In this Guide: This City of Tulcea Guide
covers all the city sites, museums and the Danube Delta visitors
centre, as well as the Cătăloi airport area
and nearby villages.
Tulcea is an
amazing port city of many starts and finishes as land slowly yields
to water across the Danube Delta.
After 100km of a marshy wide flood plain studded with
remnant lakes, the Danube starts to fan out here to create Europe's
newest land, across finger lakes and man-made canals, ending the river's
journey to the Black Sea.
The highway also ends in Tulcea, as does the trans-Dobrogean
rail line, which runs from the docks of Tulcea, directly south through
the heart of Romanian Dobrogea down to the Bulgarian border.
The high-speed ferries begin in Tulcea, speeding passengers
out to the outpost town of
Sulina, on the very
edge of the Delta, where the mainland European Union see's it's first
sunlight every day (technically,
islands like France's
Reunion
in the Indian Ocean see the sunlight first. Thank you to Rodney
Darryl of Las Vegas for that fact).
Romania's Crescent City
The mighty European watercourse starts deep in the Black
Forest of Germany, powering it's way 2850km through Austria, Slovakia,
Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia before entering Romania.
Romania enjoys the longest section of the Danube of any
country, with nearly one third of Western and Central Europe's longest
river, and of course, the only country with the Danube Delta.
Northern Dobrogea's Capital
Tulcea is in the perfect location for exploration of the widely
varying lands laid out to the east, south and west of the city.
The Danube River splits to form the northern
Chilia Arm and the southern Tulcea Arm just north of Tulcea.
The main Chilia Arm, which has most of the river's flow, travels out
to the Black Sea along the border with the Ukraine.
The southern Tulcea Arm flows south to Tulcea, and after a few
short bends, splits again to form the
Sulina Arm and the
Sfântu Gheorghe Arm. These 3
main arms are the main transportation by-ways of the
Danube Delta,
making Tulcea an important hub for the ferries, fast river boats and
hydrofoils.
Extending south-east from Tulcea a lone two-lane road trundles
towards the Delta, running along the last ground along the St.
George Arm.
The City of Tulcea operates as a regional centre and market town
for the largely agrarian communities in this
Delta Margins area, which collects an assortment of Delta
Russian and Lippovan cultures and combines them with the Tatar and
Turk remnant populations. Fishing around
Uzlina in particular is nicely accessible from Murighiol.
The Highlands and Steppe
The City of Tulcea is also a highway and rail hub for southern
County Tulcea, and the mountainous
Western Tulcea
region.
Featuring gently rolling hills and
wineries within a half hour drive from the Tulcea city centre,
the much dryer steppic topography and biogeography of the western
portion of County Tulcea offers unique areas where the confluence of
Mediterranean, Balcic, and Asiatic zones converge, all accessible
from Tulcea City.
THE DANUBE
RIVER IN EUROPE
The Danube runs through five countries from the
Black Forest of Germany through Austria, Hungary and Serbia on it's
way to Romania, which has a third of it's 2860km run to the
Danube Delta. The river also forms a border for 5 other
countries.
All of the major attractions and views in Tulcea town
are within two blocks of each other, making it quite easy for you to
hit the top four or five in an easy morning or afternoon.
Plaza of the Republic (Piaţa Republicii)
is a great starting point, so head from the train station, bus station
or your accommodation to there and begin your tour around the various
museums, galleries and river and delta-related attractions that give
Tulcea it's riparian zeal.
It cannot be forgotten that as the northern-most city in the
Dobrogea region, Tulcea gained a rich Turkish heritage under Ottoman
rule for over 450 years.
Built in 1877 and restored in 1924, it's worth a quick trip at least to the Azizia mosque, just
a couple of blocks down-river from the main Republic Plaza, and
several sites (below) follow naturally on a little loop around the
eastern quarter of the downtown area.
The Independence Monument on Gloriei Street is in it's
own little park atop one of the hills of Tulcea town.
Built in 1899 to honour the war dead from the War of
Independence, which is what the Romanians call their part of the
Russo-Turkish wars.
Romania sided with Russia in the conflict
which ended in 1878, when the Ottoman Turks were forced out of
Dobrogea. The Turkish province of Dobruja had been in the
Ottoman Empire since 1420, which gives today's Dobrogea it's diverse
cultural history.
The grand granite obelisk points 22 metres skyward, bordered
by a bronze infantryman and an eagle. The views of the river
and town are wonderful here, so take the camera!
Originally carved in a studio near in Milan out of Bavenno
granite, the monument was paired with the bronze figures from a Venice
studio, and shipped and assembled on the Tulcean hill.
