Kaliakra

Kaliakra (Bulgarian: Калиакра) is a long and narrow headland in the Southern Dobruja region of the northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located 12 km east of Kavarna and 60 km northeast of Varna. The coast is steep with vertical cliffs reaching 70 m down to the sea.

Kaliakra is a nature reserve, where dolphins and cormorants can be observed. It sits on the Via Pontica, a major bird migration route from Africa into Eastern and Northern Europe. Many rare and migrant birds can be seen here in spring and autumn and, like much of this coastline, is home to several rare breeding birds (e.g. pied wheatear and a local race of European shag). The rest of the reserve also has unusual breeding birds; saker falcon, lesser grey shrike and a host of others.

It also features the remnants of the fortified walls, water-main, baths and residence of Despot Dobrotitsa in the short-lived Principality of Karvuna's medieval capital. The Bolata Cove with a small sheltered beach lies just north at the mouth of a picturesque canyon, also part of the nature reserve.

Kaliakra (ship)

The Sail Training Vessel Kaliakra (Known also as STV Kaliakra, Bulgarian: Калиакра) is a barquentine, built in 1984 at the Gdańsk Shipyard, after the plans of the Polish technical designer Zygmunt Choreń. She is a property of Bulgarian Maritime Training Centre and is operated by Navigation Maritime Bulgare, Bulgaria. The ship's home port is Varna, Bulgaria.

The ship

The general perception is that Kaliakra is a reproduction of a ship of the same name from the time before World War I. In fact, she is one of three modern sister ships designed for training, the other two being STS Pogoria and ORP Iskra. Now she is used for training the Naval Cadets from Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Varna, Bulgaria.

The ship is one of the fastest tall ships in the world. She has participated on relatively regular basis in the Cutty Sark Tall Ships regatta, organized by the Sail Training International (STI) Association. During the Columbus Race in 1992, dedicated to the 500 years jubilee of the discovery of America, Kaliakra sailed the Atlantic Ocean twice and finished third out of 143 ships.