The Holy Transfiguration (Sveto Preobrazhenie) Monastery was founded in the 11th century as a convent of the Vatopedi Monastery at Mount Athos. Until the 14th century it played an important role in religious and cultural life in mediaeval Bulgaria’s capital city of Turnovo. When Bulgaria was conquered by the Turks in 1393 the monastery was plundered and burned down. Large architectural fragments, decorative ceramic elements and parts of frescoes have survived to the present. The monastery had a fortified mediaeval church with external flying buttresses, which indicate that it was threatened by landslides even in those days. A new monastery was built during the National Revival about five hundred metres north of the remains of the mediaeval monastery. This monastery is of high cultural and historical value too but, unfortunately, it has been severely damaged by several heavy landslides.