Village archive
Kamilski Dol, once Deve Dere.
A stone village in the far ridges of the Eastern Rhodopes, municipality of Ivaylovgrad, Haskovo Province, southern Bulgaria. It sits on a ridge above the Arda, now the bowl of Ivaylovgrad Reservoir, north of the dam wall and close to the Greek border.
Until 1934 the name was Deve Dere: Turkish deve (camel) and dere (ravine). Local stories tie the name to camel caravans that carried gold ore or charcoal toward Edirne. The first written mention is usually dated 1572, with the neighbouring villages of Gornoseltsi and Siv Kladenets.
What the printed record says
- 100 Bulgarian Exarchate families in 1912 (Lyubomir Miletich).
- Two men volunteered for the Macedonian-Adrianople Corps in 1912.
- Church of St George: stone three-nave basilica, 1840s, consecrated about 1843. Bell cast in Edirne, 1895.
- Summer 1913: the municipality lists Kamilski Dol among nine burned villages; 335 people killed in the district. A plaque at Kyuchuk Kale, about 3 km away, names 21 men from Devedere.
- Ivaylovgrad dam, 1964, last step of the Arda cascade: 36 km long, known for catfish below the village.
- Official population 44 (GRAO, 31 Dec 2025). Land area 45 km². Elevation about 360 m. Postal code 6571.
- Selo.BG, from a note by Dimitar Mitrev: four year-round fountains (one rebuilt 1898), a village-center memorial for 1913 and the world wars, claimed about 900 residents until 1989.
- Photographs on this site are of the village itself (Wikimedia Commons: Izvora; Krasimir Kosev, 2016), not stock landscapes.
Visit
Take the Lyubimets-Ivaylovgrad road and the short mountain spur north of town. There are no hotels in the village. Bring water, fuel and an offline map. The rest of this site is in Bulgarian.