Also on this site you'll see the uncovered remains of
the Roman city which was similarly perched on the banks of the Danube.
Not quite as impressive as the finds at the old Greek and Romana port
city of Istria to the south, it's nonetheless worth a quick look.
The Rich History of Tulcea Town
The Tulcea History and Archaeology Museum
Just alongside the monument park is Tulcea's history
museum, stuffed with antiquities from medieval times which lay out the
rich heritage of Northern Dobrogea across nearly 90,000 artifacts, including
coin and epigraphs across collections focusing on ceramics, bronze,
and sculptural pieces. Some of Christendom's
earliest churches were in Tulcea county, with 4th century remains at
Tulcea, then Niculitel.
The Tulcea Museum of Art is sited in a beautiful spot
on the cliffs overlooking the Danube.
The collections of art, engravings and contemporary sculpture
are complimented by an exceptional collection of interbellum avant garde,
Surrealist, Expressionist and Impressionist artwork, including pieces
by Romanians Gheorghe Petrascu, Nicolae Toniţa,
Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Grigorescu, Frederic Storck, Ion Jalea, Oscar
Han, and Victor Brauner, arguably one of the most important collections
in the country in it's number of top artists.
Local Treasures
As to be expected, one of the highlights are local paintings
of the Danube Delta region by local artists, as well as a few surprises
such as an oil of Queen Marie's beloved Balcic seaside town of Southern
Dobrogea (ceded to Bulgaria by the Nazis in 1940).
The building itself is worth a few photos, built 18 years
before Romania was gifted Dobrogea by Russia as war spoils after finally
defeating the Ottomans. The Turkish architect, Işmail Paşa,
managed to meld regional construction norms with Ottoman empire grandeur.
2 Grigore Antipa Street, next to the Delta Hotel.
+40 (240) 513 249
Open daily except Mondays, 8am - 4pm, later in summer months.
The Folk Art and Ethnographic Museum as been home to
numerous exhibits over the years showcasing the popular art and customs
of Dobrogea.
The ethnographic collection displays over 6,400 pieces
of local interest including traditional farm implements for rearing
animals, for fishing, brass objects and the like.
The folk art collection features woven tapestries and
decorative linens, as well as ornamental jewellery. The museum also runs the Panait Cerna Memorial House
for the famed Dobrogean, as well as the Panaghia House in Babadag further
south from Tulcea, where there is a good collection of oriental art.
Tulcea Mementos
What trip to Romania would be complete without a few souvenirs
to mail back home before you leave?
At the Artisan Store,
You can find traditional objects with national and local motifs,
folk costumes and textiles, icons carved from wood, wooden
sculptures, local ceramics, and traditional woven Danube Delta items
made from the local bullrushes, and wicker craftwork too!
MAGAZIN DE ARTIZANAT, Str. Isaccei, Nr. 12.
+41 (740) 214 883, Open Daily except Sundays until 7pm weekdays, 2pm
Saturdays
Just up Isaccei street you can find various works
of art are for sale at the
Tulcea Art Gallery, which features permanent and rotating
displays of local artist, as well as a good selection of artworks
for sale.
GALERIA DE ARTA TULCEA (Uniunea
Artistilor Plastici), Str. Isaccei, Bl. M1
Open weekdays until 5pm.
The Dobrogean Village Museum
If there is one type of ethnographic display which is
generally well done in Romania, it is the village museum, displaying
and preserving traditional peasant ways, wares and handicraft.
The Dobrogean Village Museum of
Enisala (a community
south of Tulcea past the airport) features peasant
households conserved as they were found, highlighting the traditions
and daily ways of life of the Northern Dobrogean people of the land,
including pens for the animals, traditional sheds, a peasant kitchen
with the traditional summer oven, granary and water well.
#4, 9 Mai Street next to the Reiffeisen Bank.
+40 (204) 516 204, Open daily except Mondays from 8am to 4pm
Leisure Time in Tulcea
If you do need to overnight in Tulcea,
or are spending a few days there for whatever reason, it's a good
idea to live like the locals do, visiting the local
piaţa markets for your picnic lunches, and checking out the
local life.
Due to the wide bend in the Danube River at Tulcea,
the good sand collects on the northern side, in the Tudor
Vladimirescu quarter. Home to only about 400 of
Tulcea's 90,000 residents, the sleepy little nook gives a village
feel to your lazy day in Tulcea. Shop for your picnic lunch on
the "city" side,
go down to the riverfront near the main square (Piaţa
Republicii) and catch the ferry (cheap) and enjoy your morning
on the river bank at Tudor Vladimirescu, watching the river traffic and the city come to life, it's really
quite entertaining watching the various weird and wonderful river
craft go by.
