Стара планина / Eastern Stara Planina (Sliven)
Жеравна
Zheravna
A village of 17th-century wooden houses on a Sliven hillside, famous for its costume festival and even more for the bread oven on the upper square.
Жеравна is what happens when a village protects its 17th–19th century timber-frame houses well enough that the whole settlement starts to feel like an open-air museum that someone still lives in. The lanes are stone, the houses dark wood, and the bread oven on the upper square smells the same in 2026 as it presumably did in 1880.
What we love: the year-round community is one of the strongest in our collection. The bakery is reliable. The internet is genuinely good. Сливен is close enough for a real city when you need one.
What’s hard: the costume festival in August is an event of national scale, and during that week the village belongs to its visitors. Maintaining a wooden 18th-century house costs more than maintaining a stone one, and authentic restoration craftsmen are scarce and booked out months ahead.
Can I actually live here in February?
Practical reality, no marketing.
- Snow plow service
- Yes, municipal — within 6h
- Nearest pharmacy
- 24h pharmacy 27 km in Сливен (~35 min)
- Nearest hospital
- District hospital with night ER in Сливен
- Mobile coverage
- A1 strong, Vivacom strong, Yettel strong
- Internet
- Vivacom fiber available village-wide — 100 Mbps actual
- Water source
- Municipal + many private wells
- Gas station
- 9 km
How a day would look
- Bakery
- Yes — opens 7am, the wood-fired oven is locally famous
- Café / kafana
- Three tavernas, two open year-round
- Shops
- Two small groceries; supermarket in Котел (15 km)
- Market
- Friday open-air in Котел
- Bus
- 3 buses/day to Сливен; reduced Sunday service
Who lives there now
~250 permanent residents, one of the larger villages in our collection. Strong year-round community, several returnees from Sofia and Varna, some German and Dutch retirees, a small contingent of artists and writers.
What's hard about this place
The annual International Festival of National Costume in August brings ~50,000 visitors over three days — the village is functionally unliveable that week. Summer in general is busy. Some of the wooden houses have ongoing maintenance issues that are expensive to address authentically.
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Last updated 16 May 2026.