Tag #123003 - Interview #95883 (Gitli Alhalel)

At the end of the previous century Vidin was quite a modest and small town. About 19,000 people lived there. The Jews were around 8,000 (significantly more than they are today). [According to the first census of the population, lands and cattle in the newly-liberated from Turkish rule Bulgaria – a census done by the temporary Russian authority over the Bulgarian lands (1878-1879) the overall number of Jews living in Vidin region was 2202 (1114 men and 1088 women). They lived predominantly in the cities and were 0.94% of the local population, among whom there were also Turks, gypsies and Wallachians. In 1900, 1905 and 1910 only in Vidin the Jewish population was respectively 1,784, 1,873 and 1,727 people. The overall number of citizens in the town was respectively 15,791, 16,387 and 16,450, among whom the Bulgarians were the most (followed by the Turks, the Jews, the gypsies and Wallachians) (the data was taken from the State Archive of the town of Vidin)].