History of Plovdiv plant for electrical apparata, tobacco plant, canning factory, motor-truck factory and many others. On 6 April 1956 the first trolleybus line was opened and in the 50s the emblematic Trimontsium Hotel was constructed. In the 60s and 70s there was construction boom and many of the modern neighborhoods took shape. In the 70s and 80s many antique remains were excavated and the Old Town was fully restored. In 1990 the Sports complex "Plovdiv" was finished. It included the largest stadium and rowing canal in the country. In that period Plovdiv became the birthplace of Bulgaria's movement for democratic reform, which
Plovdiv is the second or the third-largest cosmopolitan city inhabited by Bulgarians, after Sofia and possibly Varna. According to the 2001 census, out of a population of 338,224 inhabitants, the Bulgarians numbered 302,858 (90%). Stolipinovo in Plovdiv is the largest Roma neighbourhood in the Balkans, having a population of around 20,000 alone; further Roma ghettos are Hadji Hassan Mahala and Sheker Mahala. Therefore, the census number is a deflation of the number of Roma people, and they are most likely the second-largest group after the Bulgarians, most of all because the Muslim Roma in Plovdiv claim to be of Turkish ethnicity