Voivode Gencho

Gencho Voyvoda, also known as Gencho Kanyov Kargov, was a hajduk voivode born in 1789 in the village of Kolupchii, now the town of Gurkovo.

During the kardzhali unrest he joined the hajduks and later became voivode of a small hajduk detachment. In 1828 Gencho Voyvoda operated alongside Georgi Mamarchev and a force of sixty men on the Russian army's side. During the Russo-Turkish War (1828 – 1829), he also fought alongside the hajduk detachments of Boycho Voyvoda, Doncho Vatah Voyvoda and other revolutionary figures.

After the war ended, Gencho Voyvoda moved to Bessarabia, to the village of Dermendere, where the Russian administration recorded his surname as Grekov.

In 1861–1862 Gencho Kargov participated as one of the Bessarabian Bulgarians' leaders in their mass migration from the part of Bessarabia annexed to Moldavia to Taurida. He and Todor Velkov represented the Bulgarian colonists before the Russian authorities, expressing their wish to move to Russia.

Gencho Kargov died in 1883 in the village of Vtoro Nikolaevka, Berdyansk District. He was the father of the revolutionary Mihail Grekov.