Information about Kavarna

Kavarna is a Black Sea coastal town in the Dobruja region of northeastern Bulgaria. It is 50 km away from Varna and 49 km from Dobrich on the main road E79. The population is about 12,500. A little yacht port, a fishing base, a spacious beach and resort complexes are located in the town.

The lay of the land is flat and the seacoast of Kavarna is 42 km long. Along it there are small beaches, including an artificial one. Gore Chirakman with its almost sheer slopes towers above the seacoast. Remains of stronghold walls, moats, buildings, churches and necropolises can be found on the flat plateau. The region is rich in mineral waters.

The area around Kavarna offers opportunities for developing ecotourism and specialized tourism - examination and photography of plants, dolphins and various kinds of fish in the coastal waters. The variety of birds attracts tourists from all parts of the world and contributes to Kaliakra and Yaylata becoming one of the most preferred places in Bulgaria for the development of ornithological tourism.


The town was founded in the 5th century BC by Greek colonials who settled on the Chirakman Plateau in the colony called Byzone (or Bizone). During the 3rd and 2nd century BC the town played an important mediating role between the local settlements and the Greeks. Despite being unsuitable for wharfing because of its rocky coasts, the northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast was an attractive centre due to the fact that the local people produced and traded with corn of high quality.

During the second part of the 1st century BC the ancient town fell in the sea because of a disastrous earthquake. The frontal part of the Chirakman broke off and together with the richest citizens fell into the Black Sea's waters. According to the leader of the finished first part of the underwater archaeological expedition Kavarna 2005 Asen Salkin, the Roman town of Bizone has sunk two times in the sea. For that evidence the located form skin-divers borders of a sunken residential district of the town of Bizone in Kavarna's coast. For the presence of residential buildings the archaeologists judge by the found ashlars and parts of brick walls. The finds date from the 2nd century AD.
According to the leader of the expedition this residential district has nothing in common with the disastrous earthquake from the 1st century BC. The underwater finds evidence for other phenomenon, for which the scientists express only suppositions, such as transgression and regression of the strata. It has started to transgress during the 1st century AD and this has continued to the 2nd century. It is possible that during this period the coast has had raised by four metres and one day it suddenly fallen through.

During Roman times the town was restored under the same name and quickly flourished, the settlement revived and the port brightened up.

In the 7th century the Slavs and Bulgars destroyed the town and founded the settlement of Karvuna. During the Middle Ages the settlement developed vastly, becoming the center of the Principality of Karvuna that ruled all of Dobruja. During the 13th and 14th centuries, Karvuna reached its greatest blossoming under the rule of the Dobruja’s despots Balik and Dobrotitsa.

The town later came under sway of the expanding Ottoman Empire and was mentioned for the first time with its current name in the beginning of the 15th century. During the Ottoman invasions the town was almost destroyed, but during the second part of the 17th century it was rebuilt. The town was considered the economical and cultural centre during Antiquity and the Middle Ages with its ruins - stronghold walls, early-Christian basilica, medieval churches, and public buildings.

Notable works of art, such as coins from different historical epochs, golden adornments, a golden Thracian treasure of applications, have been found in the area. Between the 15th and 19th century the town becomes popular under the name Kavarna, as a Christian settlement and port for grain. From that time remain a Turkish bath, a medieval necropolis, a bridge, fountains, Christian churches and many inscriptions.

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 Kavarna's inhabitants rebelled against the bashi-bazouks and Circassian hordes. After the liberation the town became part of the Principality of Bulgaria.

From the beginning of 20th century Kavarna achieved a fast progress as an economical and cultural centre, interrupted in 1913 when the town went under Romanian rule. The Bulgarian population opposed to the assimilatory politics of the Romanian authorities by civic activities of the church and library. In 1940 the town was ultimately taken back to Bulgaria.


Since 2004 the town has turned in one of the centers of musical life in Bulgaria. Kavarna has been the host to several rock concerts. In 2005 the most popular band to play in the town's stadium was Deep Purple. The other notable performers were mostly legends of German rock and heavy metal music, such as Scorpions, Axel Rudi Pell, Gamma Ray, Masterplan and Destruction. On 27 August 2005 Accept, another German band, played here its last show ever.


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