Emen ( ) is a village in

Veliko Tarnovo Municipality Veliko Tarnovo Municipality () is a Municipalities of Bulgaria, municipality (''obshtina'') in Veliko Tarnovo Province, Central-North Bulgaria, located mostly in the so-called Fore-Balkan area north of Stara planina mountain. It is named after its ...

Veliko Tarnovo Province Veliko Tarnovo () is a province in the middle of the northern part of Bulgaria. Its capital city, Veliko Tarnovo, is of historical significance as it was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The province is divided into ten municipalitie ...

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 ...

, famous for the nearby

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

s and

canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

. In recent years it has become a major tourist destination, receiving both domestic and foreign visitors. Emen's population is about 100 people, but it triples during the summer.

History

The Emen cave bears evidence of human habitation, dated to the

Neolith The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

. Later,

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

settled in the area and built an outpost on Kaleto hill on the verge of the present-day village. Fortifications included a rock wall from two sides, while the other two sides were naturally protected by the vertical walls of the Emen canyon. Nowadays, parts of the wall are preserved, but treasure-hunter raids have reduced archaeological evidence. The present-day name of the village is said to derive from the times of the Ottoman rule over Bulgaria. Emen was the name of the Turk who owned all the land and Christian people of the village. With the

Liberation of Bulgaria The Liberation of Bulgaria is the historical process as a result of the Bulgarian Revival. In Bulgarian historiography, the liberation of Bulgaria refers to those events of the Tenth Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) that led to the re-establishme ...

he was most likely expelled from the country, but the village kept its name. Today, a single Turkish family lives in Emen, but it bears no relation to the previous landowner.

Geography and natural sights

Emen is located in

, about 20 km away from capital of the province. The river Negovanka, a tributary to Rositsa flows right through the village, through the Emen

Canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

and ends up in the Mihaltsi dam situated about 5 km north of the village. The name of the river comes from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and means ''short river with a near

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute ...

''. In Palaeolithic times, the river carved a

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

(or canyon), which bears the name of the village. The Emen Canyon consists of two parts, called ''Goren'' (Upper) and ''Dolen'' (Lower) ''Boaz''. The Upper Boaz stretches through 5 km from the nearby village of Novo Selo to Emen, itself. The Lower part of the canyon begins in the north part of Emen and eventually opens up after the Mihaltsi dam. The Emen Canyon was declared a ''Natural Monument'' in 1980. As a result, some human activities like lumbering and driving motor vehicles are prohibited on the area of the Natural Monument. It partially overlaps with another Natural Monument - the Momin Skok one, which encompasses a small area around the waterfall of the same name. One of the first eco paths in Bulgaria passes through the Emen Gorge on its way to the Momin Skok Waterfall. The Emen cave is located at the very beginning of the eco path. With its length of 3,113 meters, it is the 17th longest cave in Bulgaria. This has made it suitable for many human activities throughout the years. It has consecutively been used to grow mushrooms and mature cheese. In Communist times it even became an arms depot of a military base located immediately above it. Currently, human presence in the cave is, at least officially, restricted to allow for bats to breed uninterrupted. Bat species inhabiting the cave include:

greater horseshoe bat The greater horseshoe bat (''Rhinolophus ferrumequinum'') is an Insectivore, insectivorous bat of the genus ''Rhinolophus''. Its distribution covers Europe, Northern Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Asia. It is the largest of the horseshoe bats i ...

, Blasius's horseshoe bat, Mediterranean horseshoe bat,

common bent-wing bat The common bent-wing bat (''Miniopterus schreibersii''), also known as the Schreibers's long-fingered bat or Schreibers's bat, is a species of insectivorous bat. They appear to have dispersed from a subtropical origin and distributed throughout ...

greater Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality * ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record * "Greater" (song), by MercyMe, 2014 *Greater Bank, an Australian ...

and

lesser mouse-eared bat The lesser mouse-eared bat or lesser mouse-eared myotis (''Myotis blythii'') is a species of insectivorous bat in the family Vespertilionidae. This species has a wide distribution from the Iberian Peninsula to China. Taxonomy The lesser mouse-e ...

.2010 Bat Monitoring Report by the National Museum of Natural History
bg icon Speleologists from Ruse have discovered a large cave system in the vicinity of the village during expeditions between 1986 and 1991. The caves Ruse (3,306 metres long), Troana (3,234 m) and Bambalova Dupka (2,923 m) are all located in the Lower Boaz.

References and notes

Villages in Veliko Tarnovo Province {{VelikoTarnovo-geo-stub