History - VARNA through the centuries
July 6th, 2007Varna, the “water town”
The new town appeared in the period of 580-560 B.C., at the same time when the other ancient Greek towns were also founded on our Black Sea coast. Its founders, the Miletian Greeks, settled gradually and without any problems in the already existing settlement, called Odessos and adopted the name given by the natives.
That name is first detected in the works of the poet Skymnos of Chios and the historian Strabo. In the 5th century Theophanus referred to it as Odissopolis. It is assumed that the name is of Karian origin and is translated as “water-town”.
From the VI century onwards the name of Odessos is no longer found in the historical documents. Varna is first mentioned in the chronicles describing the advancement of Khan Asparukh and his people who “…came to the so-called Varna, close to Odessos…” and the consequent settlement of Bulgarian tribes in those areas.
In the beginning of the century archimandrite Inokenti presents interesting details from his researches. He also mentions the theory that the name Varna originates from the avarian word “var”, meaning city.
Some hypotheses maintain that at the time of Emperor Tiberius (14 -27) the town was, for a short time, called Tiberiopolis. And during the reign of Empress Irene towards the end of VII century there was another short period in which it took her name - Irinopolis. In the ancient times Theophanus referred to the town as Odessopolis and other authors - as Ulissopolis.
Only once in the thousands-of-years-old history of the town were there no doubts about the time, its name and meaning. In honour of the 70th birthday anniversary of Joseph Stalin, taking into consideration the request of the citizens of Varna, the Council of Ministers issued a decree to rename the town. Thus on 21st December 1949 Varna became Stalin and a monument of the town’s patron was erected at the entrance of the Sea Garden. Time passed by and at their 1956 plenary sessions the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria admitted still another mistake and the recent town name was regained. For those in the nostalgic mood, however, the old streets of Varna still keep drainage covers made in the town of Stalin.
