The town of Ruse is located on the right bank of the Danube river, approx. 320 km north-east of Sofia, 200 km north-west of Varna and 100 km north-east of Veliko Turnovo. Ruse is an old Bulgarian town with traditions in culture, art and education and with very developed industry and trade. The greatest and the most important town on the Danube River, it is also known as “The Little Vienna”, because of its ancient architecture which dates back from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. There are 19 museums worth visiting, number of hotels and restaurants, cafes and clubs.
The excellent geographical and transport location, the culture-historical heritage and the beautiful natural resources provide good potential for diverse forms of tourism including cultural, rural and ecological tourism. Other interesting places to visit are the archeological reserve “Ivanovo rock churches”, the archeological reserve “Tcherven”, the Bassarbovo rock monastery, the Wooden park “Lipnik”, the Park zone around the hut “Prista”, the island “Ljuljak”, the Cave “Orlova tchuka”. In the eastern part of the Danube plane, just about 20 km south of Ruse, is situated a unique and picturesque site of Bulgarian nature – the Natural Park “Rusenski Lom”. Its name comes from the river Rusenski Lom - the last right tributary of The Danube and spreads over 3,260 hectares of land situated along the banks of the rivers Mali, Cherni and Beli Lom with length of approximately 42 kilometers. It characterizes with rich biological diversity to a priceless cultural heritage, combined with pleasant climatological conditions. Excellent opportunities for bird watching, hiking, riding and biking tourism /marked routes for hiking, cross-country riding and biking, as well as eco-educational trails are available/. Bassarbovo monastery is the only active rock monastery in Bulgaria today. It is situated in the canyon-like valley of the river Lom, home of another three hundred rock premises, forty of which has been used as churches. Most of the monasteries were inhabited after XIIth century AD and some of them even before that. Part of them was naturally formed, while the local people cut others out. Nowadays the monastery is very beautiful and well preserved. The green yard is decorated with lots of flowers, bushes and fruit trees. The path in the yard leads to a well, dug out by St. Dimitar. The water within is healing and many of the visitors after tasting it come back to the monastery again. Bassarbovo monastery is visited by a lot of pilgrims and tourists from all over the world. Ivanovo rock churches are situated 15 km from Bassarbovo monastery. They have been included in the List of UNESCO protected historical monuments as ones of worldwide significance.HISTORY: Rousse is an ancient Bulgarian borough and a port on the Danube River. People settled here in ancient times since the river provided a living. As seen on the prehistoric settlement hill, the people in that earliest period lived in a place with clearly distinguished residential and public buildings, streets and neighbourhoods. The clay idols worshiped as guardians of life that have been found during excavations are now kept in the museum.
The castle was on the main road from where Belgrade is today to the delta of the Danube River. As the milestones that were once at the exits of Sexsaginta Prista indicate, that was the starting point of roads to the towns of Nove (Svishtov), Martianopolis (Devnya), Odesos (Varna) and Nicopolis ad Istrum (near the village of Nikyup, district Veliko Tarnovo). Written sources show three versions of the name of the castle: Sexsaginta Prista, Sexsanta Prista or just Prista. The root of the first part of the name is the Latin numeral sexsaginta, which translates as “sixty”. The second part comes from Greek (prista, pristis) and means a kind of an ancient speedy battle ship with oars. It is supposed that there were 60 berths in Prista, hence the name of the castle: the port town for sixty ships. Felix Kaniz, an Austrian-Hungarian scholar, was the first one who identified Rousse of today with the ancient castle of Sexsaginta Prista. The Skorpil brothers were the first ones to make archaeological excavations. They described the castle, investigated some burial places, collected coins and items used in the day-to-day life and published some of the inscriptions they had found. No systematic excavations have been made on the site where the castle used to be. However, some rescue excavations have been made on spots jeopardised by modern city development. It is through them that the northeastern battle tower, a part of the northern wall and the remains of four buildings have been investigated. The tower is rectangle, its inner sizes 4,00 Х 3,80 m and its walls 2,70 m thick. 