"Devin" a Devin Travel Page by hekate

The town of Devin has 6018 inhabitants, and stands on 710 m above sea level. It is situated on the two banks of Devinska River, in a small hilly valley in the very heart of the Rhodope mountain.

What Devin is most well-known is its mineral water springs, superb nature, and fresh mountain air. That made it one of the good balneology resorts in Bulgaria.

The resort is located 45 km north-west of Smolyan, 90 km south of Plovdiv and 198 km south- east of the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

It is 57 km and 82 km south of Krichim and Pazardzhik respectively, and 40 km north-east of Dospat.

21 km distant from Devin is the architectural- ethnographic reserve Shiroka luka.

As early as the Thracian period an ancient settlement and a sanctuary existed at that place. The ancient settlement was situated in the present boundaries of Selishte Area, on the left bank of Vucha River and was then called Diove.

When the Slavs came, they gave it the name of Dyovlen, meaning most probably a small valley, narrow lowland. The village was desolated during the attempts to convert the Bulgarian population to Islam in 1666-1671. Some of the inhabitants of the old village moved to the Vlas' huts, where they laid the foundations of the present town.

A Medieval necropolis dating back to 13th-14th century was found in the centre of the town. The names of the surrounding localities and peaks prove that this land was populated by Bulgarians ever since.

The most ancient document, which mentions the name of Devin, is of Turkish origin and represents a list of dzhelepkeshani (cattle breeders) in 1576. There are no other documents on the remote past of the settlement - most probably they were destroyed during the two devastating fires, which burnt almost everything to ashes in 1904 and 1912.

The town was under Turkish rule until 1912 and two years before its liberation the Turks renamed it to Selimie. After 1912 many newcomers moved from the surrounding villages to Devin and thus they helped its economic growth.

The present name of Devin was given to the town in 1923. In 1936 the town was renamed to Zdravets, yet this name was not kept for a long period, proving unpopular and was gradually forgotten.