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Varna / Balchik
Varna
Varna (Bulgarian) is the largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, and 82th-largest in the European Union, with a population of 349,031[1].
Commonly referred to as the marine capital (or summer capital) of Bulgaria, Varna is a major tourist destination, university centre, seaport, and headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy and merchant marine, as well as the centre of Varna Province and Bulgaria's North-Eastern planning region (NUTS II), comprising the provinces of Dobrich, Shumen, Targovishte, and Varna.
Varna is among Europe's oldest cities. Miletians founded the apoikia (trading colony) of Odessos in 570 BCE (in the time of Astyages) at the site of an earlier Thracian settlement. The name Odessos, first mentioned by Strabo, was pre-Greek, perhaps of Carian origin. Long before the Thracians populated the area by 1200 BCE, several prehistoric settlements best known for the eneolithic necropolis, eponymous site of the Varna culture and the world's oldest large find of gold artifacts (mid-5th millennium BCE radiocarbon dating), existed within modern city limits. Odessos was a contact zone between the urban Ionians and the Thracians (Getae, Crobyzi, Terizi) of the hinterland, essentially a mixed Greco-Thracian community (see also Darzalas).
In 339 BCE, the city was unsuccessfully besieged by Philip II but surrendered to Alexander the Great in 335 BC, and was later ruled by his diadochus Lysimachus. The Roman city, Odessus (annexed in 15 CE to the province of Moesia, later Moesia Inferior), occupied 47 hectares in present-day central Varna and had prominent public baths, Thermae, erected in the late 2nd century, now the largest Roman remains in Bulgaria (the building was 100 m wide, 70 m long, and 20 m high) and fourth largest known Roman baths in Europe.
Odessus was an early Christian centre, as testified by ruins of perhaps ten early basilicas [1], a monastery, and indications that one of the Seventy Disciples, Ampliatus, follower of Saint Andrew (who, according to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church legend, preached in the city in 56 CE), served as bishop there. In 442, a peace treaty between Theodosius II and Attila was done at Odessus. In 536, Justinian I made it the seat of the quaestura exercitus including Moesia, Scythia, Caria, the Aegean islands and Cyprus.
Theophanes the Confessor first mentioned the name Varna, as the city came to be known with the Slavic conquest of the Balkans in the 6th-7th century. The name may be older than that; perhaps it derives from Proto-Indo-European root we-r- (water) [2]. In 681, Asparukh, the founder of the First Bulgarian Empire, routed an army of Constantine IV north of the Danube delta and reached the so-called Varna near Odessos. Recent scholarship has suggested that the first Bulgarian capital was perhaps located around Varna before it moved to Pliska. Asparukh fortified the Varna river lowland by a rampart against a possible Byzantine naval landing; several 7th-century Bulgar settlements have been excavated.
More at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna
http://www.varna.bg/english/index.htm
http://www.visittobulgaria.com/visit/Dir.asp?d=0-8-Varna
Balchik
Balchik (Bulgarian; historical names: Bulgarian, Karvuna, Greek: Κρουνοι, Krounoi, Διονυσοπολις, Dionysopolis, Romanian: Balcic) is a Black Sea coastal town in the Southern Dobruja area of northeastern Bulgaria. It is located in Dobrich Oblast and is 42 km northeast of Varna. The town sprawls scenically along hilly terraces descending from the Dobruja plateau to the sea.
The ancient Greek colony of Krounoi (also known as Dionysopolis, after Dionysus), later a Greek-Byzantine fortress, stood on the site of an older Thracian settlement. In the First Bulgarian Empire in 7th century AD, the place's name changed from Krounoi to Karvuna; in the Second Bulgarian Empire, it became an important administrative centre of its Karvunska Hora district, and was marked on Italian portolans as a port with the Italianized name of Carbona. In the 14th century, it briefly became capital of the spinoff Dobrujansko despotstvo (Principality of Karvuna). Under the Ottoman Empire, the town came to be known with its present name, which perhaps derived from a Gagauz word meaning "small town" [1] (as opposed to the "large town" of Varna).
More at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balchik
http://www.balchik.info/indexen.html
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