Ovech

Ovech rises above the deep gorge of the Provadiya River in northeastern Bulgaria. The medieval fortress was also known as Provat to the Byzantines and Pravadı to the Ottomans; its Bulgarian and Greek names both refer to sheep. A monastery at nearby Ravna housed a major scriptorium of the Preslav Literary School. In 1279 the Bulgarian rebel leader Ivaylo defeated a Byzantine army near Ovech. The town later became the seat of a metropolitan, but in 1388 the Ottomans took its fortress after a long siege. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the settlement developed as a commercial centre, home to Jewish and Ragusan merchants who traded under Ottoman rule.