Komatevo () is a neighbourhood of the city of

Plovdiv Plovdiv (, ) is the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, second-largest city in Bulgaria, 144 km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia. It had a population of 490,983 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is a cultural hub ...

, southern

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. It has 6,500 inhabitants. Komatevo was a village up to 1969 when it was incorporated into Plovdiv together with Proslav. The neighbourhood is connected to the city center through the Komatevo highway. There are also roads to the villages of Markovo and Parvenets.

History

The first sources for the existence of Komatevo are from 1477. The settlement was formed by Christian soldiers enjoying special privileges in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. Every year for a six months period (from 1 April to 2 October) they took care of the sultan's stables near Plovdiv or participated in the convoy of the imperial army during campaigns. According to one of the legends, when the sultan passed through the village for the first time, he was impressed by how small it was and said: "It's as small as a loaf of bread!"("Комат" in Bulgarian). Hence the name Komatevo. At the outbreak of the

Balkan War The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the ...

in 1912, four people from Komatevo were volunteers in the Macedonian-Edirne militia."Macedonian-Edirne Militia 1912-1913. Personnel", General Directorate of Archives, 2006, p. 852.

References

{{Bulgaria-geo-stub Neighbourhoods in Plovdiv