The gate is the only thing left from the 18th cen­tu­ry Turk­ish fortress, which was one of the largest in Bul­gar­ia. Accord­ing to the treaty of 1878, which rec­og­nized the inde­pen­dence of Bul­gar­ia from Turkey, all fortress­es in Bul­gar­ia were to be destroyed. For some rea­son, these gates were not destroyed, but were lined with iron so that they could not be used. Now this is one of the few exam­ples of archi­tec­ture of the Turk­ish peri­od in Ruse.