Ovech Castle lies in Provadia town in the northeastern Bulgaria, in Varna Province, close to the Black Sea. The medieval Bulgarian name corresponds directly to ovca = sheep. Ovech was key center of the First Bulgarian Empire with an important monastery at the modern village of Ravna, of the church consecrated in 897, and a major scriptorium of the Preslav Literary School. The rebel leader and subsequently emperor of Bulgaria Ivaylo defeated in 1279 a 10,000-strong Byzantine army near the city. During the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 14th century Ovech was the seat of a metropolitan. Ottomans captured Ovech after a long siege in 1388. In the 17th and 18th century Provadia /Turkish name/ was a commercial center of the Ottoman Empire and inhabited by many Jewish and Ragusan /Dubrovnik/merchants. The 16th-17th-century Dubrovnik-style church still stands in the nearby village of Dobrina.
Ovech Castle lies in Provadia town in the northeastern Bulgaria, in Varna Province, close to the Black Sea. The medieval Bulgarian name corresponds directly to ovca = sheep. Ovech was key center of the First Bulgarian Empire with an important monastery at the modern village of Ravna, of the church consecrated in 897, and a major scriptorium of the Preslav Literary School. The rebel leader and subsequently emperor of Bulgaria Ivaylo defeated in 1279 a 10,000-strong Byzantine army near the city. During the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 14th century Ovech was the seat of a metropolitan. Ottomans captured Ovech after a long siege in 1388. In the 17th and 18th century Provadia /Turkish name/ was a commercial center of the Ottoman Empire and inhabited by many Jewish and Ragusan /Dubrovnik/merchants. The 16th-17th-century Dubrovnik-style church still stands in the nearby village of Dobrina.