Siege of Tarnovo

As Tarnovgrad was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, it was a key objective for Ottoman conquest. After numerous Bulgarian defeats, the troops reached the capital itself. The siege of Tarnovo took place in the spring and summer of 1393. 

The population, led by Patriarch Euthymius, resisted, but after a three-month siege the city was captured following an attack on the Frenkhisar Gate of Tsarevets on 17 July 1393. The Patriarchal Church of the Ascension of Christ became a mosque, while the other churches on Trapezitsa were burnt to the ground. The royal palaces on Tsarevets met the same fate, although parts of their walls and towers remained standing until the seventeenth century above the medieval Bulgarian capital, which had become a Turkish town. With its fall, the Tsardom of Tarnovo ceased to exist, and its possessions were reduced to a few fortresses along the Danube, the most important of which was Nikopol.