Burgas

Bulgarian population settled relatively late in Burgas, beginning in the second half of the 18th century. This internal migration, which eventually led to the predominance of the Bulgarian element in the city, lasted a century and a half. The Bulgarian population came mainly from the numerous Bulgarian villages of Strandja, from villages in the sub-Balkan valleys (Aitos, Karnobat and surrounding villages) and - after autonomy (1878) and the Bulgarian Unification (1885) - from farther inland. Especially intense at that time was the migration in Burgas of entire families from the Kotel Balkan region, from other Balkan and sub-mountain settlements and from smaller coastal towns of the Southwestern Black Sea coast. The following facts are conferred as evidence for this process: about 1750, a Bulgarian named Zlatko came from Fakia village and settled in Burgas; another new Bulgarian settler of the time was Ivan Georgiev Domuzchiev (1781-1876), who came from village Dyulgerite (today. v. Zidarovo). Hadji Matthew, the ancestor of the family Hazhdipetrovi and chief founder of the monastery "St. Anastasia, moved from Kotel to Burgas at the very beginning of the 19th century. In a brebion of the (Slavic) Hilendar monastery in Mount Athos (1797-1809), dozens of residents of Burgas were registered, among which Bulgarian first names are most frequent, followed by Christian and Greek names. A report by the Russian vice-consul in Varna Olhin Alexander noted that in 1862 110 Bulgarian families lived in Bourgas and they constituted about half of the Christian population of the city.

In the 19th c., Bulgarian settlers were coming to Burgas mainly from Central South Bulgaria - Haskovo, Chirpan, Stara Zagora and Nova Zagora. Yet settlers from the more distant hinterland - from Kyustendil, Radomir and Breznik – were also not absent.

A Bulgarian community of Burgas was created in the 1860s. Significant manifestation of this process were the annual celebration of the Feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius (first celebrated in the city on May 11, 1861) and the construction of Bulgarian "St.. St. Cyril and Methodius ", the first service in which took place on April 20, 1869.^[1]

[1] Карайотов, И., Ст. Райчевски, М. Иванов. История на Бургас. От древността до средата на XX в. Бургас, 2011, с.72–73, 109–111.