Silistra

In fishing area | Silistra

Silistra is more of a fortress than a town and if you eliminate the fortifications a small piece of land will remain, but if you look at the entrenched area, the fortress is vast. It is located on a riverside plain. The south Danube banks rise like hills and their chains approach the town from the west and surround it in a shape of a regular amphitheatre. The Romans liked the place and here, in the middle of the plain, in this amphitheatre they built a fortified camp from which the guards came out and went about the chain of rising ground to watch the Danube. Not far away, in present Wallachia they saw a vast expanse of land melting northward into the sky. Its desolation and infinity cast sadness on the heart of the Roman soldier. And beyond the Danube as if the Roman God of War himself was marching on its bank, to the east of Orshova. At Chernovod the Danube turns to the north (...)

"Where are you going, Danube? To the endless Scythia? No, Danube, I am afraid to follow you." That's what Mars said and made a dash for the sea. Then the enormous Trayanov Val (The Rampart of Trayan) appeared on his footprints: an impressive work, it seems to you created not by the Roman soldiers but by the Roman Gods themselves..."

Yurii Venelin - Russian historian, 1830)





The municipality of Silistra is located in the north-eastern part of Bulgaria, on a low Danubian terrace. The municipality borders on neighbouring Romania by land and by the Danube. The town of Silistra is the nearest Bulgarian port to Reni and Izmail - Ukraine ports through which Bulgaria imports coal, timber and other raw materials.

The reserve "Sreburna" is on the territory of the municipality. The international coordination bureau of UNESCO defines it as a biosphere reserve category "À". Only seventeen places in the world have such statuses. On an area of 700 hectares, over 200 species of birds stay temporarily, 90 of which nest and breed here, including one of the 4 known colonies of the curly-headed pelican in Europe.