Kaliakra
Coordinates: 43 ° 22 ′ 0 ″ N , 28 ° 28 ′ 0 ″ E
The Kaliakra [ kɐliakrɐ ] ( Bulgarian Нос Калиакра Nos Kaliakra ) is adjacent to the Emine the best known chapter of Bulgaria on the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast in the region Dobrudscha .
history
A fortress has been located here along the Via Pontica since ancient times . It was called Tirisis among the Thracians , Akra among the Romans and Akres Kastelum among the Byzantines . In the Middle Ages, the strategically important fortress was named Kaliakra . It became the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th century in the Dobruja despotate .
The region has always been the bone of contention among residents and the great powers interested in the Black Sea. Cape Kaliakra has also been fortified repeatedly: the oldest fortifications come from the Thracians and date from around the 4th century BC. At a later time the Greeks took over the region and for over 200 years, the Romans.
With the division of the Roman Empire , the region became Byzantine . In the 13th century, as a result of the fourth crusade and the Latin Empire established in Constantinople , there was an autonomous state of a "Prince Dobrotitsch", from whom the landscape takes its name. Then Byzantium was restored, but soon fell to the Turks , who in 1791 lost the sea battle at Cape Kaliakra against Russian warships under Admiral Ushakov .
Becoming Bulgarian since 1878, Kaliakra belonged to Romania from 1913 to 1940 and only since the end of World War II back to Bulgaria, where it was used by the Soviet Union in accordance with the Warsaw Pact .
In 1988 the construction of a large transmission system for medium-wave broadcasting began, but it never went into operation in the desired form.
In 2006, the Ushakov monument at Cape Kaliakra was dedicated to commemorate the victory in 1791 .
The chap
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The roughly 70 meter high reddish rocks are strongly fissured and hollowed out. One of the caves is designed as a museum in which mainly finds from the ancient fortress Tetrasiada can be seen - further documentation can be found primarily in the museums in Varna , but also in Balchik and Kawarna.
Seal colonies have settled in other caverns . Seabirds can be seen from the height of the cape and dolphins can often be seen beyond the reefs . In the north, Kaliakra borders the Taukliman lagoon (bird bay) and the Bolata marshland, nature reserves with many and rare animal and plant species, over 150 species of birds live there alone.
Legends
When in 323 BC After the death of Alexander the Great, whose governor Lysimachus seized the whole of Thrace in the struggle for power , his fleet with the stolen state treasure is said to have sunk in a storm off Kaliakra. It should be as much a legend as the tradition of the girl Kaliakra and her 39 blond-braided co-fates who are said to have thrown themselves from the steep cliffs into the sea in view of the Turkish conquest of Bulgaria in order not to end up in a harem .
today
Today the rugged cape is a popular destination for tourists. The lighthouse from 1901 is not accessible, as is the uppermost part of the rock. Not far from the rock, a large wind farm and a medium wave transmitter were built. To visit the cape you have to pay an entrance fee, 3 leva (about 1.50 euros) per adult.
literature
- Manfred Oppermann : Thracians, Greeks and Romans on the west coast of the Black Sea . Zabern's illustrated books on archeology . Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3739-7 .
