Ano Vrontou ( el, Άνω Βροντού; bg, Горно Броди, ''Gorno Brodi'') is a remote mountain village and a former community in the northern Serres regional unit,

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality

Serres Sérres ( el, Σέρρες ) is a city in Macedonia, Greece, capital of the Serres regional unit and second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki. Serres is one of the administrative and economic centers of Northe ...

, of which it is a municipal unit. Each year on August

astrophotography Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was no ...

hobbyists gather there due to the clear view of the night sky, a result of the villages high elevation. The municipal unit has an area of 47.306 km². In 2011 its population was 199. Ano Vrontou is situated in the northeastern part of the

Vrontous Vrontous ( el, Βροντούς, bg, Шарлия - Sharliya) is a mountain range in the northeastern Serres and the westernmost Drama regional units in Greece. Its highest peak is the Ali Babas ( el, Αλή Μπαμπάς) at 1,849 m elevation. ...

mountains, at about 1060 m elevation. It borders on the Drama regional unit to the north and east. Ano Vrontou is 6 km northwest of Kato Vrontou, 12 km east of Achladochori, 13 km northeast of Oreini, 16 km southwest of

Kato Nevrokopi Kato Nevrokopi ( el, Κάτω Νευροκόπι "Lower Nevrokopi") is a municipality and town within that municipality in the northwest section of the Drama regional unit, Greece. Before the 2011 local government reform, it was the largest mun ...

and 26 km northeast of

Population

History

The finding of a Greek inscription of Roman (Imperial) times supports the conclusion that in the place of the present village there was an ancient settlement, whose residents were engaged in the exploitation of the iron mines of the mountain

. Brodi (now Vrontou) was first mentioned in the 14th century in a letter from the Serbian tsar

Stefan Dušan Stefan Uroš IV Dušan ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Урош IV Душан, ), known as Dušan the Mighty ( sr, / ; circa 1308 – 20 December 1355), was the King of Serbia from 8 September 1331 and Tsar (or Emperor) and autocrat of the Serbs, Gre ...

to Rayko, the ruler of Brodi and Trilisa (now Vathytopos). The Ottomans conquered the area and ruled until the Balkan Wars. Prior to the Second Balkan Wars, it had a Bulgarian majority and a Turkish minority. It had around 2,700 Bulgarian inhabitants in 1873. By 1900, its population rose to 6,100 Bulgarian Christians. In 1905 according to the secretary of the exarch Dimitar Mishev the settlement had around 6,480 Bulgarian exarchists and 240 Bulgarian patriarchists, making it one of the largest places in the area.Brancoff, D.M. La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne, Paris, 1905, pp. 198-199 The village had a large activity by VMORO in an Ottoman province. In 1903, the large settlement was visited by

Gotse Delchev Georgi Nikolov Delchev ( Bulgarian/ Macedonian: Георги/Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (''Гоце Делчев'', originally spelled in older Bulgar ...

from the Vanisha. In 1913, it had 1,100 houses and 8,000 inhabitants. In the Balkan Wars, the area was conquered and occupied by

and its residents fled northward to Bulgaria, 200 of them to Nevrokop (now

) and 300 fled to Plovdiv. They were replaced by Greeks that fled from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace during the

Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) There have been several Greco-Turkish Wars: *Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), against the Ottoman Empire *Undeclared war in 1854 during the Crimean War, with Greek irregulars invading Ottoman Epirus ( Epirus Revolt of 1854) and Thessaly * Fi ...

Notable people

* Dimo Hadjidimov,

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; bg, Вътрешна Македонска Революционна Организация (ВМРО), translit=Vatrešna Makedonska Revoljucionna Organizacija (VMRO); mk, Внатр� ...

(IMRO) revolutionary leader * Tasos Stambouloglou (b. 1938), Greek poet and literary critic * Georgi Sivkov (1909–1964) Leader of the Bulgarian Fatherland Front ''Otechstven Front''

Literature

Vasil Kanshov on Ano Vrontou (Gorno Brodi)
* Vidoeski, Bozhidar ''Gorno Vrodi, Drama'', Skopje, 1992 XVII 2, p 5-89

References

External links