The Holy Virgin monastery in the region of Salzitza near Varna is one of the biggest in the Balkans. It’s located within the boundaries of the city around 4-5 km away from the Varna centre to the west.

The old Bulgarian monastery was discovered at the start of the 20th century by the founder of Bulgarian archeology Karel Skorpil. Bigger excavations and research started in 1995 and with a few pauses continued until 2007.

The complex is unique in its construction scheme and size. It has no without parallel in both the Bulgarian and Byzantine building traditions. It’s alleged that the monastery was built near the end of the 9th century and the start of the 10th from tzar Boris the First. The monastery was built in honour of the holy virgin. Traces of life in the complex were found from as late as the 18th century.

Present day

Until today only around 5 acres have been cleared and partially researche. This is less than half of the whole territory of the monastery complex. Inside the monastery grounds, archeologists found a big church and a big tower with a chapel. In additiona to that the found a big scriptorium covering an area of 400 sq.m., a library, a school, monk quarters as well as an altar table, blacksmith shop, and a lot of bulgarian, serbian, byzantine, turkish and venetian coins.

The cathedral church is located in the centre of a wide yard and is similar to the so-called “Aton” type. It has very spacious half circled spaces to the north and south where during service the whole monk brotherhood gathered. The building was decorated with wall writings and a monumental stone plastic. Around it there is a chain of quarters built with the soft limestone bigor, which was subject to easy modelling.

If you wish to visit the Holy Virgin monastery you can take advantage of My Rent a Car by getting a car of your choosing anywhere from Varna Airport, the centre itself, Golden Sands, St. St. Constantine and Helena, Sunny day or other points within Varna.