page_title: Kavarna
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kavarna / History
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Kavarna, Bulgaria Български: Изглед от Каварна, България
context_page_description: Kavarna from Dobrich on the international road E87 and 43 km (27 mi) south of the border with Romania. It is the principal town of Kavarna Municipality, part of Dobrich Province. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 11,397 inhabitants. A little yacht port, a fishing base, a spacious beach and a resort complex exist in the town. The landmark Cape Kaliakra is located a few kilometers to the east, as is the tiny beachfront resort of Rusalka. Three 18-hole golf courses with villa communities and marinas are being developed nearby, two of the courses are designed by Gary Player and one by Ian Woosnam.
  During the 2000s, the town became famous with the annual Kaliakra Rock Fest featuring famous rock bands from around the world.
context_section_description: The town was founded in the 5th century BC by Ancient Greek colonists who settled on the Chirakman Plateau in the colony Byzone (or Bizone) (Ancient Greek: Βιζώνη). During the 3rd and 2nd century BC, the town played an important mediating role between the local Thracian settlements and the Greeks. Despite being unsuitable for wharfing because of its rugged cliffs, this part of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast was an attractive centre due to the fact that the local people produced and traded with high quality grain.
  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 sunk 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 had risen 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 AD the Slavs and Asparuh's Bulgars destroyed the Byzantine town and later founded a new settlement, which entered the First Bulgarian Empire. In the late Middle Ages the settlement grew and was subject to Tatar raids; in the 14th century it became part of the Principality of Karvuna, which de facto broke away from the Second Bulgarian Empire under the rule of the despots Balik and Dobrotitsa of the Bulgarian royal Terter dynasty.  In 1397, the Ottoman Turks nearly destroyed the city, which was abandoned but resettled again and rebuilt by the early 17th century. Its present name was documented for the first time in the early 15th century.
  The town was considered an economical and cultural centre during Antiquity and the Middle Ages with rich and various remains – 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 export. 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 Christian inhabitants, Bulgarians and Gagauz alike, 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 rapid progress as an economical and cultural centre. The town renamed Cavarna came under Romanian rule after the Second Balkan War in 1913 and again after the First World War in 1919.  This however, was met with resistance by the local Bulgarian population and its Internal Dobrujan Revolutionary Organisation. In 1940 the town was ceded back to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Craiova.
caption: View of Kavarna
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