Devnya Municipality | Varna Province | Bulgaria

Geography of Devnya Municipality

Berkovitsa Municipality covers an area of 464 sq km. It is the southernmost municipality of Montana Province. It lies on the northern slopes of the western Balkan mountains, with hilly terrain broken up by streams flowing through its territory. The area is rich in wildlife and vegetation, with blueberries and raspberries filling the stomachs of many a wanderer during long summer afternoons.

There are 20 villages and towns in the municipality with a total population of about 18,000 people. Almost 75% of the population, over 13,000 people, reside in the town of Berkovitsa. Barziya, population 1400, and Zamfirovo, population 1200, are the only other villages of any size. None of the rest rises above 300 souls. They include Balyuvitsa, Bistrilitsa, Bokilovtsi, Borovtsi, Chereshovitsa, Gaganitsa, Komarevo, Kostentsi, Kotenovtsi, Leskovets, Mezdreya, Parlichevo, Pesochnitsa, Rashovitsa, Slatina, Tsvetkova Bara, and Yagodovo.

Economy of Devnya Municipality

Devnya municipality is an economically developed region. The industry, which has developed in the following directions: production of soda, fertilizers, heat, production of building materials, sugar, etc., is of decisive importance in the structure of the municipal economy.

The main factors determining the condition of the municipal economy are:

macroeconomic situation
the strategic position of the municipalities of Varna, Devnya and Beloslav designated as a region for growth and development of the region as a national transport and logistics center linking European corridors 7 and 8 with TRACECA – Eurasian Corridor 8
the development of socio-economic links with the border municipalities – Provadia, Suvorovo, Beloslav
production facilities and technical infrastructure
The municipality has several of the largest chemical plants in the country – Solvay Sodi AD, Agropolychim AD, Polymers AD. The construction industry is represented in two directions – production of building materials – Devnya Cement AD and construction activity – Factory Works AD. For industrial purposes, Deven Plc produces heat for the needs of Devnya enterprises. The food industry includes the processing of unrefined sugar by Devnyski Sugar Factory EOOD.

Agriculture
The agricultural sector in the municipality is represented by three agricultural cooperatives, tenants and private farmers. 52 thousand acres of agricultural land are cultivated, on which wheat, corn, barley, sunflower and others are cultivated. Livestock production is mainly developed in the private sector and in the Cyprus Cooperative.

Tourism in Devnya Municipality

Roman and Early Byzantine city of Marianopolis (II-VI Centuries C.E.), Roman villa with Mosaics (IV-VI Centuries C.E.), Roman Amphitheatre (II-III Centuries C.E.).

Thracian rock hewn cemetery (Kipra)

The land of the village of Cyprus was inhabited from ancient times. The earliest traces of human life here date from the Stone-Copper Age (Eneolithic) – V millennium BC. – 3200 BC and the Bronze Age (3200-1200 BC) 1.

To the east of the village of Cyprus, at the foot of the Frangen Plateau, there was a settlement dating from the Copper Age, and to the very plateau to the northwest of the village is located a Thracian necropolis from the end of the Early Iron Age (5th c. BC) 2. In 1941, several graves were discovered at the foot of the Zhang Bair hill. They were carved into the rock like troughs and covered with stone slabs above. There were clay urns filled with the dead bones of the dead man. Of particular interest is one of the urns3. The vessel has one of the usual forms of Thracian burial urns. However, a rare motif for decoration was used here – a cross with broken shoulders, the so-called swastika4. The settlement of that time was located to the south, on a sloping terrace at the western end of today’s village. Later, in the first centuries after Christ, the Thracian settlement was moved east of today’s village. There, on the slope of the hill, in the first half of the 3rd century, was erected a sanctuary of the Thracian God-horseman (Heros). Evidence of this are the four vowed reliefs dedicated to the Thracian God-horseman found here5.

At the beginning of the 1st century, the Thracians were conquered by the mighty Roman Empire. During the Roman era, new settlements emerged, roads and fortresses were built. The land of the village of Cyprus falls within the urban territory of the Roman and early Byzantine city of Marcianopolis 7 (founded in 106 by Emperor Mark Ulpius Trajanus) on the occasion of his victories over the Dacians in 101-102 and 105-106).

Traces of the Marcianopolis – Noviodunum road (Noviodunum, present day Isakcha, Romania) 8 have been found southeast of the village of Cyprus in the Futula area9. There are also traces of a road station. A road column bearing a Latin inscription was found near this time in 1943. It is dedicated to the emperors Theodosius I (379-395) (Flavius ​​Theodosius) and his son Arcadia (383-408) (Flavius ​​Arcadius) and dates between 383 and 393 AD.10

The land of the village of Cyprus was also inhabited during the early Middle Ages. In 1958, a pot and a hatchery were discovered in the Oreshaka area, west of the village, of an early medieval pagan necropolis with corpses destroyed during the plowing11. The settlement to which the necropolis belonged has not been discovered so far. There are also three ceramic kilns dating from the early Middle Ages, discovered during excavation work in 1982 in the center of the village. The excavator almost completely destroyed one and damaged the front of the other two furnaces. The excavation works also completely destroyed the ceramic workshop. The furnaces are completely buried in the clayey terrain. They have the same construction – single-storey (single-chamber), circular with hemispherical vault and dimensions – floor diameter 2.20-2.25 m, height of the vault 1.20 m. At the bottom of the furnaces a chimney-shaped square with walls 0.16 / 0.21 m. The furnaces have been used for a long time, proof is the repeated smearing that was carried out in places where the clay was burned out by the high temperature. From the repeated burning of the fire, the walls of the furnaces were baked to 0.35-0.40 m. The furnaces were abandoned and there were no baked vessels left in them. During the clearing of the embankment, small fragments of early medieval pots were discovered to give an idea of ​​the production that had burst into them. The fragments found belong to the two main types of ceramic products used in the Bulgarian state towards the end of the 8th and the first half of the 9th century. and then applying the ornament of polished stripes. The fragments from the oven bins are exactly the same as the pot and the jug found in the nearby Proto-Bulgarian necropolis in the Oreshaka area, which indicates that they were made in the open pottery workshop. Vessels of similar shape and decoration were found in both pagan necropolises in the eastern industrial zone of Devnya and in the Slavic necropolis near Razdelna village. This suggests that ceramic production in a significant area around medieval Devina was made in the same ceramic workshop. The pagan early Bulgarian necropolises near Devnya and Razdelna date from the second half of the 8th and the first half of the 9th century. The fragments of vessels found in the ceramic kilns of Cyprus, typical of the necropolises of Devnya and Razdelna, allow them to be referred to at the same time12.

In the fall of 1964, a collective find of bronze Byzantine coins weighing 9.9 kg was discovered on plowing land in the village of Cyprus, northeast of medieval Devina (Devnya) 13. The treasure contains 888 anonymous bronze coins (27-34 mm in diameter and 8-21 g in weight), cut on behalf of the Byzantine emperors John I Zimischiy (969-976), Basil II and Constantine VIII (976-1025), Constantine VIII and Roman III Argier (1028-1034) 14. The coins (placed in a clay pot from which only debris was found) were hidden during the invasion of the Pechenegs south of the Danube in 1032 (or 1034) 15.

Museums in Devnya Municipality

Mosaic Museum

Notable People from Devnya Municipality

Lazar Dukov Politician