Description of the attraction
The Lyutitsa fortress is located near the Bulgarian town of Ivaylovgrad, 5 kilometers southwest of it, and the Roman villa Armira is located not far from it. Lyutitsa is included in the list of the best preserved medieval fortresses in Bulgaria, it is one of the largest complexes of defense structures in the area. Other names of the fortress are the Marble City and the Kaloyan Citadel.
Researchers believe that this place was the location of the large city of Lyutitsa, which was repeatedly mentioned in medieval chronicles - in the 9-16th centuries the center of the bishopric, and in the 17-18th centuries - the archbishopric. This city played an important historical, cultural, strategic role, especially during the reign of Kaloyan, the king of Bulgaria (the turn of the 12-13th centuries). The main part of the fortifications was built much earlier - in the 4-6 centuries, this defensive point operated for many centuries (until the end of the 18th century), but later lost its importance as a fort and fell into decay. Local residents moved from this area and founded the nearby village of Lydzha in a convenient location near the mineral springs.
The ruins of the Lyutitsa fortress in the form of an irregular oval occupy a little more than two and a half hectares. The length of the walls of the fortress is 600 meters, the height is about 10. Of the twelve towers, eight have survived to this day - two round towers, nine rectangular and one in the form of a polygon with eight walls. During archaeological excavations, a citadel, a donjon, foundations from two churches, a well, the remains of a sewage system and a necropolis were also found, in which about 15 burials were preserved.
The finds found at the site of the ruins - jewelry, ceramics, coins, metal and bone household items, parts of architectural fragments - are exhibited in the Ivaylovgrad Historical Museum. Among them, ceramics are especially distinguished, which are identical to those found at the archaeological excavations in Preslav and Pliska. This fact indicates that the ancient Bulgarian fortress was a fairly large center with a highly developed culture.
