Smolyan

Smolyan lies among the forests and steep valleys of the central Rhodopes, along the Cherna River. The surrounding mountain district was for a time under the fourteenth-century lord Momchil before it came under Ottoman rule. In 1519 lands in the central Rhodopes were granted to the court physician Ahi Çelebi, whose name became associated with the district. Ottoman documents of the seventeenth century mention a settlement here as Ezerovo; neighbouring Raykovo and Ustovo developed as separate communities in the same mountain valley.