Borino

The Rhodopes are considered one of the cradles of European civilization. It is estimated that primitive people settled the region around 65,000 to 60,000 BC. The oldest evidence of human presence in the Rhodopes, flint instruments, was discovered in Borino by an archeological excavation near the current Orpheus Chalet. During fall and winter, eneolithic people lived in the caves of the region. Experts have discovered hearths from this time period dating from 4000 to 3000 BC in Yagodina Cave and idyllic figures connected with the cult to the Woman-Mother and the Sun Cult in Haramiska Cave near the Devil's Throat Cave.

Two-thousand years ago in the surrounding areas of Borino lived the Thracian tribe of Bessi. From these tribes have been discovered Thracian burial mounds on the Turlata Peak, located near Borino, and many shrines scattered throughout the area. The Shrine of Dionysius in the Rhodopes and the musical culture of the Thracians are connected with the name of the mythological Rhodope singer Orpheus, who fascinated the wind and wild beasts with the sounds of his lyre. He is the creator of the philosophical study Orphism. There exists a hypothesis, that on the Videnitsa Peak was located the famous Shrine of Dionysius – visited by Gaius Octavius and by Alexander the Great.[2]

As the Thracian civilization started to fade Roman rule entered the Rhodopes. Near Borino pieces of roads and the bridge Kemera can still be seen from this time. Near Borino ran the direct road from Philipopolis (Plovdiv) to Nicopolis ad Nestum (Gotse Delchev) and Macedonia.

During the 6th century the Slavs began to settle the Balkan Peninsula. Following the Slavs, Proto-Bulgarians arrived in the 7th century. These two new tribes, together with the Thracians created the state of Bulgaria in 681 AD. From the Proto-Bulgarians they took the name for the new state, from the Slavs they took the language – Slavic, and from the Thracians their cultural heritage and traditions. At that time each of the three tribes avowed to a different religion. To unify the people of Bulgaria Christianity was declared the state religion in 865 AD and Bulgaria was baptized as a Christian state. However, in the Rhodopes, Christianity has been spreading three centuries before the baptizing of Bulgaria. It is well known that the bible was translated into the language of the Thracians – the Bible Besika.

In 1396 AD the Rhodopes, like all of Bulgaria, fell under the Turkish yoke. From this period, in the Jumaya Duzu region near Borino, there is a medieval necropolis (graveyard) where the first graves are Christian and later graves are Muslim. Most of Bulgaria was freed from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, however according to the Bulgarian-Turkish agreement of 1886 Borino remained in the Turkish Empire. After the Balkan Wars, in 1912 Borino was finally returned to Bulgaria according to the Treaty of Bucharest (1913).

Until 1934, Borino carried the name Karabulak (kara bulak – translated from Turkish which means the "black fountain"). She arrived in the territory of Borino together with her four sons from the nearby village of Gjovren. Here the brothers started their families in four different places in the valley, thereby creating the four neighborhoods of the village. Unfortunately for the time period before 1934 there are no preserved written records for the naming, development, and history of the village. A large part of this information has been verbally passed down through the generations and preserved in local folklore and culture.

The village of Borino

In Borino until 1930 the population was exclusively Turkish. After 1930 Bulgarians began to settle in Borino from villages near Smolyan – Sokolovtsi, Gela, Solishta, Stoikite, and others. They bought land from local Turkish families who were emigrating to Turkey. Here they found better conditions for sheep raising and were nearer to their lands on the Aegean Sea (The White Sea, or Бяло море, in Bulgarian) in present-day Greece.

After 1945 the village continued to develop with the major priority being infrastructure and social-health structures – school, lyceum, and a new road to the village. In 1960 the village was supplied with electricity.

One of the black spots in the most recent history of Borino is, as it was called by the government, the “Regeneration Process,” which began in December 1975 and continued until the beginning of 1990. This process is associated with the forcing of the Turkish and Bulgarian-Muslim minority in Bulgaria to change their names (both first names and family names) to "Bulgarian" names. In spite of the efforts to violently divide the ethnic groups, toleration as a whole remains.