Bulgaria Inside

The town of Chepelare is the home of one of Bulgaria’s unique museums. It has been named Museum of the Rhodope Karst and is situated on the ground floor of Peshterniak hotel.

Reaching the museum is relatively easy and even if you fail following the signs, local people will be glad to show you the direction. If you are traveling towards Pamporovo, enter Chepelare and head to the second bridge. You need to turn there, crossing the main Chepelare street. A second left turn will follow immediately and you will see the hotel. Peshterniak hotel resembles a typical Alpine hut.

The Museum of the Rhodope Karst is unique for both Bulgaria and the Balkans. Most of the exhibits were discovered in the Rhodope Mountains and have been displayed since 1980. It provokes the imagination of visitors, getting them acquainted with unusual artifacts, little known facts and the history of caving in the country.

Chepelare has been selected as the location of the museum for a purpose. The efforts of a local caving group gave birth to a mineralogy club, which later on grew into a caving club. Members of the club explored over 500 caves in the region. Three of them are accessible for tourists today. These are Iagodinska, Diavolskoto Gurlo and Ouhlovitsa caves.

Museum collections are dedicated to several sciences that can help us understand the secrets and treasures of caves.

The first collection is dedicated to geology. The friendly guides will show you various minerals that are typical for caves. Others can be found above the ground but are specific for the Rhodope region. These minerals include agate, ruby and other semi-precious stones. You will also see minerals that have been discovered only in the Rhodope region. Famous Bulgarian caver Iavor Shopov supplied the museum with a selection of minerals that were discovered in the Stara Planina Mountain region.

Another museum hall will get you acquainted with the 80 years of caving in Bulgaria. The collection contains photographs, books and documents.

The collection dedicated to rocks is probably one of the most famous in the museum.

Though they have been taken out of their natural surroundings, the museum presents various cave formations among which stalactites and stalagmites. You will also see some rare and less popular cave treasures.

Two other collections are dedicated to biospeleology and cave paleontology. They present the animal species inhabiting caves. Most people believe that caves are mainly inhabited by bats. The bat species in Bulgaria are 12. Yet, bats are untypical for cave fauna since they only use caves for shelter. Cave fauna actually includes species that never go outside. These animals include spiders, crayfish, centipedes and beetles. One of the beetle species is so adapted to the cave atmosphere that it dies as soon as it goes in the open space.

Cave paleontology presents the species that inhabited caves in the past. Paleontologists discovered mainly the bones of cave bears in Rhodope caves. This was the most prevalent species in Bulgarian caves but just like bats used them for shelter only. Cave bears inhabited the region 15 000 years ago. They were large, carnivorous mammals and their height reached up to 4.5 m.

Apart from bears, cave leopards inhabited the region. In the museum, you will see the lower jawbone of a leopard, which is the oldest remain from the species in Europe.

The collection contains the remains of deer species that disappeared long time ago and rhinoceroses that inhabited thousands of years ago the territory where Bulgaria is located today.

The museum’s final collection is dedicated to the presence of humans in caves. Most of the oldest exhibition items were discovered in Iagodinska cave and are believed to be 6000 years old. The collection includes ceramic dishes, weapons, tools and remains of human bones.