THE VILLAGE OF ZABERNOVO AND PARORIA PROTECTED AREA

Area Descriptions

The old name of the village is Zaborna – with an element of the Thracian language "-berna", -perna" which means "full, rich, abundant".

The village is situated at the foot of Bosna - Ugrash ridge, under Bisama hill. Ugrashko hill is the watershed between Dudenovska and Zelenikovska rivers (to the north), Oryashka (to the east), and Stramnitsa and Zaberska (to the south). Ugrash is a universally acknowledged place for haidouk gatherings, where the detachments of Indje and Strati voivodes met.

Zabernovo is the birthplace of the popular in the early twentieth century children's writer Grandfather Blago (Stoyan Rusev) and of the most famous folklorist and researcher of Strandja Goro Gorov.

The village fair is on the day of Golyama Bogoroditza (August 28).

ST. LUKA CHURCH

The oldest surviving village church in Strandja. It dates back to the seventeenth century and is a monument of culture. It is low, and almost half of it is dug into the ground. The walls are built with stone blocks. The apse is decorated on the outside with a brick ornament "wolf’s tooth" and a travertine block with a raised equal cross. At the altar there are five niches, and in the middle there is a round window with a grid of two crossed sticks. The open narthex and the school room belong to a later construction period (nineteenth century). Today, the room which is a type of church school is reconstructed and open to visitors.

CHAPELS

St. Petka – located 5 km northwest of the village. Built in 1869 on a site which is supposed to have been the site of a medieval monastery with the same name.

St. George – located about 2 km south of the village. At the altar there is a built in slab depicting a Thracian horseman.

Holy Ghost – 1 km east of Zabernovo, close to a dolmen.

PARORIA PROTECTED AREA

It is located between the steep valleys of Zaberska River and Kazanski Dol, between the villages of Kalovo and Zabernovo. Its centuries-old forest, the ruins of medieval monasteries and the dozens of chapels scattered in the vicinity, make it one of the most valuable areas in Natural Park "Strandja". Particularly interesting is the legend about the medieval parorian monastery of Gregory of Sinai, hence the name of the place – Paroria.

The main credit for its becoming a protected area should go to one of the most prominent ethnographers, folklorists and researchers of Strandja – Goro Gorov.

Category: PARORIA Protected Area

Size: 988.6 ha

Location:
District: Burgas, Municipality: Malko Turnovo, Town/Village: the villages of Zabernovo and Kalovo

Documents declaring it a protected area: Order №845 of 31.10.1991

Purposes for declaring it a protected area:Preservation of a territory covered by virgin tree vegetation (forests) combined with cultural heritage.

Mode of activities:

1. Prohibited: construction and other activities which could change the natural environment in the area or the water regime.

2. Prohibited: importation of non-indigenous to the area plant and animal species.

3. Prohibited: felling of trees except sanitary.

4. Prohibited: grazing of goats and pigs.

5. Prohibited: disturbing the birds during their breeding season, destroying their nests, collecting their eggs, and their young ones.

6. Prohibited: picking of herbs and wild flowers, and destroying wild plants.

Overlap (partial or complete):

1. Natural Park: STRANDJA

2. ЗЗ from the Birds Directive: Strandja

CENTURIES-OLD TREES:

InParoria Protected Area is the thickest and probably the oldest (1000 years) tree in Strandja – oak Quercus (in Tumba area).

In Tulpan area is the centuries-old oak, with a circumference of 5.30 meters and a height of 24 meters.

Interesting is the centuries-old eastern beech in Razklona area, north of the village of Zabernovo, which has preserved on its bark an inscription by Bojko voivode from the late nineteenth century.