Rusenski Lom

Rusenski Lom Nature Park was created in 1970 in north-eastern Bulgaria, south of Ruse, and protects some 32 km² along the canyon of the river Rusenski Lom, the last tributary of the Danube in Bulgarian territory.

The river has cut into the limestone a valley of incised meanders with vertical walls, caves and rock shelters, in a landscape that contrasts with the surrounding cereal plain. That combination of crags and riverine woodland makes the park a first-order ornithological enclave on the Danubian plain: it holds threatened cliff-nesting raptors such as the Egyptian vulture and the saker falcon, alongside black stork and an important bat community in the cavities.

Its cultural value is equally notable. In the rock shelters of the canyon, between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the Rock-Hewn Churches of Ivanovo were carved, a group of chapels, cells and monastic refectories with frescoes regarded as among the finest examples of Bulgarian medieval painting. UNESCO inscribed them on the World Heritage List in 1979 as a cultural property. The park also contains the medieval citadel of Cherven.