FOREST PARK
LOCATION
Forest park "Lipnik", or as we the locals call it - Teketo (a sacred place around a monastery or at the place where there was a monastery), is located in Northeastern Bulgaria, near the village of Nikolovo and a few kilometers from the town of Ruse. It is part of the forest of lime trees with an impressive area of about 20,000 decares, and hence the name of the locality. It is considered to be one of the largest lime forests on the territory of Bulgaria.
HISTORY
Building and shaping the surrounding area as a park began around the 1950s, and since then the flow of people looking for peace and tranquility here hasn't stopped. The forest is an excellent tourist destination, a place to relax and entertain everyone who loves nature.
In ancient times, near the former alian Teke, there was an old Bulgarian monastery - “St. Elijah”. After its destruction, а healing spring appears (locality around a holy spring). According to legend, it was destroyed and the Teketo was built on the site, which in turn was demolished during the wars with Russia in the first decades of the 19th century. Later, next to the spring was created a sculpture representing Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, called by the locals “the white girl".
Today the waters of the mineral spring fill a small basin in which the visitors, and mostly those in love symbolically throw coins and wish for health and love.