The Sea Garden is Varna’s largest and most famous public park, and is considered the largest landscaped park in the Balkans. Stretching along the Black Sea coast, it is both a major tourist attraction and a national monument of landscape architecture.
In the mid-19th century, the area of today’s Sea Garden was a bare field outside Varna’s city limits. In 1862, a small garden was created under the orders of the city’s Ottoman mayor. After Bulgaria’s Liberation in 1878, Mayor Mihail Koloni proposed establishing a city garden and seaside park in 1881, and despite doubts, a modest budget was approved. As a result, the Sea Garden was expanded to 26,000 square meters and further developed according to the plans of the French engineer Martinice. The figure most closely associated with the garden’s modern appearance is the Czech gardener Anton Novák, who had trained at the Schönbrunn and Belvedere palaces in Vienna. At the request of the municipality, he was invited to work in Varna in 1894 by his compatriot Karel Škorpil.
In 1939, architect Georgi Popov designed the Sea Garden’s modern central entrance, featuring a broad plaza and elegant tall columns.
