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43°24′16″N28°8′49″E / 43.40444°N 28.14694°E /43.40444; 28.14694
| Balchik Palace | |
|---|---|
Дворец в Балчик | |
 | |
  Location within Bulgaria | |
| General information | |
| Location | Balchik,Bulgaria |
| Coordinates | 43°24′16″N28°8′49″E / 43.40444°N 28.14694°E /43.40444; 28.14694 |
| Construction started | 1926 |
| Construction stopped | 1937 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | Amerigo and Augustino |
TheBalchik Palace (Bulgarian:Дворец в Балчик,Dvorets v Balchik;Romanian:Castelul din Balcic) is a palace inBalchik, a town and sea side resort located inDobrich Province,Bulgaria. The official name of the palace was theQuiet Nest Palace.
The palace was constructed between 1926 and 1937, when the Dobrich Province was part of theKingdom of Romania, asCaliacra County.
The palace complex consists of a number of residential villas, a smoking hall, awine cellar, a power station, a monastery, a holy spring, achapel and many other buildings, as well as most notably a park that is today a state-run botanical garden. Balchik Palace is 17 metres (56 ft) above sea level.[1]
Marie of Romania, the wife ofFerdinand I of Romania, visited Balchik in 1921 and liked the location of the summer residence, ordering the vineyards, gardens and water mills of local citizens to be bought so a palace could be constructed at their place.Balkan andOttoman Turkish motifs were used in the construction of the palace that was carried out byItalian architects Augustino and Americo, while a florist was hired fromSwitzerland to arrange the park. The main building's extravagant minaret coexists with a Christian chapel, perfectly illustrating the queen'sBaháʼí Faith beliefs.[2]
Today many of the former royal villas and other buildings of the complex are reorganized inside and used to accommodate tourists. Some of the older Bulgarian water mills have also been preserved and reconstructed as restaurants or tourist villas.
In 1940, after the reincorporation of Southern Dobruja inBulgaria with theTreaty of Craiova, the Balchik Botanical Garden was established at the place of the palace's park. It has an area of 65,000 square metres (700,000 sq ft) and accommodates 2000 plant species belonging to 85families and 200genera. One of the garden's main attractions is the collection of large-sizedcactus species arranged outdoors on 1,000 square metres (11,000 sq ft), the second of its kind inEurope after the one inMonaco. Other notable species include theMetasequoia, thePara rubber tree and theGinkgo.
Francis Ford Coppola spent 11 days at the palace shooting scenes ofYouth Without Youth.
VariousBulgarian nationalist intellectuals and public figures have expressed concerns that the palace is becoming a propaganda showcase for theRomanian administration of Southern Dobruja, giving the impression that Southern Dobruja was always Romanian land, thus justifyingterritorial claims against Bulgaria.[3] Thus, they suggest that the Balchik Palace should be less important in promotingtourism in Bulgaria.[4] A similar position was taken by the Balchim History Museum in 2025, which claimed that the Balchim Castle and Queen Maria of Romania are symbols of a "brutal, foreign occupation of Bulgarian lands".[5]
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