About Varna
The city is a popular vacation resort. Institutions of higher learning include a university, a medical school, and a naval academy. Greek colonists founded Odessus on the site of Varna in the 6th century BC. In the 1st century AD the settlement became a Roman possession. It was ruled by the Byzantines, Bulgarians, and Ottoman Turks during the Middle Ages. In 1444 Varna was the site of a battle in which a force under the Ottoman sultan Murad II crushed a Christian army commanded by Wladyslaw III of Poland (who was also Ulaszlo I of Hungary) and the Hungarian leader Janos Hunyadi. This engagement ended serious efforts to prevent the Turks from overrunning southeastern Europe. Varna was occupied by Russian troops in 1828 and by British and French troops in 1854, during the Crimean War, when it served as a base of operations against the Russians. By the terms of a treaty drawn up at the Congress of Berlin (1878), after the Russo-Turkish Wars, Varna became part of the newly created Bulgarian principality. The city was renamed in honor of the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin in 1949; the name Varna was restored in 1956. Population (1997 estimate) 299,492.
