Биоразнообразието в Родопите

ROUTE 1

Hiking trail for the spring, summer and autumn seasons:

Uzunov kamak area, near village of Arda – “Livadite” protected area the village of Smilyan. Total length: 19,15 km

To get to the starting point for this trail first you have to go to the village of Arda. It is 36 km to the south of the town of Smolyan. The village, named after Arda river is situated in close proximity to Arda River springs. The local community organizes annually a festival on August 2nd, St. Ilia’s day (Ilinden). Hundreds of people from different places come to Arda village for the local celebration. The botanical garden in the village is worth seeing, and if you seek challenges enlist for a visit to the “Garden of Tarzan”, a mini adventure park, at the Tourist Information Center in the village. The trail starts from “Uzunov kamak” barbecue, passes through lovely meadows, set with fragrant flowers and herbs, to lead you to “Dyadovata reka” attraction place. Here you can take a rest – having a cup of aromatic herbal tea or a glass of buttermilk, a cold yoghourt drink named by local people “airan”. The route continues to the east through flowery meadows, mixed beech and pine forests. Then you get to “Kyoshka” site where the view to the peaks of the Rhodope Mountains is magnificent. In Antiquity one of the roads, connecting the Roman province of Thrace with the Aegaen sea coastline at Kavala, Northern Greece, crossed the area. Sections of well preserved stone pavement are still visible. To the north of the shelter, built at “Kyoshka” site raises the Rhodopean peak Kom. Evidence from archaeological excavations associate Kom peak with a significant ancient Thracian sanctuary, and legends associate the peak with the struggle of local people to keep their faith at the time of Ottoman invasion in the area.

The Turkish invaders destroyed churches and monasteries. Part of the inhabitants were killed, others were forced to change their faith, some of the people with great difficulty kept their religion. It was very difficult for them to realize their Christian traditional duties. There was not a church and a priest. Like the First Christians they relied on the holy Gifts. At that time the first underground church in the Rhodopes was “built up”. It was on the Kom peak, above the village of Arda – Smolyan region. The church had neither a roof nor walls; there was not a vault either. The church bell couldn’t be heard, the people knew the holy days without having a calendar. The church was dug by the shepherds. We don’t know much about the church but by the archaeological researches nowadays (“The results from archaeological excavations – Kom peak” by Roumyana Georgieva we realize that it has existed. The legend says that people from distant places went to pray to that only church in the Rhodope Mountain.

A group of young people started restoring the old chapel of “St. Ilia” on the high peak.

From the shelter at “Kyoshka” area the trail goes on to the protected area “Livadite”(“the meadows”), near the village of Sivino. The large natural habitat of Lilium Rhodopaeum Delip near the village of Sivino is of classic type, because this endemic plant for the Balkans flora was found and described here for the first time. There are only two other habitats in the Central Rhodope Mountains where you can see Lilium Rhodopaeum Delip. If you visit the region in the end of June or in the beginning of July you can enjoy from the specially established platform for observation the meadow, colored in the bright yellow of this protected flower. From here you continue your passage north-east and reach the old iron wire fence that guarded the state south border with Greece till 1989. Only the remaining concrete pillars and fragmented sections from the fence nowadays remind us of the period of the Cold War.

The route crosses through the village of Sivino and continues 10 km to the North to the village of Smilyan, following a forest road along the shore of Sivinska River, listed as a site of the European Nature 2000 protected network. In Smilyan don’t miss to visit the ethnographic exposition of “Smilyan Kidney Beans and Traditional Rhodopean Slippers” and the Visitor Information Center, both situated in the building of community cultural center “Prof. Asen Zlatarov”. There you will learn more about the biodiversity and the caves in the area and the Rhodope Mountains.