The city of Ruse, now in northern Bulgaria, was the center of the Ottoman Danube province from 1864 to 1878, when the city came under Russian occupation. My research examines the dramatic transformations of Ottoman Ruse –political, social, cultural and demographic– following the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878. As the city was composed of a variety of religious and ethnic groups that were both socially separate and culturally intertwined, I will explore how people of these various backgrounds lived together in this time of change in a discreet urban environment. My study will also focus on the ways in which the Treaty of Berlin was implemented in the region, detailing the issues regarding property disputes, civil rights, ethnic tensions, disarmament and relations with Russia. Nihad Pasha was the Ottoman commissioner in charge of handling these issues with the Bulgarian government, and I will end my research in 1885, when his term ended. I will address the questions: How were the changes after liberation experienced by the various groups that lived in the city, did they upset the balance of ethnic relations, and how did they affect the ties or commercial relationships? My project has required extensive research in various archives and libraries in Turkey, Bulgaria and the US. Most of the sources that I have used for this research include Bulgarian, Ottoman and Western Newspapers, Ottoman Foreign Office documents, British and Russian consular reports, Bulgarian Orthodox Church documents, and travelers’ accounts. This study will allow for comparison with studies of Balkan cities which gained independence from the Ottoman rule, as well as contribute to the broader field of urban studies.