ottomans, however, took two of the heads to show them in his village of Ugurtsi, now Gurkovo.

The women from Skravena washed the ten heads and wrapped them in homemade linen.  The heads were chained and buried by priest Dimitar and his son Georgi in the yard of the village church. On June 3, 1930, they were moved to a special place inside the church. In 1982 they were laid where they are now.

It was this ossuary that caused Orhanie to be renamed Botevgrad.