During the late Ottoman era, Ruse gradually rose to prominence as a port for the river steamships that carried out the trade with Europe along the Danube. Another boon followed in the 1860s when the first railway line in what would be later Bulgaria was built between Ruse and the seaport city of Varna. The railway allowed goods from Central Europe to be moved quickly across the strip of land between the river and the sea and loaded onto sea ships bound to Istanbul and the rest of Asia Minor, thus avoiding a lengthy detour north through the Danube Delta. Ruse was also important militarily. Since the 18th century, it had been a part of the "quadrilateral of fortresses" Ruse—Silistra—Varna—Shumen, a quartet of fortified cities that guarded the corner of the Ottoman Empire in Europe that was closest to the Russian Empire. The Ruse Fortress saw action in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1828–29, 1853–54 (the Crimean War), and 1877–78 (the Liberation War of Bulgaria). Ruse's development and proximity to semi-independent, modernizing Romania "next door" also had given the city a large role in the Bulgarian National Revival and the struggle for Bulgarian liberation from Ottoman rule. Famous National Revival figures from Ruse include "grandma" Tonka Obretenova and her children: she herself, her five sons, and one of her daughters were revolutionaries; her other daughter was a schoolteacher... who married another famous revolutionary of the period, Zahari Stoyanov.

Immediately after the Liberation (1878), Ruse was the most economically and culturally developed city in Bulgaria. Back then the Principality of Bulgaria consisted only of Northern Bulgaria and the region of Sofia, and the new capital had been a relative backwater. In the first census (1881), Ruse was the largest city in Bulgaria, with Varna being the second. This would change with the Unification of 1885, which added most of Southern Bulgaria including the large and populous Plovdiv. Nevertheless, the concentration of trade and capital in Ruse lead to further economic and industrial development. A large number of commercial and public buildings were constructed in that period, influenced by Central European architecture, in styles such as Neo-Baroque, Neo-Rococo, Neoclassical, and Art Noveau.

Ruse took a heavy hit with the loss of Southern Dobruja in the Second Balkan War and the First World War. A large part of the trade had been grain exports from the fertile fields of Dobrudzha, and it had also provided a market for the products imported or manufactured in the city. Dobrudzha was regained in the 1940s, but by that time the focus of development in Bulgaria has already spread elsewhere, and railways had been chipping away at river trade.

Under the Communist regime, the first bridge between Bulgaria and Romania was opened by Ruse in 1954. Originally named "The Bridge of Friendship" (Most(at) na druzhbata), it was commonly called simply "Danube bridge" (Dunav most) and it would remain the only bridge between the two countries for more than 50 years, until the opening of the New Europe Bridge in 2013, between Vidin and Calafat.

Modern Ruse remains an important economic, financial and cultural hub in Northern Bulgaria. It's remains the country's largest river port, and a major border crossing.

Bulgaria can claim only one Nobel Prize winner: Elias Canetti (1905-1994), a writer of Sephardic Jewish descent who was born in Ruse and won the Prize for Literature in 1981. His celebrated memoir The Tongue Set Free (1977) tells of his childhood in Ruse, before his family moved to Manchester and then Vienna when he was 11-12. There's a bust monument of him downtown, and his father's commercial building (built 1898) is used by the International Elias Canetti Society and hosts various artistic events.

• Tourst Information Centre (Туристически информационен център) (on the street that exits the central Svoboda Sqr to the north-east, close to the square), ☏ +359 82 824 704, office@visitruse.info. M-F 9:00-18:00, Sa 9:30-18:00. Small street-level office sandwiched between two shops. The link is to Ruse's official tourist information page, but as of late 2024 the English version is broken - use machine translation on the Bulgarian version, or the site below. (updated Sep 2024)
• Visit Bulgaria: Ruse, the city's page in the official tourism portal of Bulgaria (in English, German, Russian)

Basarbovo (Басарбово) is a village 8 km (5.0 mi) south of Ruse that lies directly on Road 501, which in turn branches off E85/Road 5 close to where it exits Ruse.

