Today's idea of a walk in the vicinity of Plovdiv will reveal to you one of the hidden secrets less than an hour away from the city of the hills. The Tikla Tower is located at the very end of the Bryanovshchitsa villa zone, at the foot of the Rhodope Mountains.
It is easily reached by asphalt road as the distance from the village - Brestovitsa, to the part of the villas, is about 7 km. When you get there, in order to easily navigate where to go, you should notice a chapel on a meadow, visible only from the road. There, you turn right and continue down the narrow path until you reach the remains. From the historic site, only separate elements remain - a preserved first floor with entrance and parts of the second.
It is believed to be an old Turkish tower from the late 19th century. At that time, it was one of the northernmost points of the strange formation of the Republic of Tamrash. After the Liberation, part of the Rhodope villages around today’s abandoned Tarmash refused to join both Eastern Rumelia and the Ottoman Empire. Formally, they remained part of it until 1885.
After the Unification as part of its recognition agreements, these territories of the "Republic of Tamrash" - a name that was never officially used but remained so in history - were annexed to the Ottoman Empire. It was not until the Balkan War that these lands were annexed to Bulgaria.
For the so-called Tikla Tower - from tikla, the thin stones used for roofing many mountain houses instead of tiles - it is said to be part of the border facilities of the Tamrash Republic and later of the Ottoman Empire itself. It is believed to have been the defense unit of Ahmed Aga Tamrashliya's farmstead, who declared himself the governor of Tamrash. The farmstead was burned down and the tower fell at the battle of Tamrash in 1912 when the Bulgarian army marched to join the rebellious villages in the Rhodopes.
Today, there is lush vegetation in and around it, but the place is picturesque enough and extremely suitable for escaping the city noise.
Nearby is the Red Church near the village of Perushtitsa, and just before the ruins of the tower is the Bryanovshtitsa hut. This is also the area where Plovdiv mountaineering was born, and the first ascents were made by YankoMontanov and YankoMlyakov in 1950.
The area is ideal for weekend tourism, and an interesting fact is that a defense tower of the same name - Tikla Tower, is also located near Blagoevgrad.
