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Balchik Palace

Field	Value
name	Balchik Palace
native_name	Дворец в Балчик
native_name_lang	bul
image	Balchik Palace 2.jpg
location_town	Balchik
location_country	Bulgaria
coordinates
start_date	1926
stop_date	1937
architect	Amerigo and Augustino
map_type	Bulgaria

The queen's summer residence with the extravagant [[minaret

The Balchik Palace (, Dvorets v Balchik; ) is a palace in Balchik, a town and sea side resort located in Dobrich Province, Bulgaria. The official name of the palace was the Quiet Nest Palace.

The palace was constructed between 1926 and 1937, when the Dobrich Province was part of the Kingdom of Romania, as Caliacra County.

The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas, a smoking hall, a wine cellar, a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, a chapel and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park that is today a state-run botanical garden. Balchik Palace is 17 m above sea level.

Architectural complex

Marie of Romania, the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania, visited Balchik in 1921 and liked the location of the summer residence, ordering the vineyards, gardens and water mills of local citizens to be bought so a palace could be constructed at their place. Balkan and Ottoman Turkish motifs were used in the construction of the palace that was carried out by Italian architects Augustino and Americo, while a florist was hired from Switzerland to arrange the park. The main building's extravagant minaret coexists with a Christian chapel, perfectly illustrating the queen's Baháʼí Faith beliefs.

Today many of the former royal villas and other buildings of the complex are reorganized inside and used to accommodate tourists. Some of the older Bulgarian water mills have also been preserved and reconstructed as restaurants or tourist villas.

Botanical garden

In 1940, after the reincorporation of Southern Dobruja in Bulgaria with the Treaty of Craiova, the Balchik Botanical Garden was established at the place of the palace's park. It has an area of 65000 m2 and accommodates 2000 plant species belonging to 85 families and 200 genera. One of the garden's main attractions is the collection of large-sized cactus species arranged outdoors on 1000 m2, the second of its kind in Europe after the one in Monaco. Other notable species include the Metasequoia, the Para rubber tree and the Ginkgo.

Trivia

Francis Ford Coppola spent 11 days at the palace shooting scenes of Youth Without Youth.

Controversies

Various Bulgarian nationalist intellectuals and public figures have expressed concerns that the palace is becoming a propaganda showcase for the Romanian administration of Southern Dobruja, giving the impression that Southern Dobruja was always Romanian land, thus justifying territorial claims against Bulgaria. Thus, they suggest that the Balchik Palace should be less important in promoting tourism in Bulgaria. A similar position was taken by the Balchim History Museum in 2025, which claimed that the Balchim Castle and Queen Maria of Romania are symbols of a "brutal, foreign occupation of Bulgarian lands".

Notes

References

"Balchik Palace Elevation and Location".
Pakula, Hannah. (1985). "The last romantic: a biography of Queen Marie of Romania". Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211027213153/http://www.novazora.net/2007/issue13/story_09.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20211027213153/http://www.novazora.net/2007/issue13/story_09.html
https://www.g4media.ro/controversa-in-bulgaria-din-cauza-elogierii-reginei-maria-a-romaniei-la-balcic-echipa-muzeului-de-istorie-o-considera-simbol-al-unei-puteri-straine-de-ocupatie-si-sustine-ca-soldati.html

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

botanical-gardens-in-bulgaria balchik dobruja palaces-in-bulgaria royal-residences-in-bulgaria buildings-and-structures-in-dobrich-province tourist-attractions-in-dobrich-province

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