Enjoy a walk
through a Tulcean neighbourhood to
understand the real pace of the old river town
Tulcea still has residual traditions
from the Turkish days, and pastries in particular can be a very
pleasant surprise.
Comparison shop between a few
bakeries until you find the perfect treats. Take some photos
to show the folks back home what REAL baking is like too!
During summer months, Tulcea is a very
good town to follow your nose if you're a bit peckish. Point
yourself to the riverfront, and listen for the sizzle of mici at a
terasa, and keep your eyes peeled for any flume of telltale brown
smoke and steam coming from a traditional little grill.
A Good Dinner and Good Wine
If you insist on spending a motza on
dinner, head for any of the top hotels, which all have competent
restaurants, some with great river views. A few
top-notch restaurants also congregate around the Hotels Delta,
Egreta, and other stalwarts of western life.
The area around Tulcea grow red grapes for table
wines, and a bit further to the west upriver, a few white grapes are
also grown. In the region extending down to
Babadag, the area around Tulcea along with the more
well-known Murfatlar region around Medgidia
to the southmake up one of Romania's six and
most maritime vine growing regions. Ask at the tourist centre
in the ARBDD building about possibly seeing a local grower if you're
interested.
Indeed where you have open plains, a Mediterranean climate and colourful
monasteries left and right, why not a few grape vines to make the day
perfect?
They realised the soil was great around
Niculiţel in 1954 and stuck some vines in
the ground, now producing white wines for the booming export market
such as Aligoté, Italian style Riesling, and White Fetească.
See more of this great little winery now!
by Nichita Danilov, translated from the Romanian by
Sean Cotter
The people of Romanian poet Nichita Danilov, the Lippovans (Lipoveni), were driven from Russia
as Orthodox Church dissenters over two hundred years ago. Settling in
Romania along the Prut River and in the Danube Delta, they have maintained
strong religious traditions. Danilov's contribution to contemporary
Romanian poetry is to combine a historically rooted spirituality with
a surrealist poetics. The result has made Danilov an important voice
in Romanian literature.
Danilov's spiritual heritage gives these games a metaphysical depth.
He places himself in the tradition of mystics such as Meister Eckhart,
St. John of the Cross, and Pseudo-Dionysius.
Second-Hand Souls represents Danilov's attempts at capturing the
mystical relationship between Man and the Deity. It includes a selection
of his poetry, along with the original Romanian, and a selection of
his prose, offering us insight into a particularly Balkan combination
of history, spirituality, and innovative writing.
Sean Cotter has translated several books of Romanian poetry and
appeared in journals both in the United States and in Romania, including
Beacons, New Currents, Translation Review, Romania literari and Observator
cultural. He is currently finishing his dissertation on Romanian and
American Modernist Translation.
ISBN 8086264084 156
pp., 145 x 205mm , softcover poetry & prose (the poetry
bilingual)
See Romania Travel books and videos available
in
America
and UK
As an English-speaking tourist, a natural first stop
on your Delta tour is at the ARBDD (Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve
Administration) information centre in Tulcea, where you'll
find helpful English-speaking staff.
The Tulcea mayor's office runs the information centre
and highlights the stunning Danube Delta eco-system, which begins at Tulcea.
The centre can arrange tours by boat and by land of the immediate Danube
Delta area, as well as arranging for permits for entry into the Danube
Delta Biosphere Reserve (recently raised to
).
The Danube Delta Headquarters and the Riverboat
Hotel Hemingway
The long and luxurious Riverboat
Hemingway docked in front of the ARBDD Danube Delta
Biosphere Reserve Administration headquarters, where
you'll find a great information centre for your Delta
holiday!
The ARBDD Delta Reserve office (above) approves hunting and fishing licenses,
and can point you to designated trails for tourists. Some areas are indeed out-of-bounds
for tourism, and some times of the year are restricted for fishing and
hunting as well.
The centre can help you find good camping areas in the
Delta (officially allowed at Crişan, Murighiol
and around Lake Roşu), as well as guide you in
the right direction to find current good restaurants, terraces and clubs
in Tulcea.
Also known as the Museum of the Danube Delta, you'll
find the most important species of flora and fauna of the Danube Delta
Biosphere Reserve here.
The lower level contains the primary attraction of the
museum, the aquarium which houses the collection of Danube fish, amphibians,
reptiles and aquatic invertebrates. It doesn't exactly have the
wow factor of the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, which deals
with similar delta displays (there for the Mississippi), but is worthwhile,
especially for the displays on the formation of the delta. Curiously,
there are also some species from the Atlantic and Indian oceans through
in for fun.
