Varna, the Black Sea capital

Highly skilled gold- and coppersmiths lived around the Gulf of Varna 6000 years ago, and their Thracian descendants littered the interior with burial mounds. The earliest archaeological finds on the territory of the town refer to the Varna Eneolithic necropolis, uncovered on the northern bank of Varna Lake. In the investigated 280 graves there have been uncovered 3010 golden objects of overall weight of more than 6 kg, dated as the oldest golden find in Europe. Varna's importance as a port really dates from 585 BC, when a mixed bag of Apollonian and Milesian Greeks established the city-state of Odessos in the place of an ancient Thracian settlement. The name of the town /Odessos – a settlement on water, "Watery"/ is not Greek but of an earlier linguistic origin which suggests the presence of an older village on the same territory. The development of the town was typical for the classical polis town-state, independently governed. In almost no time Odessos becomes one of the most important port and trade centers at the Black Sea. It is an important trade, crafts and agrarian centre. The town mints its own coins (drachmas). The Thracian tribes of Krobizi populated the vicinity of the town. The imported ceramic vessels found on the territory of the ancient town suggest the most important trends of trade relations. During the first decades they aim mainly to the mother country – the town of Milet and the nearby territories on the western coast of Asia Minor but from the early 5th century BC priority was taken by the trade import from Athens.

Initially Apollo was a supreme deity of town. His bynames of Apollo Ietros /a healer, a protector/ and Apollo Delfiniy are quite explicit to his functions in the religious notions of the ancient. After 2nd century BC, a substantial change in the religious life is to be traced in Odessos – the Thracian god Darzalas was raised as a supreme deity in the Pantheon of the town. Evidence to the fact are the coins of the town carrying his image, numerous terracotta statuettes, as well as an unique miniature lead statuette dated 4th century BC. This change in the organization of the religious life in the town obviously was as a result of the consolidating position of the Thracian population in the town. In the early 1st century AD Odessos was included into the realms of the Roman Empire. The town and the surrounding region were influenced by a variety of cultural tendencies. The population was ethnically varied which explains the variety in the deity pantheon during that epoch. The supreme god of Odessos was the Thracian god Darzalas but most widely spread among the local population was the cult to Heros, the Thracian god-horseman. The earliest votive tablets dedicated to the Thracian god-horseman have been discovered in a big sanctuary from the 2nd century AD near the Galata residential quarters by Varna.

Later the town, set up in the 6th century BC, was Thracian, Macedonian, and Roman city. However, its best years came in the second and third centuries when it was the Roman province of Moesia's main outlet to the sea, a bustling place where Greek and Thracian cultures met and mingled. Devastated by the Avars in 586 AD, and repopulated by Slavs (who were probably responsible for renaming it Varna, or "Black One"), it nevertheless remained the region's biggest port and an important staging-post for the Byzantine fleet on its way to the Danube. In AD 681 it became part of the First Bulgarian empire (c. 679-1018) and was named Varna. During the reign (1218) of Ivan Asen II, it became a thriving centre of trade with Genoa, Venice, and Dubrovnik. After falling under Ottoman domination in 1391, it continued to grow in importance. In 1444, in a pitched battle fought nearby, the Turkish armies of Murad II routed the armies of the last Christian Crusade lead by Vladislav IV Jagelo - a young Polish prince - against the Turks in the Balkans. Prince Vladislav IV died during the battle at the age of 21 and in honour of his courage he was called Varnenchik. Declining somewhat under the Turks, Varna recovered as an important trading centre in the nineteenth century, when a population of Bulgarians, Greeks, Turks and Gagauz (Turkic-speaking Christians) made it one of the coast's more cosmopolitan centres. To the Turks, Varna was the key to the security of the western Black Sea, and the town's military role is still reflected in the students of Varna's Naval Academy, who stride around town in uniforms belted with ceremonial daggers.

The Russians captured Varna in 1828 during the war for the liberation of Greece, but, when they left, the city reverted to the Turks. In 1854 Varna became a base for Anglo-French troops operating against Sevastopol during the CrimeanWar. It was liberated from the Turks in 1878 and ceded to Bulgaria by the Treaty of Berlin. After the building of the Ruse-Varna railway in 1866 - the first in Bulgaria - and the rail link to Sofia in 1899, the town expanded further. A modern harbour was constructed in 1906.

