Rilska River in the context of "Rila Monastery"

Rila (Bulgarian: Рила, pronounced [ˈriɫɐ]) is the highest mountain range of Bulgaria, the Balkan Peninsula, and of Southeast Europe. It is situated in southwestern Bulgaria and forms part of the Rila–Rhodope Massif. The highest summit is Musala at an elevation of 2,925 m which makes Rila the sixth highest mountain range in Europe after the Caucasus, the Alps, Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees and Mount Etna, and the highest one between the Alps and the Caucasus. It spans a territory of 2,629 km with an average elevation of 1487 m. The mountain is believed to have been named after the river of the same name, which comes from the Old Bulgarian verb "рыти" meaning "to grub".

Rila has abundant water resources. Some of the Balkans' longest and deepest rivers originate from Rila, including the Maritsa, Iskar and Mesta rivers. Bulgaria's main water divide separating the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea drainage systems follows the main ridge of Rila. The mountain range is dotted with almost 200 glacial lakes such as the renowned Seven Rila Lakes, and is rich in hot springs in the fault areas at the foothills, including the hottest spring in South-eastern Europe in Sapareva Banya.

Barakovo (Bulgarian: Бараково) is a village in Kocherinovo Municipality, Kyustendil Province of southwest Bulgaria. As of 2013, it had a population of 468. It is situated at the western foothills of the Rila Mountains on the banks of the Rilska River. Between 1974 and 1991 it was administratively a neighbourhood of the town of Kocherinovo.

After the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 the village remained within the Ottoman Empire on the very border with the Principality of Bulgaria. The population supported the Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. At the outbreak of the First Balkan War in 1912 seven people from Barakovo joined the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps that was formed in support the Bulgarian war effort against the Ottomans.

The Struma or Strymonas (Bulgarian: Струма, romanized: Struma, pronounced [ˈstrumɐ]; Greek: Στρυμόνας, romanized: Strymónas, pronounced [striˈmonas]) is a river in Bulgaria and Greece. Its ancient name was Strymon (Greek: Στρυμών, romanized: Strymṓn, pronounced [stryˈmɔːn]). Its drainage area is 17,330 km (6,690 sq mi), of which 8,670 km (3,350 sq mi) in Bulgaria, 6,295 km (2,431 sq mi) in Greece and the remaining 2,365 km (913 sq mi) in North Macedonia and Serbia. It takes its source from the Vitosha Mountain in Bulgaria, runs first westward, then southward, forming a number of gorges, enters Greece near the village of Promachonas in eastern Macedonia. In Greece it is the main waterway feeding and exiting from Lake Kerkini, a significant centre for migratory wildfowl. Also in Greece, the river entirely flows in the Serres regional unit into the Strymonian Gulf in Aegean Sea, near Amphipolis. The river's length is 415 kilometres (258 miles) (of which 290 kilometres (180 mi) in Bulgaria, making it the country's fifth-longest and one of the longest rivers that run solely in the interior of the Balkans.

Parts of the river valley belong to a Bulgarian coal-producing area, more significant in the past than nowadays; the southern part of the Bulgarian section is an important wine region. The Greek portion is a valley which is dominant in agriculture, being Greece's fourth-biggest valley. The tributaries include the Konska River, the Dragovishtitsa, the Rilska River, the Blagoevgradska Bistritsa, the Sandanska Bistritsa, the Strumitsa, the Pirinska Bistritsa and the Angitis.

Kocherinovo (Bulgarian: Кочериново, pronounced [kot͡ʃɛˈrinovo]) is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, part of Kyustendil Province. It is the administrative centre of Kocherinovo Municipality, which lies in the southern part of Kyustendil Province. As of 2013 it had 2,255 inhabitants.

Kocherinovo is situated close to the left bank of the Struma River; its southernmost neighbourhood Levski lies at the confluence of the Struma and the Rilska River. The town is located 70 kilometres south of Sofia, 8 kilometres north of Blagoevgrad and 2 kilometres off European route E79 and Struma motorway, on the way to the Rila Monastery. In the 1930s, famous Bulgarian poet Nikola Vaptsarov worked in a Kocherinovo factory near the village of Barakovo as a stoker and a technician.