Chiprovtsi[3] (Bulgarian: Чипровци, pronounced [ˈtʃiproft͡si][4]) is a small town in northwestern Bulgaria, administratively part of Montana Province.

After the suppression of the uprising, some of the town's population fled to Habsburg-ruled lands; those unable to flee were killed or enslaved by the Ottomans.

The name is of Slavic origin, but may be linked to the archaic Greek loanword kipos (κήπος, "garden"),[5] a word also borrowed by Serbian.

[6] The town has been conventionally divided into several neighbourhoods (ma(h)ali); most are named according to the profession and social status of their residents.

In 1888, D. Marinov recorded the existence of the Srebril or Srebrana ("Silversmiths'"), Kyurkchiyska ("Furriers'"), Pazarska ("Merchants'"), Tabashka ("Leatherworkers'"), Partsal and Trap neighbourhoods.

The gold, silver, lead, copper and iron mines brought sizable revenue to the Romans, who took good care to protect these from barbarian attacks.

After a period of renewed Byzantine rule in 1018–1185, it was part of the Second Bulgarian Empire until its conquest by the Ottomans in the late 14th or early 15th century.

Some researchers estimate their arrival in Chiprovtsi to be in the mid-14th century, the time of the last Bulgarian emperors, while others claim they reached the town during the early Ottoman rule of Bulgaria.

Their exact number and place of origin are also vague, although the German miners were widely recruited as specialists in medieval Wallachia, Transylvania and Serbia.

[15] They were, however, gradually assimilated by the local Bulgarians by the mid-15th century, as indicated by German names with Slavic suffixes in the population registers.

According to the research of Croatian historian Vitomir Belaj, the Catholic Franciscans had arrived from medieval Bosnia in western Bulgaria at the time of Bosnian vicar Bartul Alvernski ("Bartholomew of Alverno"), who himself originated from Italy, in 1366.

[17] As the Ottomans subjugated the Balkans in the 14th–15th centuries, they valued the Chiprovtsi mines for their military and civil needs and sought to renew the ore extraction that had been interrupted by warfare.

Renewed exploitation of the local deposits is thought to have commenced by the late 15th century;[18] a note of 1479 mentions that the mines "in Bosnia, Herzegovina and other places" had been rented.

The special status of the area meant that the local Christians would not be subject to the usual discriminatory laws, but would have to pay an annual tribute of silver to the sultan.

Solinat was succeeded by a Bulgarian bishop, Iliya Marinov of Chiprovtsi, who was in turn followed by another local, Petar Bogdan Bakshev,[27] who travelled to Wallachia, Warsaw, Vienna, Rome and Ancona looking for funds and support for the community.

[28] The evolution of Chiprovtsi from a mining town to a trade hub owes much to the settlement of merchants from the Republic of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia) and the quality of the local metalworking, as well as the lack of permanent Ottoman presence and the privileges enjoyed by the population.

By the mid-17th century, mining was in decline, as the silver deposits had been all but exhausted (in 1666 there remained only 16 iron smelteries),[23] forcing the population to seek a more profitable occupation.

The local residents produced and traded with leather, carpets, fabrics, clothes, remarkable gold and silver jewellery, metal tools, cattle, etc.

Later, however, they appeared at the markets in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Bucharest, Odessa, Braşov, Sibiu, Belgrade, Buda and Pest, with a particularly strong presence in Wallachia and Transylvania, where they established permanent agencies and sizable companies in Târgoviște, Câmpulung and Râmnic during the rule of Matei Basarab (1632–1654).

The international trade broadened the outlook of the locals and introduced the ideas of the age and the European culture of the time to the region.

In his 1650 account to the senate of the Republic of Venice Petar Parchevich described the long preparations for an armed struggle and the support-seeking visits of his fellow townsmen to the kings of Poland and Austria.

Since then, the inhabitants of Chiprovtsi waited for the suitable moment when they would be able to instigate an effective uprising and continued to co-operate with the leaders of the European realms.

The leaders of Chiprovtsi assessed that after the imminent capture of Belgrade by the League in 1688 their European allies would reach Sofia and end the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria.

[31] The insurgents were aided by six regiments of regular Habsburg army and artillery under General Heißler and managed to briefly capture the town of Kutlovitsa (modern Montana), but were ultimately crushed by the Ottomans and their Hungarian ally Imre Thököly.

[40] The western traveller Ami Boué, who visited the town in 1836–1838, reported that "mainly young girls, under shelters or in corridors, engage in carpet weaving.

[42] In the 1950s, ore output was renewed in the region, briefly revitalizing Chiprovtsi through the influx of young and highly educated people.

[43] After the democratic changes in 1989, mining was discontinued again due to a lack of funds, the factory was closed and the carpet industry has been in decline as it had lost its firm foreign markets.

[50] In September 2008, it was reported that one of the few fluorite deposits in Europe located near Chiprovtsi would be developed by a Bulgarian company that had leased the mine for 20 years.

The practice exists since time immemorial and the family saint is thought to have been chosen by the taking of a random candle by an unaware person.

These present the domestic life from Antiquity through the Middle Ages and the 17th-century heyday until today, as well as works of the Chiprovtsi goldsmithing and carpet industry.