The city has regular domestic airline services and, in the summer, international flights. Regular boat and bus services connect the Black Sea towns. Much of Bulgaria's maritime and river transport passes through Varna's harbour, which accommodates vessels up to 20,000 tons. Major export items are livestock, grain, and processed foodstuffs. Industries include flour milling, boatbuilding, and manufacturing. The city has several universities, a naval academy, an oceanography and fishery-research institute, a medical school, museums, a theatre, an opera house, and an many art galleries. The 4th-century Aladzha Monastery, one of the earliest Bulgarian monasteries, overlooks the city from the north; its cells and chapel are carved out of the rock. A 5th/6th-century basilica is a reminder of an ancient Genoese colony. Between 1949 and 1956 Varna was renamed Stalin. Population (1992 est.) 316,231.

Varna still has its problems – loss-making shipyards southwest of the centre give the place a hard industrial edge – and most of the consumer goods on sale in the town centre are well beyond the means of those who inhabit the high-rise suburbs. Nevertheless, the self-confident riviera-town swagger of the place comes as a breath of fresh air after the more austere appearance of much of inland Bulgaria. It rivals Sofia and Plovdiv in providing a wide range of sights and museums, from the outstanding treasures in the Archeology Museum to the off-the-wall ghoulishness of the Museum of Medical History. Of its cultural attractions, most notable is the annual Varnensko Lyato (Varna Summer), which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2001 – a summer-long festival of classical music, folklore and jazz, which attracts world-class performers. As well as being a beach resort in its own right, Varna offers access to the purpose-built tourist complexes of Sveti Konstantin (formerly "Druzhba") – now swallowed up by Varna's suburbs – Sunny Day, Golden Sands and Albena to the north. Also within easy reach are quieter seaside villages like Kranevo, and popular day-trip destinations such as the nature reserve at Kamchiya, the rock monastery of Aladzha, and Queen Marie of Romania's former palace at Balchik.

The ugly, industrial town of Devnya, 30km west of Varna, is now known only for its highly noxious chemical industry, but during the last century its reputation was widespread as Bulgaria's vampire capital. Reports brought back from the Black Sea region by nineteenth-century travellers reveal that belief in vampires was widespread among the Bulgarian peasantry of the time. Travelling in the 1880s, the Czech Balkanologist Konstantin Jirecek found a wealth of vampire lore in the isolated rural communities west of Varna, with inexplicable illnesses among humans, and particularly sheep – the region's main source of income – being attributed to a visitation by some bloodthirsty demon, and local wise men (known as vampirdzhiya or dzhadzhiya) being paid handsomely by villagers to drive the fiends away. According to Jirecek, the vampire hunters of Devnya were considered the best in eastern Bulgaria.

The belief was that people became vampires if proper burial customs were not observed or if certain portentous events happened before their death: for example, a shadow passing across their body, or a dog or cat jumping across their path. After burial, an invisible spirit would rise up from the grave each night, feeding off local flocks and bringing listlessness and ill health to the human population. Vampires could also assume solid form, often living among humans for many years, getting married and having children before being detected. To chase the vampires away, a dzhadzhiya would be summoned to walk among the flocks, holding an icon aloft. The icon also came in handy when trying to identify the resting place of the vampire. If it began to tremble when held above a particular grave, it meant that the culprit had been found. The best way to deal with a vampire was to exhume the body, stab it through the heart with a hawthorn branch, then burn it with kindling taken from the same shrub. If the vampire was in spirit form, it could be driven into a bottle which was then thrown onto a fire.

The beliefs noted by Jirecek were by no means isolated cases. The British travellers St Clair and Brophy, who lived in a village south of Varna in the 1860s, wrote of a boy forbidden from marrying his sweetheart because locals earnestly believed that he was of vampire descent. They also relate how peasants in a neighbouring village burned a man alive for vampirism, because he was fond of nocturnal walks and was "found to have only one nostril".

According to Jirecek, the best vampire hunters were thought to be descended from vâlkodlatsi, literally werewolves, who resulted from the sexual union of a vampire and a young maiden, and were the only living beings who could see vampire spirits. The vâlkodlatsi's vampire-hunting descendants were also thought to have another supernatural power: the ability to detect buried treasure. In an area full of ancient Thracian, Roman and Byzantine remains, it's not difficult to see why the idea of hidden hordes of goblets and coins – all waiting to be unearthed by the lucky peasant – exerted such a hold on the popular imagination.

Another associated piece of local lore concerns the Lake of Varna (a fjord-like inlet stretching west from the city), which used to be known as Vampire Lake. According to popular belief, the lake required an annual human sacrifice, the last recorded instance of which was in 1933, when one Ana Konstantinova went swimming there despite warnings, and was duly sucked underwater.

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