Mandritsa

Mandritsa (Bulgarian: Мандрица, "Small dairy"; Albanian: Mandricë) is a village in southernmost Bulgaria, part of Ivaylovgrad municipality, Haskovo Province.

[citation needed] The locals preserved their Souliot national dress until the 19th century, when the fustanella was substituted by Thracian breeches.

A large number of the residents fled back to the Ottoman Empire, where they remained as refugees for six months before heading to Greece in 1914 through Constantinople and Rodosto.

Today, Mandritsa is a small village of around 70 residents, part of them still speaking a distinct Tosk Albanian dialect.

The village has well-preserved three-storey adobe and brick houses which represent the Thracian style featuring wood-carved ceilings, wrought iron balconies and columns.