What do we aim for with the "Black Sea Route" tourist route:

The aim of our initiative is to attract the attention of the tourist and sports community, business and state institutions to the creation of a tourist route along the Black sea coast of Romania, Bulgaria and Türkiye, similar to the international transcontinental hiking routes E3, E4 and E8 (passing through the territory of Bulgaria), as well as the system of trans-European cycle routes EuroVelo. In its overall form, the route will connect Constanta, Varna, Burgas and Istanbul, and in this way it will also be a link between the EuroVelo 6 and EuroVelo 13 cycling routes.

Our intention is the "Black Sea Route” to be developed as a separate route in the system of European long-distance paths and in the EuroVelo system, being established in the form of shared use by pedestrians and cyclists, and in a future stage of development to provide an opportunity for its passage also by disadvantaged people. The route we chose goes as close as possible to the sea and using mainly dirt and forest paths and trails (also asphalt where there are no other options), connects small and large settlements with the main tourist centers and resort areas along the sea coast.

How does the idea begin?

Our idea was born in the distant 2011-2012, initially as a combination between the desire for creation a new EuroVelo route along the Black Sea, for which Evgeni Apostolov was trying to gather support, and our cycling club desire to find options for crossing between Varna and Burgas without using the main road. Our cycling club had to develop the section between Constanta in Romania and Burgas in Bulgaria. In the years since, we have devoted time to organizing and/or supporting individual events such as competitions, multi-day and one-day treks, outings, trainings. In 2015, together with Nikolay Kyuchukov, we created a special association under the name "Black Sea Ultra" and started work on organizing a running and cycling ultramarathon in two parts (spring and autumn) from Durankulak to Varna and from Varna to Nessebar. Thus, we added to the idea a walking/running version of the route.

It is the transience of competitions and tourings that provoked us to think more long-term and, above all, more sustainably, and from the middle of 2017 we set about exploring the possibilities and popularizing our idea of creating a Tourist Route along the Black Sea, which would become a comprehensive tourist product.