Veliko Tarnovo is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria, having a history of more than 5 millennia, as the first traces of human presence dating from the 3rd millennium B.O.Tare on Trapezitsa Hill.
Middle Ages
Veliko Tarnovo grew quickly to become the strongest Bulgarian fortification of the Middle Ages between the 12th and 14th century and the most important political, economic, cultural and religious centre of the empire. The city was described by Bulgarian clericGregory Tsamblak in the 14th century as "a very large city, handsome and surrounded by walls with 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants".
In the 14th century as the Byzantine Empire weakened, Tarnovo claimed to be the Third Rome based on its preeminent cultural influence in the Balkans and the Slavic Orthodox world.
As the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Tarnovo was a quasi-cosmopolitan city, with many foreign merchants and envoys. It is known that Tarnovo had Armenian, Jewish and Roman Catholic ("Frankish") merchant quarters besides a dominant Bulgarian population. The discovery of three Gothic statuette heads indicates there may have also been a Catholic church.
Ottoman rule
The city flourished and grew for 200 years. ?he political upsurge and spiritual development were discontinued on 17 July 1393. After vigorous resistance to a three-month siege, Veliko Tarnovo was seized and the whole Bulgarian Empire was destroyed by the Ottoman Empire. Many medieval Bulgarian towns and villages, monasteries and churches, were burnt to ashes.
Veliko Tarnovo, in the Middle Ages known as Tarnovgrad (??????????) and during the Ottoman rule as T?rnova, was the location of two uprisings against Ottoman rule, in 1598 (the First Tarnovo Uprising) and 1686 (the Second Tarnovo Uprising), both of which failed to liberate Bulgaria. Tarnovo was a district (sanjak) centre at first in Rumelia Eyalet, after that in Silistria
