Varna

Varna , city (1993 pop. 307,200), E Bulgaria, on the Black Sea. It is a major port and an industrial center. Manufactures include ships and boats, chemicals, electrical equipment, and textiles. Varna is also an international summer resort. Significant artifacts discovered near Varna have been dated to second half of the 5th millennium BC, but the city itself was founded in 580 BC as the Greek colony of Odessus and passed to the Roman Empire in the 1st cent. AD The Bulgarians defeated Byzantine emperor Constantine IV at Varna in 679. The city passed to the second Bulgarian kingdom in 1201, was captured by the Turks in 1391, and became an active seaport under their rule. In 1444 the Turks under Murad II won a decisive victory over Crusader forces led by Ladislaus III of Poland and Hungary, who was killed. The battle of Varna was the last major attempt by Christian Europe to stem the Ottoman tide. Varna was (1854) the chief naval base of the British and French forces in the Crimean War. The city was liberated from Turkish rule in 1878 and ceded to newly independent Bulgaria. It now has a university (founded 1920), a polytechnic institute, a naval academy, a medical college, and an archaeological museum as well as the ruins of a 5th-century basilica and a 6th-century Byzantine fortress. From 1949 to 1956 the city was named Stalin.

Varna, Bulgaria, Russia 1. Bulgaria: may be derived from the Slavonic root word vran ‘the black one’ from the fact that it is located on the Black Sea. Founded as the Greek city‐state of Odessos in 585 bc, it came under Thracian, Macedonian, and Roman rule before becoming part of the First Bulgarian Empire and adopting its present name in 681. In 1391–1878 it was under Ottoman Turkish rule. It was renamed Stalin after Joseph Stalin^† in 1949–56.2. Russia (Chelyabinsk); named after the Varna in Bulgaria where the Russians won a famous victory over the Turks in 1828.