Arbanasi (Bullgari): Dallime mes rishikimesh

== Historia ==

 

Nder dokumentet me te hershme Arbanasi permendet ne nje dekret perandorak [[Perandoria Osmane|osman]] te [[sultan]]it [[Sulejman te shkelqyeshem]] te 1538, ne baze te se cilit sulltani i ofroi vendet e Arbanasit, [[Lyaskovets]], [[Gorna Oryahovitsa]] dhe [[Dolna Oryahovitsa]] [[kunatit]] te tij [[Vezir i madh]] Rustem Pasha si dhurate. Te kater fshatrat jan ete bashkuar nen emrin ''Arnaud Kariyeleri'' ("fshatrat shqiptare") in the document, and the first settlers may have been Albanians ndofta edhe nga [[Epiri]]; although Albanian-sounding names could be found in the Ottoman tax registers, [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] and [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] names already prevailed.

 

Regjistri i taksave shenon 1541–1544 describe ''Arnavud köy'' (also ''Darı ova'') as a village of 63 households and 72 unmarried men. In 1579–1580, it already numbered 271 households and 277 unmarried men, or a quadruple increase for forty years, indicating an influx of settlers. The village preserved its purely [[Christianity|Christian]] character and prospered in the 17th century.

 

Other sources that mention Arbanasi are the notes of Pavel Đorđić from 10 January 1595 addressed to the [[Transylvania]]n Prince [[Sigismund Báthory]]. The village is also mentioned by the [[Roman Catholic]] bishop of [[Sofia]] [[Petar Bogdan Bakshev]], who visited Tarnovo in 1640. He remarked there was a village up in the mountains, from where the whole of Tarnovo could be seen, that had about 1,000 houses, and whose population spoke Greek, whereas the neighbouring villages did not speak Greek at all. Another Roman Catholic bishop, Anton Stefanov, refers to Arbanasi in 1685 as a village of Greeks and Albanians which ranks first in [[Dacia]]. According to his account, there were Arbanasi merchants trading in [[Italy]], [[Hungary]], [[Poland]] and particularly in [[Muscovy]].

 

=== Heyday and decline ===

There is considerably richer documentary material, such as correspondence and chronicler's notes on religious books, preserved from the 17th and 18th century, that evidences that Arbanasi reached its economic blossoming between the second half of the 17th and the end of the 18th century. The settlement had over 1,000 houses at the time, its population consisting mostly of eminent merchant families who traded in Transylvania (mostly [[Sibiu]] and [[Braşov]]), the [[Danubian Principalities]], [[Russia]] and Poland. Handicrafts were well-developed, with [[copper|copper-]] and [[goldsmithing]], [[vine|vine-growing]] and [[silk]] production playing an important part. The homes of the rich merchants, as well as the five churches built in the years of progress, bear record of the economic upsurge and prosperity.