Bachkovo Monastery, the second most important monastery after Rila Monastery, was built near the village of Bachkovo, in the valley of the Chepelare River (also known by the locals as Chaya). It lies about 10 km to the south of the town Assenovgrad. On all sides, the monastery is surrounded by the hills of Rhodope Mountain, which together with its size and ancient spirit make it one of the most visited monasteries in Bulgaria.

     The monastery was founded in 1083 by the Byzantine military commander of Georgian origin, Grigorii Bakuriani and his brother Abazii. Yet only the two-storey bone-vault, which lies about 300m to the east of the present-day complex, is still kept from that time. The bone-vault is a must-see building there, for its unique wall-paintings, which rank among the most valuable works of Orthodox art of the 11th-12th century.

     During the times of the Second Bulgarian State, the monastery was patronized by Tsar Ivan Alexander, a portrait of whom can be still seen in the arcs of the bone-vault’s narthex due to his renovation of this building. At the end of the 11th century, the monastery opens a religious school. A curious fact is that after the subjection of Bulgarian lands to the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 14th century, the Bulgarian Patriarch, Evtimii, was sent on exile here in the monastery. Nevertheless, the exile did not dishearten the Patriarch and he, together with his scholars, developed active religious and cultural activity behind the walls of the monastery.

     Even if the monastery survived the first coup of the Ottoman invasion, it was not spared later on and similarly to other cloisters, was raided and ruined down. It was restored towards the end of the 15th century with the dining hall having been reconstructed in 1601, and the present-day church, Virgin Mary, in 1604. The wall-paintings of the dining hall finished in 1603 by an unknown master, are particularly impressive for their artistic value. The church, on the other hand, also boasts with beautiful frescoes, but what draws mostly on visitors is its icon of the Virgin Mary, believed to be wonder-working. A long queue of pilgrims wishing to say their prayers to the miraculous image of the God’s Mother often starts far outside the entrance of the church. Besides the main church, the complex also has two smaller shrines: one called St. Archangels (13th-14th c.) and standing in the northern part of the inner yard (next to the main church) and another one, named after St. Nicola (1834-1837). St. Nicola Church rises in the southern part of the yard and is worth visiting for the well-kept paintings of the famous artist Zahari Zograf (including a portrait of the very artist himself), finished in 1841. The monastery also has its own museum which holds rare religious items of different times.