Balchik ( ; , ) is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and

seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...

on the

Bulgarian Black Sea Coast The Bulgarian Black Sea Coast (), also known as the Bulgarian Riviera, covers the entire eastern bound of Bulgaria stretching from the Romanian Black Sea resorts in the north to European Turkey in the south, along 378 km of ...

in the

Southern Dobruja Southern Dobruja or South Dobruja ( or simply , ; or , ), also the Quadrilateral (), is an area of north-eastern Bulgaria comprising Dobrich and Silistra provinces, part of the historical region of Dobruja. It has an area of 7,412 square km an ...

area of northeastern

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. It is in Dobrich Province, 35 km southeast of

Dobrich Dobrich ( ; ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, 9th most populated city in Bulgaria, the administrative centre of Dobrich Province and the capital of the region of Southern Dobrudzha. It is located in the northeastern part of the cou ...

and 42 km northeast of Varna. It sprawls scenically along hilly terraces descending from the

Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; or ''Dobrudža''; , or ; ; Dobrujan Tatar: ''Tomrîğa''; Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and ) is a Geography, geographical and historical region in Southeastern Europe that has been divided since the 19th century betw ...

plateau to the sea, and is often called "The White City" because of its white cliffs.

Etymology

Under the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, the town came to be known with its present name, which perhaps derived from a Gagauz word meaning "small town". Another theory suggests that it is named after the medieval ruler Balik, brother of Dobrotitsa, after whom the city of

is named.

History

Antiquity: Thracians and Greeks

Founded as a

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

settlement, it was later colonised by the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

Ionians The Ionians (; , ''Íōnes'', singular , ''Íōn'') were one of the traditional four major tribes of Ancient Greece, alongside the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major linguistic divisions of the ...

with the name Krounoi (), later renamed as Dionysopolis () after the discovery of a statue of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

in the sea.

Early Middle Ages: Byzantines and Bulgarians

Later it became a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

and Bulgarian fortress. Karvuna is the old Bulgarian name of the ancient Dionysopol. The external resemblance to the name of the modern town of Kavarna is an occasion for some local historians to identify Karvuna with Kavarna, but the archaeological and historical data are not in favour of this proposal. Karvuna was the capital of the Karvuna region - so called Dobrogea ( Dobrudja) in the Middle Ages until the arrival of the Turks. The remains of the castle of the boyars Balik and Dobrotitsa were found above the city hospital of Balchik in the "Horizon" district (Gemidzhiya), but were almost erased by natural processes. In the Vasil Levski neighbourhood there are remains of the great fortress of Karvuna, built by the Byzantines and used by them and by the Bulgarians during the First Bulgarian Kingdom. Later, due to difficulties in defending the vast fortress located in the plain and the lack of a view of the sea, the Bulgarians built a fort of which only modest remains are preserved on the highest hill of the city, the Dzheni Bair or Ekhoto ('Echo') hill. The earthen rampart behind the ditch dates to the late 12th century, with various habitation-related findings from the 11th-15th centuries. The

boyar A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Bulgaria, Kievan Rus' (and later Russia), Moldavia and Wallachia (and later Romania), Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. C ...

Balik lived in the said castle opposite it on the hill above the present hospital, south of the great Kavarna fortress, which the centuries have now completely obliterated. Dobrotitsa (r. 1347–86), after ruling for some time here, moved the capital of the Despotate of Karvuna from Karvuna to Kaliakra.

Ottoman period

Under the Ottomans, the town came to be known by its present name.

Modern period

Part of Bulgaria (1878-1913)

After the

liberation of Bulgaria The Liberation of Bulgaria is the historical process as a result of the Bulgarian Revival. In Bulgarian historiography, the liberation of Bulgaria refers to those events of the Tenth Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) that led to the re-establishme ...

in 1878, Balchik developed as centre of a rich agricultural region, wheat-exporting port, and district (''okoliya'') town, and later, as a major tourist destination with the beachfront resort of Albena to its south.

