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Like nearby Kotel and Koprivshtitsa, the nineteenth-century National Revival crafts town of ELENA , 40km southeast of Tarnovo and served by five daily buses, lay far enough away from the centres of Ottoman power for Bulgarian crafts and culture to flourish. The Turks used the town's population to guard the local mountain passes, giving them a measure of autonomy in return, so painters and woodcarvers of nineteenth-century Elena were able to decorate the churches of the surrounding countryside, and patriotic local merchants could finance the restoration of nearby monasteries like Kapinovo. Although Elena has not been renovated to the same extent as other National Revival towns, the core of nineteenth-century structures grouped around the hilltop church make a visit here more than worthwhile. Beyond Elena, roads (but no public transport) head east through lonely highland villages towards the wooded Kotel Pass , on the far side of which lie the historic settlements of Kotel and Zheravna.
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