Youth Hill

Overview

The Youth Hill is the highest of today's six hills of the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. Its altitude (or elevation) is 307 m. Its relative height relative to the average altitude of Plovdiv (164 m) is 143 m. The hill is located in the western part of the city.

The hill has the most famous names among the Plovdiv hills. In ancient times it was called Dryad's Nymph Hill. It was also called Djendem Tepe (Turkish: hell hill / distant hill) or Djendema, due to the then distance from the city center. During the Ottoman period it was called Jin Tepe - Hill of Ghosts, gradually changed to Jendem Tepe. It was also called Chigdem Tepe - Hill of Crocuses.

In ancient times on the hill was a Thracian sanctuary - a temple of Apollo of Kendresia and deities such as the nymphs Dryadi. It is said that a huge bronze statue of the god Apollo stood on top of the hill until Late Antiquity. In the early Christian era there was a large three-nave basilica, which was erected on the site of the pagan statue destroyed by Christians. The basilica was the subject of research by Plovdiv archaeologist Ivan Djambov.

The geological aspects concerning the composition, the way of formation, the age and the structure of the hill and the other hills in Plovdiv have been the subject of consideration since the time of the first researchers of our lands in the XIX century. In 1878 a Russian trigonometric sign was placed on the hill.

In 1948, youth brigades began to work on the "ennoblement" of the hill. Their current name is connected with them. Together with the hills Danov Hill and the Hill of the Liberators, the hill was declared a natural landmark in the beginning of 1996. Before that in 1970 only 30 decares on the southern slopes of the Youth Hill were declared a natural landmark.

The rich specific flora and fauna of the Youth Hill is largely due to the fact that it is not as urbanized as the other hills.