Osman Pazvantoglu

Osman Pazvantoglu(1758-27 January 1807, Vidin) was a Turkish pasha and from 1794 a governor of the Vidin district of the Ottoman Empire. Having gathered a large army of mercenaries, he rebelled against the Ottoman sultan Selim III. He minted his own coin and had diplomatic relations with foreign states (including France).

He often had violent plunder incursions in Wallachia, where he often set on fire the cities which he plundered. In 1800, a large portion of the city of Craiova burnt after was set on fire by Pazvantoglu's troops. His incursions soon became infamous in all of Wallachia and later, the expression "like in the time of Pazvante" implied the terror of Pazvantoglu's attacks. However, with time, the expression came to mean "extremely old".