IHF/EHF Women’s Challenge Trophy 2012 Host Cities

Veliko Tarnovo

The Vasil Levski Sports Hall, named after the Bulgarian national hero, is in Veliko Tarnovo (in Bulgarian Велико Търново, translatable as the "Great Tarnovo") which is the cultural centre of the north of Bulgaria, with the first settlement in the area dating back to 4300 B.C.

The Veliko Tarnovo municipality has 37 cities with a population of 102,000 (2010), and the city is equidistant from the principal cities of Bulgaria (Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv and Burgas).

Veliko Tarnovo's municipality has lots for the tourist including great natural beauty, historical and cultural monuments and museums, unique architecture sites, monasteries, thermal springs and rich hunting zones. The cultural offer is constituted by art galleries, exhibition rooms, the Regional Library of P. Slaveikov, the Musical Dramatic Theatre Kissimov Constantine, cultural centres and the Youth House.

In 1997, Veliko Tarnovo became the first city of Eastern Europe to obtain the Special Prize of the European Union for Sustainable Development.

Words courtesy of the official Veliko Tarnovo website, to visit it please click HERE.

Gabrovo

The Orlovetz Hall is in Gabrovo, a town with unique history, which can be marked with the transformation of Turnovgrad into a capital of the second Bulgarian Kingdom in 12th century.

Following the years of the Russian-Turkish war, and in the newly created state, intellectuals from Gabrovo became the basis of the state government for which they contributed with deputies such as the first prime minister, a Minister of Education and a Minister of War.

Their power was concentrated in the foundation of the Bulgarian industry and many other innovations. Because of its huge industrial power the English called the town ‘the Bulgarian Manchester’. The achievements of the years before 1944 provided a basis for an industrial town famous for its weaving, knitwear, leather and telpher industries, as well as for its institutes of technological development.

Internationally known as a centre of humour and satire, as well as having a long handball tradition, Gabrovo has two theatres, the Racho Stoyanov Drama Theatre and the puppet theatre, a House of Humour and Satire that serves as a cultural institute, a centre, museum and gallery to popularise comic art. There is also a cinema, Aleko Cinema, and a number of museums both in the town and around it, most notably the Etar Architectural-Ethnographic Complex and the National Museum of Education at the Aprilov National High School.

The international reach of Gabrovo is further reinforced as Petar Rusev, father of Dilma Rousseff, current and first female president of Brazil, was born there.

Words courtesy of Wikipedia and the official Gabrovo website, to visit the official Gabrovo website please click HERE.

For more information about the IHF/EHF Women’s Challenge Trophy 2012 click HERE.

To see a history of the IHF/EHF Women’s Challenge Trophy click HERE.