😵 🧗🏽 🤟🏼 Balkan Mountains: full description ↕️ 🤷🏿 💴

Balkan mountain range, Stara Planina (Old Mountains) - one of the most beautiful mountain systems in Europe. We learn more about its main characteristics and distinctive features.

Acquaintance with the Old Mountains

Stara Planina (the Serbian and Bulgarian name for the toponym) is the second name of the Balkan Mountains or the Balkans, as they were called earlier. Today, the last name was assigned to the Balkan Peninsula itself. In ancient Greek mountains are called Αἶμος , in Latin - Haemus. They are considered the largest mountain system of the Bulgarian state, the western extensions of which can be found on the territory of today's Serbia.

The mountain range divides modern Bulgaria into North and South, crossing this country from west to east. Earlier, the Balkan mountains separated northern Moesia from southern Macedonia and Thrace. This mountain system is a natural neighbor, a continuation of the ranges of the Southern Carpathians, which intersect with the Iron Gate (narrowing of the mouth) of the Danube River on the border of Romania and Serbia.

Where the Balkan Mountains are located, it immediately becomes clear from the name of the mountain system - it is she who gives the name to the entire peninsula on which it is located. Detailed coordinates: 43.2482 north latitude, 25.0069 east longitude. The total length of the mountain ranges is 555 km. The height of the Balkan Mountains does not exceed 2376 m - this peak is limited to the mountain peak Botev.

Characteristics of the Stara Planina mountain system

Stara Planina, formed in the Cenozoic era, has a number of distinctive characteristics:

Geological indicators: Balkan mountains are peaks parallel to each other with supposedly flattened ridges. Their composition is as follows: Precambrian and Paleozoic granites and crystalline schists, as well as Mesozoic conglomerates, flysch, sandstones, karst and limestones.
Description of the relief: the northern half is represented by gentle slopes passing into the foothills closer to the Lower Danube plain. The southern ranges, on the contrary, are more abrupt and steep.
Climatic characteristic: the mountains serve as a kind of climatic divide between the northern and southern regions of Bulgaria. Their ridges collect up to 800-1000 mm of rain annually; For several months of the year, the peaks lie under snow caps.
Hydrography: in the Balkan mountains you can find the sources of such rivers as Ogosta, Vit, Lom, Osym, Timok - from here their channels go north to the Danube. In the east, the Stara Planina River is crossed by the Kamchia River Valley, and in the west by the Iskar River.
Flora: mountain peaks are meadows, meadows. The northern slopes, characterized by increased humidity, are coniferous (pine forests) or beech, oak, and hornbeam forests that rise up to 1700-1800 m. The eastern regions of the Balkan Mountains are covered with a dense cover of deciduous forests, characterized by an evergreen undergrowth, a network of vines.
Mining: brown and hard coal; iron, copper, lead-zinc ores.

History and Modernity

For the first time, the Bulgarian-Serbian name for the Stara Planina mountain system was recorded in 1533. On the northern slopes of the Balkan Mountains, tourists can meet many monuments belonging to the era of the Bulgarian national liberation movement. The Monument of Freedom stands out especially. A number of monasteries - Kremikovsky, Sokolsky, etc. also found their shelter in the mountains.

Mineral sources of mountains on the Balkan Peninsula became the basis for a number of famous mountain resorts - Ribaritsy, Varshets, Teteven and others. The Steneto National Park and the picturesque passes: Shipkinsky, Petrokhansky, Virbišsky, Chureksky, Republic Pass and Iskar River Gorge are no less popular.

The western region of Staro-Planina is rich in karst, which is why mountain tourists in these places tend to admire amazing karst caves: Rabishskaya (here you can also find primitive cave paintings), Ledenika, Syyeva-Dupka, etc.

Mount Botev

The highest point of the Balkan Mountains was originally called Yumrukchal (in translation - Kulak Mountain). Four years (1942-1946) it was called the peak of Ferdinand in honor of the king, who rose to its peak. After that, again for four years she was Kulak Mountain, until in 1950 she gained her modern name - by the name of Hristo Botev, a revolutionary and poet of Bulgaria.

On top of Botev, there is a television and radio station whose signals cover 65% of the entire territory of the Bulgarian state, as well as a weather station, which was captured by the Nazis during the Second World War and worked for them. Today, in the latter, tourists can relax, hide from the weather, have a bite to eat. On its walls, travelers attach memorial tablets about their ascents.