The Blinded Ancestors

The Bulgarian troops countered the repeated attempts by the Byzantines to take over the frontier with a frontal assault, but on 29 July 1014 they were suddenly attacked by the Nikephoros Xiphias detachment, which managed to crawl their positions along mountain paths. The battle ends with a heavy defeat of the Bulgarians. The number of the dead is significant, and the 14,000 captives are blinded by the order of Basil II, later called the Bulgarian Slayer. King Samuel died two months later - on October 6, 1014, after receiving a heart attack at the sight of his blind fighters.
Bulgaria was finally conquered and remained under Byzantine rule for nearly two centuries.
Being maimed after the defeat in the "Key Gorge" in 1014, some of the soldiers wanted to reach the Rila Monastery.
They stayed to camp near the healing water source in the village Dobarsko, which still exists in the yard of the medieval church "St. St. Teodor Tiron and Theodor Stratilat ".
The blinded soldiers washed their eyes with the water from the source and according to the legend some of them returned their sight again.
According to another legend, the Samuel warriors founded the "school of the blind singers" in Dobarsko.
They gathered and distributed the songs of the Bulgarian epic poem across the country. They burst out of burlap and singing. These were the Troubadоurs of the Samuel's army.