The town of Kotel is situated in a picturesque small valley in the eastern part of the Balkan Range, 527 m above sea level, 49 km northeast of Sliven. At the beginning of Ottoman Rule Kotel was inhabited by Bulgarians from neighbouring towns and villages in search of rescue. It is a native place of a number of eminent National Revival figures - Captain Georgi Mamarchev (officer in the Russian army), Georgi Sava Rakovski (one of the main ideologists of the movement for national liberation), the Rеvival men of letters Neophyte Bozvelli, Dr. Petar Beron, Sofroni Vrachanski, the socially active men Gavril Krastevich, Aleko Bogoridi and Stefan Bogoridy. In 1812 the first Bulgarian elite secular school was opened in Kotel. During the Turkish raids the town suffered hard times and was twice set on fire. After the liberation in 1894 Kotel suffered a last devastating fire that devoured the greater part of the town. Only the quarter called Galata survived and today it renders an approximate idea of what the old town looked like. The craft of carpet weaving, which is very typical for Kotel and the region, makes the town one of the oldest centres of artistic fabrics in the country and abroad.

Landmarks
The town of Kotel has been declared an architectural and historical reserve. About 110 houses from the Revival Period have been preserved there. There is a museum exposition of brilliant fabrics – a symbol of the ancient craft of carpet weaving in the Galatan School. Kyorpev’s house is an ethnographic museum. The Pantheon of Kotel`s Revival Men and Women is an imposing building made of stone, iron, copper and wood and gives the impression of contact with the glory of past epochs. The Museum of Nature and Science preserves approximately 30,000 exhibits, which show the natural variety of the area.