The Valley of Roses
Rose Valley – Kazanlak
The Valley of Roses near the town of Kazanlak is one of the world's largest producers of rose oil. Rose is one of the symbols of Bulgaria and rose oil is known in the world as the “liquid gold.”
This is the most valuable oil of all times. During 1935-1944, a part of the Bulgarian National monetary reserve, was in rose oil.
The Persian rose, was brought here from India, making his way through Persia, Syria and Turkey. For the first time the use of roses for rose water and essential oil of the historian Ibn Holdun in his “Chronicle,” written in Cordoba in 916. He reports, that in the VIII and IX centuries, rose water, obtained by distillation, was an important trading commodity between China and Byzantium. The largest number of rose water was produced in Persia. After the XVII century, the rose oil production was dominated by Indial, and since the beginning of the XVIII century by Persian, Egyptian, Tunisian and Bulgarian oil.
The legend has it, that in the Kazanlak Rose (Rosa damascena) has been placed in the Bulgarian lands more than 400 years ago in Damascus as an expensive gift from a beautiful young Syrian girl to a Bulgarian traveller. The young man planted the flower in his garden, watered it with love and soon it filled with the aroma all the Kazanlak valley. For centuries, the Bulgarian people grow these flowers. Their petals are collected and removed from their divine extract ..
