4.9 C
Ruse, BG
Tuesday, 28 November, 2023

Geography

The district of Ruse is located in northeast Bulgaria, on the northborder and the biggest Europea transport hub – the Danube river. The district of Ruse is one of the average sized territories with an average population (277,456.8 km2 and a population of 267,063 people). Administratively, the district includes eight municipalities, dominated by Ruse. The administrative center is the city of Ruse with a population of 167,000 people.

Natural Resources

The natural resources in the municipality of Rousse are relatively diverse, and in combination with the small territory in which they are located, this is their main advantage in Bulgaria. In this part you can see the natural resources in the municipality of Ruse, together with  the municipalities of Ivanovo and Borovo, with which they form a popular tourist route.

Rousse is also the largest Bulgarian port on the Danube river.  The transportation geography is favorable because of the intersection of 2 European transport corridors (No 7 and No 9 – the Danube River), which provide the connection between Europe and Asia (Baltic and North Sea / Mediterranean and Black Sea). The connection between the Danube and the Black Sea on Bulgarian soil (Ruse-Varna) is also made possible through Rousse. This is one of the only two bridges across the Bulgarian-Romanian Danube border – the Danube Bridge. The area is also relatively close to the Hemus Highway.

The distance from the city of Rousse to other major cities in Bulgaria is as follows: Sofia – 324 km, Plovdiv – 300 km, Varna – 200 km, Burgas – 294 km, Pleven – 148 km, Veliko Tarnovo – 110 km, Gabrovo – 150 km , Tryavna – 140 km, Troyan – 190 km, Teteven – 200 km, and the Romanian capital Bucharest is only 72 km away.

Climate

When it comes to the climate, the tourist region belongs to the Middle climatic region of the Danube plain from the temperate continental sub-region of the European-continental climate region. The characteristics of the climate elements are complex, which is related to the presence of water-land temperature contrast.

The climate is temperate continental. The summer is dry and hot, with typical summer droughts and insufficient rainfall, which in some places lead to severe erosion (e.g. Municipality of Ivanovo). The strong northeast winds are characteristic of the winter season. Autumn and spring are short-lived. Despite the cold winter, due to the low altitude, spring comes early but is colder than the autumn. The sharp contrast between winter and summer conditions characterizes the area’s climate as being continental.

The average annual temperature is around 12 ° C, the average July temperature is 20-22 ° C, and the average January temperature is from 0 to -3 ° C. Frequent phenomena are also temperature inversions, frosts and ice. Mists along the Danube River are a typical seasonal phenomenon for the region.

The average annual rainfall is 550-650 mm (slightly above the national average) and in the coastal lowlands is below 500 mm. The average annual number of days with precipitation is 138.9 days. The snow cover is about 14 cm thick and the average annual number of days with snow cover is 48.4.

Climatic conditions play a relatively unfavorable role, limiting outdoor tourism activities to several months during the year.

 

Short history of Ruse

 

Humans have lived for millennias in Ruse and its surroundings. There are many traces of their presence – settlement mounds, towns, necropolises, monuments. It is not general knowledge that the city and the region have a unique cultural and historical heritage of national and world importance. There are also many places that are important to the local community for the formation of its cultural identity. Knowledge of the existence of these sites is paramount for their protection.

Rousse is an old Bulgarian port town on the Danube river. From time immemorial, people have settled down to the river, which gives them their livelihood – this is how a mound settlement was created in prehistoric times in the area. The found clay idols, fosterers of life, are now preserved in the Regional Museum of History in Ruse. The houses in the settlement mound were arranged in lines, creating streets. It is necessary to speak of a protocol on the territory of the Ruse settlement mound – five millennia BC.

At the beginning of the 1st century AD, the Romans established a military camp here, where the navy along the Lower Danube gathers during winter times. At the mouth of the river Rusenski Lom are anchored ships “pristis”, which gives the city its name — Sexaginta Prista, meaning Port of the sixty ships. According to others, the name “sixty ships” meant the number of ships with which a legion of soldiers could be carried. Recent archeological studies have shown that there was a Thracian settlement long before the arrival of the Romans on the high coast at the mouth of the river Rusenski Lom. It existed three centuries before the New Era and traded in the eastern Balkans – amphorae from Rhodes Island were found.

In the mid-15th century, the ruler of Wallachia Vlad III conquered Rousse and liberated it from the Ottomans. Here Vlad III for the first time demonstrated unprecedented cruelty to captive soldiers by grappling them – impaling them on stakes. Because of his actions in Ruse, the Vlad III got his moniker Tepes (the Impaler). His gloomy glory remains rather known to Europeans with the name Dracula.

From the sixteenth century onwards, the town on the right bank of the Danube River (present-day Ruse) is known by its Ottoman name Ruschuk. The harbor and the good conditions for wintering ships support the development of the city during the late Middle Ages, and the Ottoman Danube fleet is located in Ruse. However, the star of Ruse arose when, after the Crimean War of the mid-nineteenth century, the principalities of Wallachia and Moldova merged into a new country – Romania, with the capital Bucharest, located only 70 km away north of Ruse. By this time Austrian steamers had already made easy access to the culture of Central Europe, so Europe penetrated the Bulgarian lands precisely through Ruse – along the Danube and through Bucharest. For this reason, many first things for Bulgaria happened during the liberation – the first railroad and railway station are being built. A modern printing house opened, the first newspaper began publishing.

As one of the main cities in the Ottoman Empire, Ruse has been gathering leading figures of the Bulgarian Revival, who have been in contact here with the rebels in Wallachia. The mythical Baba Tonka embodies the motherland whose children died for the revolution. After the Liberation, Ruse was the largest city in the Principality of Bulgaria, its economy was developing successfully, which reflected on the European appearance of its architecture. The development of the industry is the reason for the rich cultural life. In 1897 in Ruse a cinema was screened for the first time in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Navy was formed in Rousse – commercial and military, which later became naval. After the foundation of the first private bank, the first private insurance company “Bulgaria” was formed.

Today, the citizens of Ruse are proud of their modern European city, which is also the burial site of many of the most prominent Bulgarian liberation heroes whose bones are kept in the Pantheon of National Revivalists; Today, the citizens draw a confident vision for development, describing the good example of the old citizens of Ruse, one of whom, Elias Canetti, is a Nobel Prize winner in literature.