Balchik Botanic Garden
The University Botanical Garden of Balchik is one of the most remarkable combinations of nature, science, history, and art in Bulgaria, located in the town of Balchik, in Balchik Municipality, Dobrich Region, on the Northern Black Sea coast. The garden is a branch of Sofia University "St Kliment Ohridski" and was established in 1955 by Academician Professor Daki Yordanov — an eminent Bulgarian botanist who served as rector of Sofia University from 1956 to 1962 — on the territory of the park of the former summer residence of the Romanian Queen Maria, which had previously been used as a rest home of the Ministry of Culture. Under a ministerial order, the park was transformed into a botanical garden "for scientific purposes and the training of students and the preservation of valuable plant species and trees." Today the garden extends over 194 decares and maintains collections of over 4,600 species, forms, and cultivars of plants — a number that continues to grow. It is included in Bulgaria's 100 National Tourist Sites, is a protected locality under the Law on Protected Territories, holds the status of a cultural monument and a monument of garden and park art, and is a rescue centre for rare and endangered plant species under the Washington Convention (CITES). It is also a holder of the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Second Class, and is a member of the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), the European Consortium of Botanic Gardens, and the Environmental Education Network (EBGEN).The garden is historically and functionally divided into three main parts. The first is the landscaped park built in the time of Queen Maria, now listed as a Group Immovable Cultural Heritage Monument of garden and park art. The second is the Razasadnika Garden — opened in 2005 on the occasion of the garden's 50th anniversary — designed and built for access by people with disabilities, covering 0.7 ha and featuring seasonal flower compositions, alpine corners, water features, cacti and succulents, and a special tactile corner with plants described in Braille for visually impaired visitors; within it stands the unique Living Chapel, dedicated to the Holy Mother of God, whose walls and roof are formed entirely from different evergreen plants. The third functional area comprises the greenhouses.The garden is internationally renowned above all for its cacti and succulent collection — the largest in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The indoor permanent exhibition, opened in 2012 in a purpose-built greenhouse of 800 sq m, displays over 2,600 species of the families Cactaceae and Euphorbiaceae year-round, including over 400 globally protected species and unique specimens such as the Galapagos cactus; the oldest specimens in the collection — over 70 years old — were brought from Sofia when the garden was founded. Outdoors, during the warm months, the open-air succulent collection is displayed on approximately 1 hectare, constituting the largest outdoor succulent display in Southeastern Europe. Among the other distinguished specimens of the garden are an ancient ginkgo, a metasequoia (the individual of this size and age outside its natural range exists outside Bulgaria only at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London), a paper mulberry tree, a candy tree, a rubber tree, a holm oak, and a large-flowered evergreen magnolia. The garden is also celebrated for its emblematic carpet-flowering display in the Divine Garden, the traditional Tulip Parade in April and May, the rose garden (Rozarium), and the lake and water mirror areas. The Balkan Ecological Centre operates on the premises of the garden, and a memorial alley commemorates distinguished figures in natural science, including Charles Darwin, Carl Linnaeus, and the first Bulgarian professor of botany, Stefan Georgiev.
