"Oh, Shipka" Shipka by Scarlie

The project design following the seventeen-century Russian church architecture with arks, friezes, pediments, and gold-plated ornaments, was the work of the Czeck architect A.I. Tomisko.

The main entrance has three arks, topped off with the distinctive 50m-high spire of the bell tower. There are 17 bells, the heaviest of them weighs about 12 t.

One of the most famous historic landmarks, the Shipka Monument commemorates the heroic defence of the pass during the Russo-Turkish war in 1876-1877 when 6,000 Bulgarian and Russian volunteers held off 27,000-strong Turkish army for a number days. The battle took a particularly vicious turn when the defenders ran out of ammunition and had to resort to throwing rocks, and even the bodies of their fallen comrades.