Pazardzhik

Pazardzhik (päzärjĭk`), city (1993 pop. 82,904), S central Bulgaria, on the Maritsa River. A commercial center, its chief industries are textiles and food processing. Pazardzhik was under Turkish rule from the 15th to the 19th cent. It has an agricultural college and an old church with a fine collection of icons.

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Pazardzhik 

(until 1934, Tatar Pazardzhik), a city in the Maritsa River valley in Bulgaria. Situated on both banks of the Maritsa. Administrative center of Pazardzhik District. Population, 65,000 (1972). Pazardzhik’s industries include fruit canning, textile, metalworking, electrical engineering, and woodworking industry. The city is the center of an agricultural region that produces a large marketable surplus of tobacco, grapes, fruits, and vegetables. It has a folk museum and the housemuseum of the artist S. Dospevskii. The city was founded as a small settlement in the late 15th century.