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Via Pontica was an ancientRoman road inThrace along theBlack Sea, starting fromByzantium and passing throughDeultum (todayDebelt),Aquae Calidae (today an outlying neighborhood ofBurgas),Apollonia,Mesembria,Odessos,Byzone, andKaliakra (today inBulgaria); and then throughKallatis,Tomis, andIstros (today inRomania).
Today the name "Via Pontica" is given to Europe's second largest bird migration route, through the western part of theBlack Sea Biogeographic Region.The migrating birds use the coastal lakes, marshes and lagoons behind the shoreline, and some spend the winter in these wetlands.TheDanube Delta is the best known of the wetlands.[1] For the first time in ornithology the term "Via Pontica" was used by the Bulgarian ornithologistNikolay Boev (1922-1985) to denote the Western Black Sea migratory way of birds.
In 2010Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the National Historical Museum, andSimeon Dyankov, Deputy Prime Minister, started the Via Pontica project of restoring twenty ancient fortifications along theBlack Sea coast. These start from the southernmost point ofRezovo and span the whole Bulgarian coastline toKaliakra. As a result of this work, several new archeological sites have been uncovered, including the Akra fortification nearApollonia, Thrace, nowSozopol.
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