Balchik Stadium

The Municipal Stadium of Balchik (also known as Stadium "Balchik") is a football stadium located in the southeastern part of the town of Balchik, at Ulitsa Ivan Vazov, in Balchik Municipality, Dobrich Region. It is the home ground of FC Chernomorets Balchik — the town's principal football club, founded in 1985 on the foundations of the Chernomorets sports society established in 1957. The stadium has a capacity of approximately 3,200–5,000 seats and is one of the most architecturally distinctive sports venues in Bulgaria and one of the most unusual football stadiums in the world: it is among only a handful of stadiums globally — alongside examples in Brazil, Spain, and Ireland — whose stands are naturally carved into the rocky hillside, giving it exceptional natural acoustics. The characteristic pale limestone used in the construction of the smaller older stone stand is the so-called "Balchik stone," a material deeply associated with the architecture of the town and region. The stadium has two stands. The main stand, with 2,618 seats fitted entirely with plastic seating, occupies the hillside carved from the rock. On the opposite side, the reinforced older stone stand — built entirely from Balchik stone — houses the coaching benches, which are covered by a canopy. Behind one of the goals stands a multi-storey building containing changing rooms, a referee's room, a multifunctional sports hall on the upper floor, and a hotel section. Behind the other goal, the open end of the stadium offers a spectacular panoramic view of the Black Sea and the resort complexes of Albena and Golden Sands. The stadium is equipped with floodlights. Between 2011 and 2015 the entire facility was renovated for approximately 4 million leva, and the official reopening took place on 26 September 2015 with the local derby against Kaliakra Kavarna.