Mandritsa

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Mandritsa (Bulgarian: Мандрица, Small dairy; Greek: Μανδρίτσα¨, Albanian: Mandricë) is a village in southernmost Bulgaria, part of Ivaylovgrad municipality, Haskovo Province. As of 14 December 2006, Mandritsa has a population of 75. It lies at 41°23′N 26°8′E, 93 m above sea level. Mandritsa is located on the right bank of the Byala Reka in the easternmost Rhodope Mountains, 15 km south of Ivaylovgrad and 2 km west of the Luda reka, which forms the border with Greece. Mandritsa exited from Ottoman rule on 15 October 1912, during the First Balkan War, when it was taken by military units of the First Bulgarian Army, but was once again occupied by the Ottomans during the Second Balkan War. According to the Treaty of Constantinople, it was ceded to Bulgaria. A large number of the Greek residents fled back to the Ottoman Empire, where they remained as refugees for six months before heading to Greece in 1914 through Constantinople and Rodosto.
Of the 480 families of the time, only 40 remained in Bulgaria, while 100 settled in the village of Hambarköy near Kilkis, which was renamed Mandres in their honour, while the others populated other villages in Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace. The Bulgarian government settled Bulgarian refugees from Thrace and Macedonia (from the region of Edessa). In 1929, another wave of emigration to Greece followed.

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