1.The Rocky Ridge above the Cherni Lom
Cherven lies north of today's village of the same name in the Ruse district, about 20 kilometres south-east of Ruse. The town occupies a high ridge enclosed on three sides — north, west and south — by the river Cherni Lom, whose almost sheer rocky banks make it inaccessible from those directions. The site was inhabited by the Thracians as early as the late Bronze Age, and a fortress was raised here in early Byzantine times.
Medieval builders used the terrain skilfully. Where the cliffs alone protected the town, no wall was built at all; elsewhere the wall was of rubble stone bound with mortar and reached two metres in thickness. The fortress had two gates — an eastern and a western. One of its towers stood four storeys high, with loopholes on the upper two and a crenellated fighting platform on top; it is so well preserved that it later served as the model for the restoration of Baldwin's Tower on Tsarevets in Tarnovo.
2.The Rise after 1185
Until the end of the twelfth century Cherven occupied only the outline of the old early Byzantine fortress, whose wall was patched and renewed. After liberation from Byzantine rule the town began to grow fast, and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it established itself as one of the best-known political, economic and spiritual centres of the tsardom. Repeated rebuilding, especially of the citadel, was made necessary by frequent fires and new construction.
Cherven was the seat of a metropolitan. In the citadel a castle has been fully excavated — a typical feudal complex, similar to the royal palace in Tarnovo — with a fighting tower at its south-eastern corner; in the room by its entrance archaeologists found many huge stone balls used in defence. This building probably served as the residence of the metropolitan of Cherven. Several churches have also been uncovered in the town, their façades decorated with ornamental ceramics and relief "Lombard" arches typical of Bulgarian building of the period.
Life in the quarter around the citadel is clearly visible from the excavations. Single-storey houses of one, two or three rooms lined narrow, crooked streets, often unpaved, and the finds in them — copper and, more rarely, silver coins of the Tarnovo tsars and modest household goods — point to craftsmen and small traders. Small open squares were left around the feudal complex where people could gather when needed.
3.Cherven and the Tsars
Cherven was caught up in the turbulent events of the late thirteenth century. During Ivaylo's rising the Byzantine commander Michael Glabas Tarchaneiotes, having taken Preslav, pursued Ivaylo's retreating forces towards Cherven and on to Drastar. Some scholars also link the town with George I Terter: according to one reading of inscriptions in the nearby Ivanovo rock churches, the town Terter governed before he took the throne was Cherven, and the tsar himself became a monk shortly before his death and was buried in one of the Ivanovo rock monasteries. A graffito from Cherven also preserves the name and rank of a local official.
4.The Destruction of 1388
The end came with the grand vizier Ali Pasha's campaign of 1388. According to the Ottoman chronicler Mehmed Neşri his troops took the fortresses of Ruse, Cherven, Novgrad and Svishtov — the strongholds guarding the convenient crossings of the Danube. Cherven was taken and burned to the ground; the castle in the citadel was plundered and destroyed. This was the town's last and most devastating destruction, after which it never recovered as a centre.