Part of Romania (1913-1940)

After the

Second Balkan War The Second Balkan War was a conflict that broke out when Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia and Kingdom of Greece, Greece, on 1 ...

, in 1913, the town became part of the

Kingdom of Romania The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...

, with its name spelled Balcic. It was regained by Bulgaria during World War I (1916–1919), but Romania restored its authority when hostilities in the region ceased. During

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

's administration, the

Balchik Palace The Balchik Palace (, ''Dvorets v Balchik''; ) is a palace in Balchik, a town and sea side resort located in Dobrich Province, Bulgaria. The official name of the palace was the Quiet Nest Palace. The palace was constructed between 1926 and 1 ...

was the favourite summer residence of Queen Marie of Romania and her immediate family. The town is the site of Marie's Oriental villa, the place where her heart was kept, in accordance with her last wishes, until 1940 (when the

Treaty of Craiova The Treaty of Craiova (; ) was signed on 7 September 1940 and ratified on 13 September 1940 by the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Romania. Under its terms, Romania had to allow Bulgaria to retake Southern Dobruja, which Romania had gained ...

awarded the region back to Bulgaria). It was then moved to Bran Castle, in central Romania. Today, the Balchik Palace and the adjacent Balchik Botanical Garden are the town's most popular landmarks and a popular tourist sightseeing destination. Balchik flowers

During the inter-war period, Balchik was also a favorite destination for Romanian avant-garde painters, lending his name to an informal school of post-impressionist painters, the Balcic School of Painting, which is central in the development of Romanian 20th-century painting. Many works of the artists comprising the group depict the town's houses and the Turkish inhabitants, as well as the sea. Some seaside villas of the Romanian elite are preserved in Balchik, including Villa Storck (built in 1920–1926 by the artists Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck and Frederic Storck) and the adjacent modernist Villa Sanda (1934).

Back to Bulgaria (1940)

In 1940, just before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in the region and in the wider context of Hitler's intervention and the

Second Vienna Award The Second Vienna Award was the second of two territorial disputes that were arbitrated by Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy. On 30 August 1940, they assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania, including all of Maramureș and part of Cri ...

, Balchik was ceded back by Romania to Bulgaria by the terms of the

. This included an exchange of populations by ethnic groups.

Population

The city's population was 11,051 people (data fro
National Statistics Institute - Bulgaria
2018). The total population of Balchik municipality was 19,331. According to an estimate by Bulgarian historian Rayna Gavrilova, the Bulgarian population before 1878 was only around 10%. Bulgaria-Balchik-03

The ethnic composition has gradually changed from mostly Gagauz and Tatar/ Turkish to predominantly Bulgarian. According to the latest (2011) census data, Balchik's ethnic composition is the following: *

Bulgarians Bulgarians (, ) are a nation and South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighbouring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, ...

: 7,916 (72.9%) * Turks: 1,715 (15.8%) *

Gypsies {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , ...

: 954 (8.8%) *Others: 191 (1.8%) *Indefinable: 79 (0.7%) *Undeclared: 755 (6.5%)

Culture

Art

Held each year since 1991, "The ProcessSpace Art Festival" is an annual international festival of

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

, which takes place over two weeks in June. Balchik Palace also hosts the "In the Palace International Short Film Festival".

Music

Held annually each summer since 2006 in the nearby town of Kavarna, the

Kavarna Rock Fest Kavarna Rock Fest was a Bulgarian rock festival that took place every year at the Kavarna Stadium in Kavarna. Until 2010 the festival's name was Kaliakra Rock Fest. 2006 The first edition of the festival was on 25 August 2006. The festival was ...

hosts top-name bands for a three-day festival. Previous acts have included

Motörhead Motörhead () were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1975 by bassist and lead vocalist Lemmy Kilmister, guitarist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox. Kilmister was the primary songwriter and only constant member. The band a ...

Twisted Sister Twisted Sister was an American Heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in 1972 in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and later based on Long Island, New York (state), New York. Their best-known songs include "We're Not Gonna Take It (Twisted Sister song ...

