On the territory of today's residence Evksinograd (6 km north of today's Varna), on the small cape "St. Yani" there was a port settlement in late antiquity (IV-VI century), which later, during the Middle Ages became a city, developing active navigation and trade. That is why it was present on many nautical charts from the 14th to the 18th century, although in the last two centuries it hardly existed, and after the 15th century probably only the port and a small guard fortification remained. The names of this settlement, marked on different maps ranged from Castritsa, Katrizzi, Katrichi, Ketritsi, Castrizzi, Castro, Castri, Castro, to Katria, etc., and all of them derived from the Greek word "castro", i.e. fortress.
In 1899 Karel Shkorpil carried out the first survey of the fortress. However, more data on the structure of the medieval fortified city dated from the period 2004-2011, when excavations were conducted annually under the direction of Professor Dr. Valentin Pletnyov, director of the Regional History Museum in Varna at that time. A large part of the northern, land-facing fortress wall with a length of over 200 m, which is 1.80 to 2.00 m thick and has been preserved at a height of up to 3.00 m, has been discovered. Along the fortress wall, 5 round bastion towers with a diameter of about 3.5 were situated, while at the eastern end there used to be another rectangular tower (4.00m x 4.50 m), and later an Ottoman triangular one had been added. The presence of a second, thinner wall in this part of the city, which enters perpendicular to the main wall inwards the living space, suggests that the small urban area between the two walls probably belongs to the citadel. It was the citadel that had been additionally fortified with towers, including the triangular bastion, which in turn means that this part had been used by the Ottomans in the 15th-16th centuries.
From the west, in the corner between the northern and the western side, explored later, and where originally used to be an inner round tower, a four-walled keep was later built. Later, the Keep was fortified from all sides with an outer stone casing, with sloping walls on a rammed ground embankment. It is possible that this stone casing, intended for protection from artillery shelling, also dates from the 15th century, when the fortress still had some significance, already for the Ottoman defense of the Black Sea coast. However, the keep itself is pre-Ottoman, because at its lowest level the remains of frescoes suggest that there was a chapel here.
In the excavated area of the ancient city, the street network is clearly outlined, and in some places, parts of pavements of stone slabs and large cobblestones are preserved. Here are revealed the small one-nave church with adjacent to it probably monastery buildings, built later, as well as four architecturally elongated inns. The inns are located in pairs with their short sides on both ends - north and south, on a small square widening, parallel to the streets connecting the port with the secondary city gate. The other foundations are parts of residential buildings.
The church underwent several construction periods - from a parish church, with an adjoining small cemetery, probably intended for deceased sailors and passengers, to a monastery one. The church was built of quarry stone on mud solution and probably because of this it was not covered with a massive stone vault. The roof of the church was wooden, covered with a waterproofing of thin aspid, not very large slabs, as found during excavations all over the floor. Parts of rotten beams with a weak cross-section, probably of a roof structure, were also found.
In the other constructions, it seems that the roof insulation was not made of slabs or tiles, which were not found at all, but consisted of boards, prints of which were excavated in considerable quantities. Remains of wickerwork were also found in pieces of clay coatings, which suggests that buildings with upper floors were built with timber framing and plastered on both sides with clay wicker walls. This is a construction system that is well known to us from preserved specimens in the Bulgarian lands, dating from the 17-19th century. Excavations in other cities, such as Tsarevets, also found traces of wickerwork in clay coatings. From the coin finds in the excavated settlement it is evident that the latter were minted in 1404, at the time of Emir Suleiman. It can therefore be assumed that soon after that date the city was gradually abandoned. But the port and most likely the dungeon as a guard tower, or rather the citadel to be excavated, continued to exist until the 16th century as a small watchtower.
The additional fortifying of the citadel with the triangular bastion, as it happens in Kaliakra, seems to suggest that the second option is more credible, ie that it had been turned into a port watchtower.
Today the archeological excavations of the fortress "Kastritsi" are located in the park adjacent to the palace "Evksinograd“.