50 m of the northern wall are preserved. Its width is between 2,75 and 3,00 m. An official inscription dated to the reign of Diocletianus (298-299) announces that the fort was restored as a praesidium (a large garrison settlement) after it was ruined by the raids of the Goths (250 A.D). Sexsaginta Prista shared the doom of the rest of the forts on the right bank of the Lower Danube. It was destructed by Avars and Slavs in the late 6th and early 7th century. At a later time, in 9th-10th century, its ruins served as the foundations of a medieval Bulgarian borough called Rousse. In the course of time it became a fort on the Danube River and resumed its guarding functions. The archaeological finds dated to the First Bulgarian Kingdom provide evidences of the existence of that Bulgarian fort and settlement. In the heathen period (till the mid 9th century) the settlement was called Rousse on the name of a feast called Roussalii. Researchers say that there was a cult to Maiden Roussa who was believed to protect young men in battle units.TRANSPORT FACTS: Rousse is a major centre for transport. Two of the Pan European routes have their crossing point here: Corridor 7 and Corridor 9. The Danube waterway was connected in 1992 to the Main River and the Rhine River via the Europe Canal. Thus, Corridor 7 from Rotterdam to Thessalonica is the key axis of European inland waterways. Corridor 9 links North, Middle and East Europe to the Aegean Sea via Danube Bridge at Rousse and Giurgiu. To finalize that corridor, the railway line from Rousse to Podkova needs to be extended via the border with Greece to Komotini, and the motorway needs to be extended to Porto Lago likewise. The project for a tunnel under the Shipka Pass is on that corridor.
Rousse is a strategic northern gate to Bulgaria as via the Danube River the country is open to Central and West Europe. Hence it is the biggest Bulgarian river port. In terms of cargo turnover, in better times it ranked from the sixth to the third busiest port among the principal ports of the other countries on the Danube alongside with Reni, Galati, Izmail, Budapest and Linz. Rousse Port Complex embraces port Rousse-West; port Rousse-East and the ports of Svishtov, Somovit, Tutrakan and Silistra. The headquarters of the Bulgarian River Shipping Company are in Rousse. It was established in 1935 when the first passenger line Rousse-Vidin-Rousse was launched, with the reconstructed steamers the Iskar, the Vit and the Osam. Originally, river passenger transport was a division within the National Bulgarian Railway Company. It was only on 30 May 1940 when it became an independent shipping company. It received four cargo ships with refrigerator units built in Regensburg – the Rousse, the Vidin, the Lom and the Svishtov, plus a ferryboat, the Sofia, built in Walsum am Rhine for a railway connection between Bulgaria and Romania, and three passenger ships built in Budapest that were very sophisticated for that time: the Tsar Boris III, the Tsarina Joanna and the Prince Simeon. A substantial number of pushers, tugboats and barges were procured after the end of World War Two. However, it turned out that those manned and unmanned barges, tankers, ferryboats, hydro buses, high speed hydro gliders were not cost-effective on the Danube River. While over 1 million passengers were transported on the river in 1956, the local passenger shipping was getting inefficient and it was finally stopped in 1992. Unlike the rest of the countries on the Danube, which procure new modern ships and Danube River shipping makes rapid progress there, Bulgaria experiences just the opposite processes. The country used to have 19 river ports, most of them on the routes of Rousse-Vidin-Rousse, Rousse-Svishtov-Rousse and Rousse-Silistra-Rousse. Compared to the post-World War One period when Bulgaria had the smallest fleet on the Danube River, after World War Two it organised a big fleet that provides cargo traffic to any port on the Danube, from Germany to the Ukraine. Any of the four catamarans named after Bulgarian khans transported 49 lorries per run from Vidin to Linz and Passau (Germany). The Interlighter International Shipping Company with headquarters in Budapest used to provide river-sea-river liner services from ports on the Danube River to Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore and the Mekong River in Vietnam. It is a joint venture of the shipping companies of Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. A ferryboat operates between Rousse and port Reni in the Ukraine.Surrounding areas: Prista Western Park is located at the distance of 6 km from Rousse along the road to the town of Byala. There are beautiful deciduous forests, well shaped lanes, tourist can visit the the Danubian island of Lyulyaka, Prista Chalet, Lyulyaka Camping, the Danube Motel, Ribarska Koliba (Fisherman’s hut) - interesting restaurant. There are town bus lines _ No. 6 and No. 16 running to the park. Another big site for recreation, sports, tourism, sunbathing and all other kinds of entertainment is situated at the distance of 12 km east of Rousse _ the Lipnik Forest Park. There are country houses, restaurants, artificial lakes, a hotel, a zoo corner, a sports base and a camping site. There is a town bus line functioning in this direction.
