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Batak is situated on the slopes of the Batak Mountain in the Western Rhodope Mountains. It is 36 km from Pazardjik and 16 km south of Peshtera.

When a man gets to the "Batak" lake and takes a look over the Western Rhodopes, the first thing that comes to mind are the lines written by Ivan Vazov "But who said that Bulgaria isn’t beautiful, divinely beautiful and majestic? Come, come and look. "

Among the beauty of this mountain is impossible to assume that here blood has been shed, but it's true. And that was the blood of innocent people whose "crime" was their thirst for freedom and independence.

The Historical Museum in Batak stores exhibits from many civilizations: the Thracian tribe of Bessi, the Romans, Byzantines, Slavs and Bulgarians.

But this city is famous not only in our country and across the world especially with the heroism shown by its inhabitants during the April uprising. The museum complex includes the ossuary church "Sveta Nedelia" (“Holy Sunday” in Bulgarian) and Sharov and Balinov house - historical monuments and examples of traditional architecture of the time. The second house is home to a rich ethnographic exhibition.

The most impressive Christian church in Batak is "St. Virgin Mary", but the most renown is "Sveta Nedelia". It was built in 1813 for just 75 days. In the nineteenth century the church was surrounded by a high stone wall as a fortress. Therefore, the population of Batak originally called it Kaleto (the Fort).

After the defeat of the April Uprising of 1876 more than 2,000 people gathered in the church, mostly women, children and old people who relied on the protection of the massive walls and on their faith. In three days the surviving population of Batak fought bravely against the turkish army. The invaders dropped angry bees and burning straw inside the church to crush the defenders. Many died of suffocation, but most suffered from thirst. The survivors dug with bare hands, but found no water.

When they decided to surrender and opened the doors of the church, there waited the blood thirsty soldiers of Ahmed Aga Baroutanliata. The surviving residents of Batak had to choose between death and the acceptance of Islam. Most of them didn’t renounce their faith and were killed. After that the Turks learned that international committee of inquiry will come in Batak and tried to erase traces of the massacre. They gathered and buried part of the bodies, whitewashed the walls, but the blood pushed back on them, so they tried to remove the plaster from the walls.

The world learned about the staggering atrocities of the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria from the first reports of the American journalist Januarius MacGahan, which at that time was a military correspondent of the newspaper "Daily News". His observations were published in books and were immediately translated into several languages. The French writer Victor Hugo referred to them in his speech for protection for the Bulgarian population in the Ottoman Empire in the French Parliament.

After crushing of the rebellion, it was clear that over 5,000 people were killed from a total of 7000 local people. Batak was practically deserted.

In 1955, " Sveta Nedelia" was declared a museum. In 1976 was found the Batak Historical Museum, which contains more than 500 exhibits - objects from the National Revival period, the April Uprising and the subsequent Russo-Turkish War, numerous photos and historical documents.