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Name:
Плиска (Pliska). This is the name for the excavation ground of the former capital as well as the
name of the nearby village - both are around 3 km away.
Location:
Madara is a place in north-east Bulgaria at the edge of the Ludogorsko-Plato plateau not far from the
Provadiyska river, which is flowing into the Black Sea at →Varna.
The closest city is Нови Пазар (Novi Pazar), the next bigger city is called
Шумен (Shumen), which is around 20 km to the
south-west.
To →Varna in the east it's around 80 km, to
→Veliko Tarnovo in the west 150 km and to →Ruse in the north-west
it's more than 120 km. Madara is in the middle of nowhere, so to say.
Population: Of course, no one's living at the excavation site. The nearby village is very small.
Orientation:
The recent excavation site is around 24 hectares wide and consists of single restaurated gates, walls, foundation walls etc.
There's a parking lot in front of the site.
History:
Pliska was probably founded in the year 681 AD and was supposed to serve the newly created
First Bulgarian Empire as its first capital (see also →History of Bulgaria).
And so it became the first capital of the Bulgarians until the year 811, when proceeding Byzantine troops looted the capital.
Nevertheless, it was still used as a capital until the year 893, when the emperors shifted the capital to
Preslav south-west of Shumen and just a few kilometres away from Pliska.
Pliska was not just the political, but also the trade and cultural capital of Bulgaria, giving important impulses to Eastern Europe.
At that time, during the 9th century, two monks called Method and Cyrill reformed the Azbuka, today known
as the Cyrillic alphabet. Pliska was an important base for the dissemination of not just the new writing system but also of
christianity all over the Balkan up to the present-day →Czech Republic.
After loosing its privileges of being a capital, Pliska never recovered. Due to the decline of the First Bulgarian Empire,
Pliska finally vanished - just to be excavated some 1100 years later by some enthusiastic archaeologists.
Getting there:
As already mentioned above, bigger towns in the vicinity of Pliska include
Нови Пазар (Novi Pazar) and
Шумен (Shumen). Novi Pazar is halfway on the railway line from
→Varna to →Ruse. There are also many trains
to Shumen from →Veliko Tarnovo and other bigger towns in Bulgaria.
From there, the only option without your own vehicle are local buses to the village of Pliska. From there it's a 30 minutes walk to
the excavation site.
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