industry. During the 18th century, Turkish brigands used this remote town as a hideaway and supply point, and the town was named after their leader. The best known of these brigands was led by Pazvanto?lu Osman Pasha, who ruled most of the northeastern Bulgarian lands and the Danube estuary until 1807.
Kardzhali and its neighborhood became part of the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia under the stipulations of the Berlin Congress of 1878, but, after the reunification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885, it was ceded back to the Ottoman Empire as a township of G�m�lcine sanjak in Edirne vilayet. Ottoman rule ended during theFirst Balkan War, with its liberation by the Bulgarian General Vasil Delov on 21 October 1912. The day has been annually celebrated, since 1937, as a municipal holiday through concerts and commemorative events. Kardzhali was declared the center of Kardzhali Province, which was founded from in the southern part of Stara Zagora Province in 1949
