Kapitan Petko Voivoda

The Eastern Rhodopes, 1861. The large family of Kirko Karakirov lives in the small mountain town of Duganhisar, Ferenska Okoliya. The life of the Bulgarians here is very difficult - drudgery, high taxes, often unprovoked harassment by the Turks. All eight children of Kirko work together with their parents in the fields and shepherd's huts. Among them is 17-year-old Petko. The change in the life of the otherwise meek Petko occurred suddenly. His older brother Mathieu, an Argatin-shepherd of the Mehmed Kesedji farmstead, and his cousin Valcho, were killed by the Bey. This forever tears Petko from peaceful life. He gathers a loyal band of people personally affected by the bey and prepares revenge. After the murder of Keseji, Petko's father was taken to prison in Fere. From the mountain, Petko sent a letter to the kaymakam of the sanjak, threatening him that if he did not release his father, he would suffer the fate of Mehmed Bey. In return, he promises to disband his gang.

Petko settles in a remote area where no one knows him. Years go by. The former outlaw married the beautiful Greek woman Elena of Enos, who bore him a son and devoted himself to peaceful work. One day, at the threshing floor, Turkish zaptiyes came. One of them chases his wife and sends him for water. Petko kills the Turk who accompanied him, but the other manages to escape. This incident again forces Petko to seek refuge in the forest. His wife refuses to accompany him, remaining to care for their young son. Petko returns to his birthplace, gathers his old comrades and begins to take revenge on the Turks, who attacked the honor and lives of the Bulgarians. Osman aga - governor in Edirne, promises the Pasha that he will capture the outlaws. The wife of one of them - Stoil, is expecting her next child. Osman Agha uses her fortune to lure the gang of criminals, succeeding in bribing the rich local chorbadji Yani. Glad for the reward, Yanni invites the outlaws to his home.

Petko and his comrades are in the prison of the city of Gelibol, the center of the sanjak. Osman aga personally participated in the torture of the outlaws, trying to extract a confession of their crimes. Petko is almost blind. The military doctor Khalid Pasha pleaded for his health, saying that in this condition he could not be brought before the court. However, the treacherous Osman Aga devised a plan to kill the outlaws without trial, provoking an escape idea through a false person. At the last moment, Khalid Pasha's men managed to warn the prisoners of the treachery and their escape was thwarted. The prison governor sent them as particularly dangerous criminals under convoy to Thessaloniki. On the way, Petko and his comrades managed to outsmart the guards and were freed. Learning of the escape, the ambitious Osman Aga follows their trail. Outlaws ambush him in the woods, capture him, and humiliate him by shaving off one of his moustaches. Yatak informs the Chetniks that cavalry has

1869 year. Petko graduated from a military school in Athens and took part in Garibaldi's uprising. Having gained experience from him, he returned to Athens with new ideas for struggle - he printed a call to gather a rebel group to liberate the oppressed Christians in Thrace. The Greek government does not interfere with the actions of Captain Petko Kiryakov, as he already calls himself, and this allows him to set sail with the assembled squad for the Bulgarian lands. Rebels march past the Turkish military fortress of Sir on Militin Island. Forced by the circumstances, Petko takes a risky step - he disguises himself as a Turkish Pasha, his comrades as Turkish soldiers, and leaves by boat to the fortress, telling his visitors that he is coming for an inspection. The voivode's self-control saves his company from death and starvation. Grateful to the good shepherd, the commandant of the fortress lavishes him with food and sends him away with honors. Unperturbed, the Friday squad arrives at

Enos kaymakamin Tahir Bey strives by all means to capture Petko voivoda, for whose head a reward has been announced. On the eve of the Christmas holidays, Turkish raids attack the otherwise quiet and peaceful town of Maronia, where the Petkova squad is having fun. Many Christians were arrested, Petko managed to save himself with the help of the beautiful gypsy girl Spasia, he was in love with the skin girl, but she was detained. Zaya Spasia and her mother are interceded by the rich Greek Toma Janushev, known as Kalen Toma. He is a friend of Tahir Bey, and by freeing Petko's beloved Voivoda, hopes to gain his trust, then hand him over to the Turk. The gullible voivode really believes Kallen Thoma, even accepting an invitation to a lavish feast at his home. Spasia, who is a servant in the home of a Greek, manages to warn Petko to a stranger that the halva presented to the outlaws is poisonous. The reckoning with Toma Bey is harsh - caught on the street in Maronia by Petko's men, he firs

