Voivode Dragoy

Dragoy Voyvoda was a Bulgarian hajduk known as a protector of Koprivshtitsa's shepherds. His band operated around the town and in the areas of Lazhene, Zlatitsa, Menzul near today's Pavel Deliradev mountain hut, and the Balkan Mountains.

After Turks killed his father, Dragoy worked among woollen-cloth craftsmen and sometimes as a shepherd for the notable Benyo. Frequent thefts of flocks around Koprivshtitsa and Panagyurishte led him to become a protector of shepherds.

The local historian Petko Teofilov devoted several lines to him in Mentsite Prelyaha (The Pails Overflowed). According to the account, by the band's third summer in the area, robberies and abuses had ceased. Yet when word spread that his men had been seen near Bunovo, a bey's estate near Gyopsata was already burning. Turks began travelling armed, but this did not prevent the deaths of Said Ahmed Bey of Pirdop, Memish Aga of Sopot, and Mahmud Pehlivan and Bostandzhi Hafuz of Etropole.

Dragoy was killed fighting Ottoman forces at Zlatyovitsa. The place where he fell was named Dragoin Peak in his memory; a spring lies beside the rock near which he died.