History of Kyustendil

Thracian tribes inhabiting the area around the city were participants in the Trojan War on the side of Troy.

A Thracian settlement was founded at the location of the modern town in the 5th-4th centuries BC and was known for its asclepion, a shrine dedicated to the god of medicine Asclepius (the second largest in the Balkans, after the one in Epidaurus).

Pautalia obtained town rights in 106 with Serdica, Philippopolis and Augustae Traiana in the Roman province of Thrace.

In the reign of Hadrian, the people both of Pautalia and Serdica added Ulpia to the name of their town, probably in consequence of some benefit received from that emperor.

Stephanus of Byzantium has a district called Paetalia (Παιταλία), which he assigns to Thrace, probably a false reading.

The city was a sanjak centre initially in Rumelia governorate-general, after that in the Bitola and Niš vilayets (province).

He had four gates called kapı – Palanechka /to Kriva Palanka/ to the west; Niška to the north /to Niš/; Stambolska to the east /to Istanbul/ and Granitska to the south /to the Granitsa, Kyustendil Province/.

In May 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I of Austria was here, and on 9 September 1918, the Bavarian King Ludwig III of Bavaria.

He was treated between October 1916 and March 1917 at a military hospital in the city during his service on the Macedonian front, to which the 11th Army, composed mainly of Bavarians, was deployed.

Boris III of Bulgaria , Hristo Lukov , Nikola Zhekov and Georgi Todorov at the Kyustendil railway station, 1918
Kyustendil, 1690. Earliest known image. Three centuries earlier, the city had not seen a hostile army. Last year, Skopje was set on fire and the city was attacked by the Hajduks of Strahil voivode .