Panagyurishte

In December 1949, three brothers digging clay near Panagyurishte struck the find of the century: nine vessels of solid gold, more than six kilograms in all — rhytons shaped as animal heads and amazons, a phiale rimmed with negro heads, a masterpiece of Thracian goldsmithing from around 300 BC. The Panagyurishte Treasure has since travelled the world's great museums as Bulgaria's most famous golden ambassador, and its birthplace keeps a place of honour for it in the town's historical museum.

Gold, however, is only the town's second claim on Bulgarian memory. Panagyurishte was the capital of the April Uprising of 1876: here the rebels proclaimed their freedom, here Rayna Popgeorgieva — Rayna Knyaginya, "Rayna the Princess" — sewed and embroidered the great silk banner with its lion and its cry "Liberty or Death", and here the Ottoman reprisals fell hardest when the uprising broke. The assembly point of Oborishte in the hills nearby, where the rebellion was voted, is a national shrine; Rayna's house is a museum, and the town's identity remains bound to those few incandescent days.

Modern Panagyurishte, prosperous from the copper mines of the Sredna Gora, has invested in itself: a renovated centre, a modern sports arena, an active chitalishte and museum life. Few towns of its size carry two such treasures — one of gold, one of memory.