Svishtov

Svishtov is a Danube river town in northern Bulgaria, in Veliko Tarnovo Province, and the administrative centre of Svishtov Municipality. It sits on the right bank of the river directly opposite the Romanian town of Zimnicea, at the southernmost point of the Danube, and its port is the southernmost harbour on that river. A roll-on roll-off ferry links it to Zimnicea and shortens the road route between Turkey and Central Europe. The site is identified with the Roman colony of Novae, which served as the base of the legion I Italica for centuries and later briefly as a seat of Theodoric the Great. The Treaty of Sistova, ending the Austro-Turkish war of 1787 to 1791, was signed here in 1791, the town was burned in 1810 and again in 1829 during Russo-Turkish wars, and it was the first town liberated in 1877. Today it is known as an educational town with the D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics, a thermal spring nearby and the house museum of the novelist Aleko Konstantinov.