Obraztsov Chiflik (Exemplary Farm) is situated at the distance of 3 to 4 km from the Lipnik Forest Park and possesses beautiful deciduous forests, fertile land and vineyards (an example of the economic development in the past) and two little sprightly tourist chalets _ Zdravets Chalet (40 beds in 1 suite and in 2-, 4-, 5-, 6- and 9-bed rooms, tel.: 082 233609) and Minzuhar Chalet (45 beds in 2-, 3-, 5- and 14-bed rooms, tel. for reservations - in the Prista Tourist Association, Rousse). There is a regular bus line (Rousse - Obrzatsov Chiflik) and one can walk to the Minzuhar Chalet in 30 minutes from the last stop and another 30 minutes to the Zdravets Chalet along a marked track.
The Roussenski Lom River Valley, along with its tributaries Beli (White), Malki (Little) and Cherni (Black) Lom represents a unique world in itself in which the amazing nature is entwined into out remote past history. Part of the valley with the territory of 3260 hectares was proclaimed a Natural Park (at the distance of 20 km south of Rousse). The rivers have created incredibly beautiful gorges into the limestone rock foundation. It is genuine joy for the eyes and real paradise for rock climbers.
One of the most significant military, economic and cultural centres of Bulgaria during the 13th and the 14th centuries was located there_ the Medieval Town of Cherven (on the right bank of the Cherni Lom River, by the name of the same village, at the distance of 31 km south of Rousse). Out of the preserved ruins most interesting are the parts of the fortified walls, the defensive tower (used as a model for the restoration of the Baldwin Tower on Tsarevets Hill in Veliko Turnovo), the two gates, the castle, the foundations of a great number of churches, the foundations of the boyar palaces, the two unique in their kind water pumping facilities with vaulted staircases, etc. There is a regularly functioning bus transport to the village.
Many monks-hermits settled down in the valley during the late Middle Ages. Whole monastery complexes were created there - Ivanovski, Maluk Rai (Little Paradise), Golyam Rai (Great Paradise), Koshouta (Doe) and churches with exquisite mural paintings, a part of which was preserved. The mural paintings of the Ivanovski Rock Churches (on the Roussenski Lom River) are one of the summits of Medieval Bulgarian Art (work of masters from the Turnovo School of Painting). In 1983 they were entered into the cultural list of UNESCO protected sites. There is a regularly functioning bus transport to the village of Ivanovo.
The Alpinist Chalet is situated on the bank of the Roussenski Lom River, at the distance of 6 km south of the Prista Chalet (14 beds on plank-beds and 6 bungalows with 36 beds in 2-, 3- and 4-bed rooms, reservations at Prista Tourist Association, Rousse) with perfect possibilities for rock climbing along routes with different categories of difficulty. It is located at the distance of 1 km south-east along an asphalt road from the village of Bassarbovo. There is regular bus transport to the village.
The Bassarbovo Monastery is situated at the distance of 2 km from the chalet. The village of Pissanets with the Mamoulya rock phenomenon and the strongly fortified Pissansko gradishte (ruins of an ancient town) are situated at the distance of about 25 km south of Rousse, on the banks of the Beli Lom River. There is regular bus transport to that site.
The Danube River provides great opportunities for recreation, water sports, water tourism, fishing and lots of entertainment. There are wonderful little places, like the islands of Lyulyaka and Mateya, the riverside at Stulpishte, Marten and so on. The shelters for accommodation are not few in number, there are attractive public catering establishments, sports bases, tourist chalets, beaches and all of them are accessible either by car or by public transport.
