Port cities are perhaps among the earliest centres of multiculturalism

The mentality of the people here in Varna is very peculiar. But it is historically grounded. At the beginning of the 20th century nobody spoke Bulgarian here. Everybody spoke Turkish, Armenian, Roma, Hebrew, and Greek, which means that the whole of Varna was divided into communities which co-existed peacefully, but they never felt like one community. Except for that, historically Varna has always been an independent com-mercial and business centre, developing by itself in time and somehow aside from the central authorities.