Mötley Crüe Mötley Crüe is an American Heavy metal music, heavy metal band formed in Hollywood, California, in 1981 by bassist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, with guitarist Mick Mars and lead vocalist Vince Neil joining right after. The band has sol ...

Scorpions Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...

Alice Cooper Vincent Damon Furnier (born February 4, 1948), known by his stage name Alice Cooper, is an American rock singer and songwriter whose career spans sixty years. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusion ...

Deep Purple Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical style has varied throughout their career. Originally for ...

, and the Michael Schenker Group. For the last few years, the mayor has cancelled the Kavarna Rock Fest due to different music preference.

Sports

Balchik is becoming well known internationally as a golfing destination. There are three 18-hole championship

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

courses within the local vicinity, two designed by

Gary Player Gary James Player (born 1 November 1935) is a South African retired professional golfer who is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. During his career, Player won nine major championships on the regular tour and nine ...

- Thracian Cliffs GC and BlackSeaRama GC; and one designed by Ian Woosnam - Lighthouse GC. A fourth 18-hole golf course is currently in the planning stages.

Trivia

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. List of awards and nominations received by Francis Ford Coppo ...

spent 11 days at the Balchik palace shooting scenes of Youth Without Youth (2007). * Balchik Ridge, in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

, is named after the town. * The Balchik Airfield is a both commercial and military airfield near the town. *Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet wrote his well-known poem "Mavi Liman" ('The Blue Port') in Balchik.

Twin towns - sister cities

Balchik is twinned with: * Boxberg, Germany *

Bran Bran, also known as miller's bran, is the component of a Cereal, cereal grain consisting of the hard layersthe combined aleurone and Fruit anatomy#Pericarp layers, pericarpsurrounding the endosperm. Maize, Corn (maize) bran also includes the p ...

, Romania *

Cieszyn Cieszyn ( , ; ; ) is a border town in southern Poland on the east bank of the Olza River, and the administrative seat of Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship. The town has 33,500 inhabitants ( and lies opposite Český Těšín in the Czech Repu ...

, Poland * Galich, Russia * Hagfors, Sweden * Mangalia, Romania *

Stará Ľubovňa Stará Ľubovňa (, , , , , ) is a town with approximately 16,000 inhabitants in northeastern Slovakia. The town consists of the districts Podsadek and Stará Ľubovňa. Names The name is of Slovak or Slavic origin and is potentially derived fro ...

, Slovakia *

Tambov Tambov ( , ; rus, Тамбов, p=tɐmˈbof) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Central Federal District, central Russia, at the confluence of the Tsna River (Moksha basin), Tsna ...

, Russia *

Valašské Meziříčí Valašské Meziříčí (; ) is a town in Vsetín District in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 23,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monum ...

, Czech Republic

Gallery

File:Balchik-costal1.jpg, Coastal view with private hotels File:Balchik boats.jpg, The coast File:Balchik-St1.jpg, The main street going down the harbour File:Balchik Palace baths ifb.JPG, Balchik Palace, pool and portico File:Balchik Palace 5.jpg, Balchik Palace, the gardens File:Balchik Palace 22.jpg, Balchik Palace, waterfall File:Villa Storck Balchik 1.jpg, Villa Storck

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Balchik.com – Hotels, Restaurants, News, Events and Properties– Online catalog of BalchikBalchik Photos

Searchable Greek Inscriptions at The Packard Humanities Institute (PHI)
– Segment from ''Decree of Dionysopolis'' reviewed in ''Inscriptiones graecae in Bulgaria repertae'' by Georgi Mihailov *, description and history
Balchik Palace and Botanical Garden
visitor's guide
International Art Forum – WithoutBordersIn The Palace International Short Film Festival, BalchikBulgariaLeisure.com, Tourism Information Portal
(in Bulgarian and English) {{Authority control Seaside resorts in Bulgaria Populated places in Dobrich Province Former capitals of Bulgaria Port cities and towns in Bulgaria Populated coastal places in Bulgaria Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast Port cities of the Black Sea Place names of Turkish origin in Bulgaria