Pleven

Pleven lies on the northern Bulgarian plain near the Tuchenitsa, a tributary of the Vit. Under Ottoman rule the settlements known as Upper and Lower Plevne grew together; by the late sixteenth century the town had Muslim, Jewish and Bulgarian Christian households. Religious endowments, schools and places of worship formed part of its urban life.

Wars damaged the town and surrounding villages in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A major flood in 1719 destroyed houses and shops in the lower town. Pleven expanded again after 1800, and by 1825 had a public boys' school, evidence of the town's developing educational institutions.