Rila Monastery Nature Park Management Plan - part - usaid

February 2004
Table 22: General information regarding the types of infrastructural facilities in
RMNP and Rila Monastery settlement unit
Type of
RMNP Rila Monastery Total
building(s)/facility(ies)
settlement unit
Chalets 1 - 1
Hotels 1 1 2
Lodges 1 - 1
Camping sites 1 1 2
Restaurants 2 1 3
Rest homes 9 4 13
Single cabins 4 - 4
Concrete tower 1 - 1
Mini-powerhouses (HPS) 1 - 1
Hydropower station (HPS) 1 - 1
Workmen’s lodges of NEC
Dams and Cascades
4 - 4
Disused buildings 6 1 7
Religious compounds 2 1 3
Fish farms 1 - 1
Trailers 2 1 3
Chlorinating station 1 - 1
Others 5 - 5
Total: 53
4.1.3 Agriculture, industry, mining and management of mineral resources
Agriculture
In the past, the main farming activities in what is today the RMNP territory used to be
stock-breeding and, to a certain extent, agriculture (mostly of vegetable- and fruitgrowing).
Today, farming, to the extent that it exists, is practiced mostly on a
sustenance level, for the needs of the Monastery, and in part as livelihood of the
surrounding communities
Rila Monastery Nature Park comprises some 8,883.2 hectares of high-mountain
pastures and meadows. In the early 20 th centuries, these were used on a year-round
basis. According to a 1939 report by the Forestry, Hunting and Fishing Department of
the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands, towards that year “the Holy Monastery
of Rila owns 75 heads of cattle, 60 horses, 400 goats, 4,000 sheep, 50 pigs”; in
addition to five dairy farms set amid the Monastery pastures.
At present, the territory of RMNP is used mostly for grazing the herds of domestic
animals of cows, horses, sheep and goats, haymaking and, on an insignificant scale,
crops (small plots, planted with potatoes).
Rila Monastery Nature Park
Management Plan -Draft
2004 - 2013
89