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city in Teteven municipality, Lovech oblast, Bulgaria
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Teteven (Bulgarian: Тетевен, pronounced [ˈtɛtɛvɛn]) is a town on the banks of the Vit, at the foot of the Balkan mountains in north central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the Teteven Municipality which is a part of Lovech Province. As of December 2010, the town had a population of 10,733.
Teteven is located in a mountainous area, in the foothills of the Balkan mountains between the peaks Ostrich, Petrahilya, Cherven, Treskavets and Vezhen. The river Vit meanders through the town. The altitude of Teteven district varies from 340 to 2100 m, and in the town center it is 415 m. The climate is temperate continental with cold winters and cool summers. The territory of Teteven is about 697 km2, which is 16.86% of the territory of Lovech district.
The town was first mentioned in a written document in 1421. It is thought that the town's name comes from the family of a certain Tetyo (Tetyov rod), who settled in the area and founded the town. Older variants of the town's name found in documents are Tetyuven and Tetyuvene.
A thriving city in the 16th and 17th centuries, Teteven was raided by organised Turkish brigand groups in 1801, burnt down and almost completely destroyed, with only four houses surviving out of a total of 3,000. The town later revived and was active in the armed struggle for Bulgarian independence in the 19th century, sheltering a revolutionary committee part of Vasil Levski's organised rebel network.
Each summer a large chess tournament, one of the biggest events in Bulgaria's chess calendar, is held in Teteven.
Teteven Glacier on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Teteven.
Teteven combines the beauty of the surrounding scenery with the towering hills and peaks Petrahilya, Ostrich, Cherven and Ravni Kamak, the cool breeze of the Vit river, and the spirit of centuries past, hovering in the multitude of monuments, ancient Bulgarian architecture, and customs and manners that have remained intact in time. Astounded by the sights revealed before him in his visit to the town, Ivan Vazov exclaimed: "Had I not come to Teteven, I would have remained a foreigner to mother Bulgaria ... I have been wandering, I have been rambling, but I have not seen a more wondrous paradise."
There is a historical museum in Teteven, which is among the Hundred National Tourist Sites of the Bulgarian Tourist Union.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Teteven”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.