Late antique and medieval fortress Gradat - Kramolin village

Overview

The village of Kramolin is located about 13 km north of the town of Sevlievo, 30 km east of the town of Lovech, 22 km southwest of the town of Pavlikeni and 35 km northwest of the center of Gabrovo. It is located in the Middle Fore-Balkans, in the Devetashko Plateau, about 2.5 km north of the Mugara River, flowing east into a deep valley and flowing into the Alexander Stamboliyski Dam about 4 km southeast of the village. The predominant slope of the terrain is to the south-southeast, the altitude in the center of Kramolin is about 417 m, increases to about 450 m to the north and west and 480 m to the northwest, and decreases to about 390 - 400 m to the south and 370 m to the southeast. Remains of three ancient settlements and an ancient and medieval fortress with a church, which functioned from the 6th to the beginning of the 7th century, have been found in the area of ​​the village. Finds of stone tools, iron spearheads and arrows, bronze axes, stored in the Historical Museum in Sevlievo, show that these lands were inhabited by people during the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. There are Thracian burial mounds in the land of the village. There are numerous finds of coins - collective and single, from the time of Philip of Macedon (359 - 336 BC), the Roman emperors Septimius Severus (146 - 211), Elagabalus, Gordian, Aurelian, the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman, the Sultans Mustafa III, Mahmud II, Abdul Majid and others. With the name Karamolin (Kramolina) the village is mentioned in Ottoman-Turkish documents from 1430, as Garamolin - from 1618 and as Karamulin - from 1638. It is assumed (Professor N. Kovachev) that the name of the village is related to the old Bulgarian word "sedition" - quarrel, war, and that (Yordan Zaimov) is associated with the missing personal name Kramolin. The village of Kramolin from purely Christian and Bulgarian during the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottoman Turks, over time in the XV century and later became a mixed Bulgarian-Turkish. Whether there was a colonization of the Muslim population or the emergence of Muslims was associated with the Islamization and assimilation of the local Christian population cannot be said with certainty due to lack of sources. In the 18th century, Muslims gained numerical dominance. After the plague epidemics in the early nineteenth century, however, Bulgarian Christians again became the predominant part of the population. It is believed that the Bulgarian church in Kramolin survived and continued to exist after the Ottoman conquest. In 1843 a church was built, which was demolished due to its weak foundations, and north of its foundations in 1903 the Church of the Holy Ascension was built. The archeological site "The City" is located 3.5 km southeast of the village. Remains of fortress walls, medieval churches and a boyar castle stand out there. The natural protection of the area is provided by 90-meter sheer cliffs descending to the Mugger River from the north. It is accessible only from the west. Three kilns for the production of building ceramics have been discovered at the foot of the peak. Archaeological excavations of the area were made by specialists at the Sevlievo Historical Museum in the 1980s. It is assumed that the fortress existed during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom - XII - XIV century. The fortifications are built of well-worked stones, welded with white mortar. Remains of a Christian necropolis with over a hundred burials have been discovered around the remains of one church. There are well-preserved walls over three meters high, arches and foundations of churches. From the rocky crown there is a beautiful view of the valley of the river Mugar and the dam "Stamboliyski". The site is easily reached by a dirt road indicated by signs. There is a picnic area with a shed and a table with benches, but there is no drinking water source nearby.