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Lovech is one of the oldest towns in Bulgaria. Its territory and surroundings have been inhabited ever since the remote past, a prerequisite for which is the favorable geographic situation between the mountain and the plain.

Remains of the Old Stone Age, the New Stone Age, the Bronze and the Iron epoch have been found in the caves Tabashka and Vasil Levski in the town of Lovech. The first “official” inhabitants of the town were the Thracian tribe, the “Meldi”, whose traces date as back as IV-III century BC. They founded here their capital, called Melta. It was situated at the place of today’s neighborhood and architecture reserve “Varosha”.
Later, when the Romans colonized the Balkan peninsula, they established a Roman station and named it Prezidium. It had a huge strategic importance along of the biggest Roman roads – “Via Trayana”, which connected the White sea with the Danube river.
The Turkish invasion in the mid XIV century didn’t pass the town, but the citadel of Lovech “Hisarya” was captured last of all, in 1446, but for a long time after the town enjoyed some privileges such as a prohibition on Turkish people to live in the town or to take Bulgarian children as “enichars” (those were Christian boys trained to become soldiers in the Turkish troops, and later slaughtered their own kins).
In XVII century Lovech was a strong trade centre again and one of the richest towns in Bulgaria. That’s why the town was called “Altan Lovech” (Golden Lovech, from Turkish) at the time.