Story
The story of Nesebar
Look at the narrow strip of land that brought you here. Old Nesebar stands on a peninsula that was once an island, joined to the mainland by a narrow man-made isthmus. People have lived here for more than three millennia.
First a Thracian settlement, it became the Greek colony of Mesembria when Dorians from Megara settled here at the beginning of the 6th century BC. It remained the only Dorian colony on the Black Sea coast, where the others were Ionian, and a trading rival of Apollonia, today's Sozopol. On the north side of the peninsula you can still see part of the Thracian fortifications.
Later the town often stood on the frontier of threatened empires: in 812 Khan Krum took it for the First Bulgarian Empire after a two-week siege, and it passed between Byzantium and Bulgaria again and again. Its wealth of historic buildings led UNESCO to list Nesebar as a World Heritage Site in 1983. Until 1934, Bulgarians called it Mesemvriya.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Nesebar
- Nesebar Archaeological MuseumThe Nesebar Archaeological Museum is a museum located in Nesebar, a town on the Black Sea coast of southeast Bulgaria.
- Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and GabrielThe Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel is a partially preserved medieval Eastern Orthodox church in the eastern Bulgarian town of Nesebar (medieval Mesembria), on the Black Sea coast of Burgas Province.
- Church of St StephenThe Church of St. Stephen is a former Eastern Orthodox Church in Nessebar, Eastern Bulgaria, which is now turned into a museum.
- Hagia Sophia ChurchHagia Sophia Church, also known as the Church of Saint Sofia and the Old Bishopric is an Eastern Orthodox church in Nesebar, eastern Bulgaria.
- Church of St John AliturgetosThe Church of St John Aliturgetos is located in Nesebar, Bulgaria. It was built in the 14th century.
- Church of Christ PantocratorThe Church of Christ Pantocrator is a medieval Eastern Orthodox church in the eastern Bulgarian town of Nesebar (medieval Mesembria), on the Black Sea coast of Burgas Province.