• 43.7668725.964566 Basarbovo Monastery (St. Dimitar Basarbovski Monastery) (the road leading to the monastery branches from Road 501 in the village, just north of the bridge where 501 crosses the river). A functioning Eastern Orthodox monastery named after a local saint, Dimitar of Basarbovo. Probably the only "rock-hewn"/cliff-side/cave monastery that remains in operation in Bulgaria, although nowadays the monks' dormitory is at the base on the cliffs, and the cells carved high up in the cliff face are used as chapels and tombs. (updated Apr 2023)

Ivanovo (Иваново) is a village of 800 people, 20 km (12 mi) south of Ruse, notable for the UNESCO World Heritage Site described below. It can be reached by train from Ruse (several times a day, 25 min travel time). By car, it requires either following Road 501 further south from Basarbovo, or taking the larger E85 and then turning east at the appropriate crossroads (marked with a pillar-like monument). The churches are within a protected area, Nature Park Rusenski Lom (lit. 'Lom of Ruse'), which encompasses several canyons formed by the river and its tributaries as they snake through low, wood-covered hills.

• 43.71666725.9666677 The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo (Ивановски скални църкви, Ivanovski skalni tsarkvi) (paved road starts at the northern end of the village, heading east for 4.6 km (2.9 mi); there's a parking lot at the base of the cliffs). A group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock in the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m above the river. The complex is notable for its well-preserved medieval frescoes, the best preserved medieval rock/cave/cliff monastery in Bulgaria. (updated Oct 2016)

The caves in the region had been inhabited by monks from the 1220s, when it was founded by the future Patriarch of Bulgaria Joachim, to the 17th century, where they hewed cells, churches and chapels out of solid rock. At the peak of the monastery complex, the number of churches was about 40, while the other premises were around 300, most of which are not preserved today.

Second Bulgarian Empire rulers such as Ivan Alexander and Ivan Asen II frequently made donations to the complex, as evidenced by donor portraits in some of the churches. Other patrons included nobles from the capital Tarnovo and nearest big medieval town Cherven, with which the monastery complex had strong ties in the 13-th and 14-th century. It was a centre of hesychasm in the Bulgarian lands in the 14th century and continued to exist in the early centuries of the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria, but gradually decayed.

The monastery complex owes much of its fame to 13th- and 14th-century frescoes, preserved in 5 of the churches, which are thought of as wonderful examples of Bulgarian mediaeval art. The rock premises used by the monks include the St Archangel Michael Chapel ("The Buried Church"), the Baptistery, the Gospodev Dol Chapel, the St Theodore Church ("The Demolished Church") and the main Church, with the 14th-century murals in the latter one being arguably the most famous of all in Ivanovo and noted as some of the most representative examples of Palaeologan art. Many century-old inscriptions have also been preserved in the monastical premises, including the famous indented inscription of the monk Ivo Gramatik from 1308–1309.

The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979.

Червен (Червен) is a small village 30 km (19 mi) south of Ruse. Its name means "red" in masculine form, and the village either got its name from the medieval fortress, or the other way round. Cherven can be reached by train, if you get off at Koshov ('Кошов', three trains daily, 30 min from Ruse), but you'll have to walk almost 9 km (5.6 mi) to the fortress. By car, Cherven is on a single-lane rural road that branches off Road 501 south of Ivanovo and continues east to merge into Road 202. Afterwards, you can either backtrack to Road 501 to get back onto E85, or follow Road 202 south to Popovo and Targovishte, or continue east towards Razgrad (see that article for detailed instructions).

• 43.6224426.024938 Cherven Fortress (paved road starts from the northern part of the village, branching off the main road when the latter takes a sharp turn to the east on the north side of the bridge). The ruins of a large medieval fortified town, on a meander of the Cherni Lom river (lit. 'Black Lom'), surrounded by cliffs on almost all sides. There's a parking lot with a ticket office and a coffee shop at the base, and a staircase leads to the ruins. Among the ruins, there's an unusually well preserved (by Bulgarian standards...) square tower, and a church with remnants of floor mosaics (protected by a modern roof). Nice panoramic views of the scenic landscape, good for drone photography. Try finding the well that has siege engine ammunition on its bottom (large stone balls). (updated Apr 2023)