The Venerable Oak of Novo Selo

The village of Novo Selo, near Veliko Tarnovo, dates its founding to 1750. The oak in its centre is said to be about 500 years old, which would make the tree older than the village by a couple of centuries. Those two numbers do not come from the same place, and it is worth keeping them apart. The founding date is the village's own history. The 500 years comes from Bulgarian press reports citing specialists, and nobody has published a measurement, a ring count, a girth or a height. So the honest version is simpler: a big old oak that the village regards as the keeper of its history since 1750, of an age nobody has settled. If you know more, tell us. It stands in the middle of the village, a landmark rather than a secret. In December 2019 it won Bulgaria's Tree with Roots contest with 1,073 votes, and in 2020 it was the country's entry to European Tree of the Year. At the time an arborist's assessment was promised, and we have found no report of it since. The contest entry names it as a pedunculate oak; the press says only oak.