The evolution of Chiprovtsi from a mining town to a trade hub owes much to the settlement of merchants from the Republic of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia) and the quality of the local metalworking, as well as the lack of permanent Ottoman presence and the privileges enjoyed by the population. By the mid-17th century, mining was in decline, as the silver deposits had been all but exhausted (in 1666 there remained only 16 iron smelteries), forcing the population to seek a more profitable occupation. Since 1659, the Ragusan merchants from Provadiya altered their traditional route to Dubrovnik through Sofia in order to visit Chiprovtsi. The local residents produced and traded with leather, carpets, fabrics, clothes, remarkable gold and silver jewellery, metal tools, cattle, etc. Initially, the Chiprovtsi merchants would only visit Vidin, Pirot, Sofia and Vratsa. Later, however, they appeared at the markets in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Bucharest, Odessa, Braşov, Sibiu, Belgrade, Buda and Pest, with a particularly strong presence in Wallachia and Transylvania, where they established permanent agencies and sizable companies in Târgovişte, Câmpulung and Râmnic during the rule of Matei Basarab (1632–1654). The international trade broadened the outlook of the locals and introduced the ideas of the age and the European culture of the time to the region.