Kotel - a town which is a legend and a history! It is situated amidst the picturesque natural scenery of the Eastern Balkan Range and is not only a place with majestic nature, fresh air and pure mountain water, an important cultural and historical centre. Kotel is also called the Stronghold of Bulgarian Spirit, the Cradle of the Renaissance which has weaned and given to its motherland over 120 eminent National Revival Figures.
     Kotel is a town with beautiful architectural models from the Late Revival and one of the most important centers of the weaving art. The name of the town is mentioned for the first time in a Turkish document in1486. In the second half of the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth Centuties more than 450 000 heads of sheep were said to have been raised by the Kotel shepherds up there, far to the north east, in the rolling planes of Dobroudzha where from endless oxteam caravans of shorn wool kept coming back to Kotel to be turned into homespun abas and hoddens. Long term contracts for cloth deliveries to the Ottoman Army had provided the population with considerable privileges and had given them self - confidence and a spirit of freedom loving and independence. The Kotel people are known to be industrious, enterprising and studious. They used to keep up on donations of their own the 5 secular schools, to build clapboard houses with woodcut doors, carved ceiling soffits. Women had added homespun broadloom carpets, fluffy rugs and cushions to the beauty and warmth of their homes. Kotel is turned into one of the richest, most beautiful, patriotic settlements - a national center of the Bulgarian Revival.
     The devastating fires as that of 1894 had devoured four - fifths of the built up civic area. It remains its glory as a settlement - national pride for all Bulgarian people. The exhibition of typical woven materials from this Region in Galatan - school is devoted to the weaving art of the Kotel women. It is open to the public from May to October. The exhibition presents the development of this art from the simple ragcarpet through the classic carpet to the complicated up to date forms. Their workmanship is demonstrated on a primitive loom. On the first floor exponents from the Revival and the Twentieth Century are exhibited and on the second-new woven icons and pictures of Kotel workwomen-masters. The tradition in their works is enriched and developed further. The beauty and the great value of our woven materials contribute to the glory of Kotel very much.

     The enchanting highland scenery, the ancient neighbourhood of the town with its woodwork houses and narrow, cobblestone streets, the park with its gushing springs, the four museums, the Folk-music school, the preserved atmosphere of the past attract lost of visitors to Kotel.