Gabrene Village

Gabrene is a village in the Petrich Municipality, 26 km to the southwest of Petrich Town. Its location is in the most southwest corner of Bulgaria, at an altitude of 400 m a.s.l. The village has electric and water supply; sewage system is only partially built. At the moment, it has 250 houses with 900 inhabitants at the average age of 30-35 years.
The primary school of Otets Paisi was opened in 1965. The Chitalishte of Prosveta, founded in 1927, has a female folklore group, a children’s dance ensemble and the only one in Bulgaria male group for Orizari songs. A 450-years old plane tree grows in the village center. Traces of Roman settlements have been registered in the localities of Dabrovo, Tsartsanitsa and Kulata, as well as the localities of Oseno and Svidovitsa. A Medieval settlement existed in the localities of Marena and Ilinden. The latter also hosts a church known as Sveti Ilia dating back to the 16th-17th c. Floorings, entrance, niches and apses have been discovered. The locality of Voenna Tsarkva keeps remains of another old church with ruins of a probable fortress to the north.
Some connect the name of the village to the name of the hornbeam (“Gabar” in Bulgarian). In Ottoman documents from 1520 and 1665, the village has been mentioned under the name of Gabrani with 224 Turkish and 43 Bulgarian Christian households. According to legends, in the first half of the 19th c., the citizens of the destroyed by floods neighbouring village of Selene settled here. At that time, population lived on agriculture )maze, barley, sesame, poppy, cotton, rice, vineyards), silk culture and stock-breeding.
Phone code of Gabrene: (0)7428; postal code: 2898.