32 Progresului Street next to the St. Nicholas Cathedral.
+40 (240) 515 866, open daily except Mondays from 8am to 4pm
This first high school in Dobrogea
opened it's doors in 1883, just 5 years after the
Romanian takeover of the territory. Named after
a great Vlach figure of history,
the fabulous façade a testament
to the modified Brâncoveanu style
applied to public buildings of the era.
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If you're
coming from Bucharest, use the A2 Freeway before
turning north at Medgidia to Tulcea
The Last Highway in Europe!
The European Union's last sealed
main road ends in Tulcea, the eastern-most point of the EU for
mainland road traffic.
Yes, a few dusty roads head out towards the
Delta, and yes, Sulina has a few roads too (but few cars),
and so do Crete and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean!
But this is as far east as the mainland EU road transport
system goes!
Driving to the Delta
If you're coming from Bucharest, Tulcea is 343km using the
DN2 and DN22A (turn north at Hârsova
after you cross over the Danube river. If you pick up
your rental car in Galaţi, Tulcea is
just 93km downriver via Brăila (going south from
Galaţi on the DN2B transferring to the
DN22 east to Tulcea).
If you really want to spend some quality time in the Delta area,
we recommend that you simply fly straight into Tulcea (see options
below), or into
the airport at
Constanţa (which has more services).
You can hire a car at either airport, drive around the days
you are there (or part of those days if you're taking a boat
out onto the Danube Delta), and then return your car at the
airport of your choice.
Once you get into Tulcea, you'll want to park, so head to the Hotel
Delta, Hotel Egreta, Hotel Select, the Casa de Cultura or the
train station to find fairly quick and easy parking.
You can also drive on to Murighiol or Chilia Veche, but that's
about it. Most travel in the Delta area is by boat.
You will travel through time and cross the boundaries of
history on your train journeys from Bucharest
to Tulcea via Medgidia. The 343km trip begins on
the sweeping fertile plains of the Ialomiţa
countryside and crosses the mighty Danube into the different
world of hilly, wind-swept, sunny
Dobrogea.
The Tulcea Train Stations
Tulcea has two stations, at the "goods" station,
and the main station in the town. Just make sure
you look for the "Oraş" station
on the signs before disembarking.
In addition to the copious maxi-taxis waiting all
hours outside the station, you can take a taxi into
town.
The Blue Arrow
These intercity trains run as far
as Medgidia, and unfortunately were removed from the
north-south Tulcea line in early 2007
Constanţa
Train Station, Strada Victoriei 1
+40 (241) 617 930
For a different flavour on your journey, you can stop and
spend time or an overnight in the historical city of
Medgidia,
first a Turkish regional centre in the late 1800s, and now at
the heart of Dobrogean country life. The InterCity train
across to Medgidia takes about four hours with first class service
and a dining car, getting in at 5:30 in the evening.
This makes Medgidia as your introduction to Dobrogea a good
stopping-off point, and the perfect excuse for a nice restaurant,
bed, bath and an early start north.
If you want an earlier start and a single-day journey, take
the Rapid service in the early morning from
Bucharest, change trains to an Accelerat service at Medgidia,
and make the whole journey in just over seven hours. There
is no dining car on this service, although first class is available
from 78RON with fully reserved seating, all fees included (about
). The Blue Arrow service is no longer available on the
second leg of the Bucharest to Tulcea journey.
If you choose to fly into Constanţa,
you can take the maxi-taxi into Constanţa's
train station and then similarly transfer at Medgidia on your
way north to Tulcea, which takes about three hours across the
144km journey.
A first class ticket on the excellent Blue Arrow service
from Bucharest to Tulcea is about 45RON, and well worth the
extra 10RON or so over second class.
The ride from Bucharest's Gara de Nord train station runs daily and makes for a great
day's excursion. Of course, you can get slower trains
during other times of the day if needed, or if you want to stop
along the way (little need however).
Mini busses and busses alike ply the 270km route between Bucharest
and Tulcea, stopping mainly at Urziceni and Slobozia.
Catch a Tulcea bus from the Calea Plevnei nr
236 stop.
From Constanţa's northern bus station on Al. Lapusneanu
Boulevard, Tulcea is
just 179km away, and if your travelling from
Galaţi, your 90km journey to Tulcea leaves
from dock where the car ferry crosses the Danube in the I.C.
Bratianu area.
The main airport in Tulcea went in during the war years,
and recently had a million dollar upgrade by the local council,
including 5-star VIP lounge and state of the art control tower.
