moved to the place where the town of Pazardzhik is now located. In the Middle Ages there was a settlement near the modern town, near the fortress of Krasen some 6 km south of the current location. In the course of the Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars large part the population was killed and the rest had to move to a new location. The survivors called themselves levents due to their bravery in the struggle with the invaders. When the Turks seized the village of Asenevtsi near Sliven which guarded the road to the capital of the Bulgarian Empire Tarnovo, its population moved to Panagyurishte. Another wave of Bulgarian refugees came in the 15th century after rebellions in Macedonia (Debar, Prilep, Kostur and others). Even today the population uses language which is characteristic for both eastern and western Bulgarian dialects and the town is in the so-called Yat border. It was also known as "Otlukköy" during Ottoman rule. At the beginning of the XIX century. Panagyurishte reached a significant economic and cultural peak. A number of crafts related to the well-developed cattle breeding developed here. Goldsmithing, which later made the town famous for the Panagyurishte School of Gold. More than 2,500 craftsmen, calfs and apprentices worked in the various trades. In the courtyard of the Historical Museum, there are reenactments of these traditional crafts. According to testimonies of American missionaries who visited the town in 1861, it had 12,500 Bulgarian inhabitants who maintained a large school. The economic and spiritual upsurge helped the idea of national liberation to be accepted in Panagyurishte. In the autumn of 1870, Vasil Levski founded a revolutionary committee here, and the meeting was held in the house of Ivan Duhovnikov, preserved to this day in the courtyard of the Historical Museum. Panagyurishte is primarily known for being the center of the April Uprising against the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria in 1876. On 14 April 1876, the first Bulgarian Great National Assembly was held in the historical locality of Oborishte. It was capital of the Fourth Revolutionary District which was the main center of the rebellion. The uprising was bloodily suppressed after 10 days of declared freedom, and the town was burnt down and almost completely destroyed by the Ottoman Turks. Lady Strangford arrived from Britain later that year with relief for the people of Bulgaria following the massacres that followed the April Uprising. She built a hospital at