Petko is still in Maronia. His desire to start a new life is connected to his beloved woman, to whom he makes a marriage proposal, blessed by her mother. After the signing of the San Stefano Peace Treaty, Maronia remained in the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Petko's plans for a peaceful life are thwarted again - his squad defends the city from the advancing Turkish loss. The battle is unequal, the Chetniks retreat into the forest. Maronia was conquered again by the Turks. Some of the inhabitants leave the city with gemia, but Spasia remains in his home. At a dead end, Petko returns to his native Duganhisar, which is in the Russian occupation zone, and is welcomed as a hero. At his insistence, two of the Chetniks return to Maronia to take Spasia out of the city. Disturbed by their delay, and by rumors of local beautiful girls gathered for the Turkish harem in Fere, Petko also leaves. The outlaws, led by the voivode, attack the traveling carriage with the girls, including Spasia, and

The former British consul in Burgas - Saint-Clair, already in the Turkish service, assisted by the Turkish government is preparing a revolt of the Bulgarian-Mohammedan population in the Eastern Rhodopes. Through its outbreak, it hopes to reduce Russia's influence in the Balkans. Petko Kiryakov is in his hometown of Duganhisar. Russian troops arrive, the people welcome them enthusiastically, but soon their joy is overshadowed - by order of the Russian general Chernobuzov, the voivode is arrested. The astonished Kiryakov understands that this is only a staging in order not to understand the plan of the Russian command to intervene in the rebellion prepared by Saint-Clair. Petko and his Chetniks are charged with the task of preventing riots and taking those villagers who want to live in Bulgaria across the demarcation line. The first village in which Petko's squad meets the Bashiboz army is Plevun. The forces are unequal, Petko offers a temporary truce to buy time, during which he makes

Petko Kiryakov arrived in Burgas by ship from Petersburg, where he had been for 2 months after the end of the Russian-Turkish war. Already at the port, he was arrested on the orders of the Rumelia governor Aleko Bogoridi, who received an order to extradite Kiryakov to Turkey. Instead, Bogoridi advised the captain to settle in free Varna, and Kiryakov left the same day. Here he met the beautiful Rada Kravkova from Kazan, and in 1881 they got married. Kiryakov started working as a lawyer, believing that this profession best suited his ambitious soul, which did not differentiate between a Turk and a Bulgarian. In August 1886, Prince Battenberg was dethroned, a year later Ferdinand Coburggotsky was elected Prince of Bulgaria, Stefan Stambolov became Prime Minister. Arriving in Evksinograd, he showed interest in the legendary Petko Kiryakov and invited him to the residence. Stambolov offers the former voivode to take the post of district governor of Varna. Petko suspects that

Petko Kiryakov was subjected to terrible torture in Ich Kale. Turchev extradited his son Georgius to Enos. Kiryakov's brother Malak Petko arrives from Kalajjidere in Varna and looks for an opportunity to free the former voivode. All the captain's friends he goes to refuse to take any chances. Then the old champion decided to free Kiryakov himself - like the Deacon, with two horses with hooves wrapped in rags, he tried to enter the fortress, but was captured and killed. More than a month has passed since Kiryakov was imprisoned in Ich Kale. He is crushed by beatings, the smell of his festering wounds attracting hungry rats. In this difficult moment for the captain, a noble Bulgarian soldier from the fortress guard came to his aid. Without knowing who he was, until Kiryakov's release, he took him out every day for 2-3 hours in the sunny courtyard of the fortress and thus saved his life. On 15.12.1892, after 139 days of strict imprisonment, without a sentence, Captain Petko Kiryakov was

1894 The Istanbul regime falls, the mayor of Varna, Turchev, is also replaced. Petko and Rada return to Varna. The former voivode tries to return to his former life, but his health is shaken and his self-confidence is broken. He is also not satisfied with the successful case against Turchev for the illegal torture of him. One day Kiryakov met his old benefactor - Khalid Pasha, now assistant to the Turkish consul in Varna. The noble Turk offered him a job in a high position in Turkey, but Kiryakov refused. To gather strength, he goes to Chepelare to his old comrades. The district chief of the city is horrified and does his best to make Captain Kiryakov quickly leave the border area. In 1897 a bill was submitted to the National Assembly to grant state pensions to deserving voivodes and champions. The Varna deputy Apostol Savov, an enemy of Kiryakov, presented him to the committee as an impostor, a robber and a thug and thus helped to cross him off the list. Sick, suspended from work, le