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To see more of life in Koprivshtitsa, take a ramble through the Sredna (Middle) and Byalo Kamane (White Rocks) quarters. Sredna withdraws from an outdoor market into a kasbah -like maze of reclusive houses and lanes where elders gossip and goats forage. With luck, you'll emerge at the Church of Sveti Nikolai , behind a high wall with a bell tower above the gateway. Despite the church's dedication, its iconostasis dwells on St Spiridion, whose life is told in ten medallions surrounding a figure of the saint. On the corner of the lane is a fountain donated by the Moravenovs, a leading family in the early eighteenth century. Walk downstream and cross the river to reach Byalo Kamane, a mahala of stolid timber buildings on a steep slope, where the Benkovski House (Mon & Wed-Sun 9.30am-5.30pm) recalls another revolutionary. Georgi Benkovski (1844-76) helped to rebuild the clandestine networks set up by Levski, after the latter's execution. A tailor by profession, he made the rebels' white uniforms and silk banner - embroidered with the Bulgarian Lion and the words svoboda ili smart (Liberty or Death!). During the Rising his cheta wheeled south via Panagyurishte, trying to rally the locals, but was chased northwards and wiped out near Teteven. His career is covered in usual didactic style; among the texts is a quote from the Rising's chronicler, Stoyanov: "Koprivshtitsa was a republic for centuries, without senators, ministers or presidents; ten times more liberal than France, and a hundred times more democratic than America". On the hillside above the house looms a striking monument to Benkovski , in the form of a Socialist superhero astride a leaping horse.
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