We don't currently have information on commercial flights into
Tulcea, so please e-mail us
here if you know something, thanks. For now,
the Constanţa airport seems to be the
closest for travellers wishing to fly into Tulcea. Again,
you can change trains at Medgidia or easier
yet, get a rental car.
Even though the main airports at Bucharest are only 90 minutes away by
maxi taxi, the Constanţa airport, about a half hour to the northwest
of the town centre, offers flights to Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Iaşi,
Timişoara, and even Budapest.
The national carrier
Tarom offers
50-seater fast turboprop service to Constanţa from Bucharest
on ATR42 aircraft (see
below), and Carpatair flies their Saab
2000 turboprops to Craiova, en route to their Timişoara hub.
Tulcea has always been well located as a river transit town,
with good firm land reaching out north into the Danube river
valley and delta.
The functional nodality of the river town became evident
in the late 19th century as the value of regular river
traffic increased, and Tulcea became the first and last
solid land on the Danube's journey to the Black Sea.
If you feel the need for speed (the price is worth it in
our opinion, unless you'd wanted to stop on the way), the fast
ferry Sulina makes a great overnight trip at just 90 minutes
to 2 hours all the way out the Delta to the shores of the Black
Sea.
The normal ferry services going out into the Delta from
Tulcea include the daily Tulcea to Sulina four hour service,
as well as the one to Old Chilia town
and to the Russian enclave at Periprava,
which takes four and a half hours.
Going more southerly, the ferry service down the "other"
main arm of the Danube Delta ends at Saint George
(Sfântu Gheorge) after four hours.
If you only wish to "dip your toe" in the Delta, some trips
from Tulcea take less time, being just an hour out to the curiously
named Mila 23 (Mile 23), or 90 minutes to two hours out to
Crişan.
If you are not interested in the slower pace and mingling
with the locals on your ferry on the four hour trip, take the
express service -- otherwise, love the photo opportunities,
and the great fun of watching river life, a real cultural trip.
The summer is warm, dry and sunny with
a July average of 23 °C. Tulcea rarely experiences particularly
hot days due to the moderating influence of the Danube Delta
and the Black Sea. Summer settles around June 15 and ends in
late September.
The autumn starts late September, and it's
long and relatively warm. Nights are still tropical (temperatures
over 20 °C) on an average of 10 days in September. September
is often warmer than June, because of the heat accumulated by
the Black Sea.
The first frost occurs on average on
November 19. The winter is much balmier compared to other cities
in southern Romania. It has very little snow but can be very
windy and thus, unpleasant. Winter arrives much later than in
the interior and December weather is often balmy with high temperatures
reaching 10 °C. Average January temperature is +0.4 °C.
The spring arrives early but it's very
cool. Often thanks to fresh spring winds in April and May, the
Black Sea coast is even a bit cooler than the wide planes of
Romania.
A fun rustic restaurant
at the little lake on the
up-river end of Tulcea
near the train station,
super in the summer!
Tulcea is happily sited at a great bend of the Danube, the last
major bend before the river splits. The river's work is not
entirely done here, and low bluffs remain where the river has yet
failed to scour away the higher ground.
Tulcea is on the border between higher agrarian lands to the
south, and a wide series of small shallow lakes and rivulets to the
north of the river in the two to three kilometre wide Danube
floodplain, which maintains it's width coming down from
Galaţi.
Population
Tulcea is the county seat of County Tulcea, and with a
population of 91,875, it's considered a medium-sized city
in Romania (only a few cities are more than 150,000 in Romania).
Today the town is 91% Romanian, with the Lippovan people making
up the next most populous group, at 3% of the town's population.
About 1300 Turks and 1250 Gypsies remain in Tulcea, with 800
Aromanians (from the south-western Balkans), and around 500 each
Ukrainians, Russians, and Greeks. About 50 each Germans,
Italians and Hungarians have decided to make Tulcea their homw, and
the town reports one lone Albanian. Everyone should have at
least one after all.
Religion
In a region which was once mostly Muslim from it's Tatar and
Turkish inhabitants, the defeat of the Ottoman Empire saw a dramatic
change in the faith of the town from 1878 through the 1920s, when
Turks were repatriated and more Romanians moved in.
The town is well Romanianised now, with 96% of the population
professing the national Romanian Orthodox faith, with just 1.5%
remaining of the once majority Muslim community, 1.2% Old Rites
Christian, and 350 Catholics, 150 Baptists, and a handful of others,
including 2 Lutherans (well down from the pre-war of Independence
boom in Lutheran Germans in the area).
All of the phone numbers in Tulcea
start with (267) or (367), depending on whether the service is
through the old state-run operator RomTelecom, or from one of the newer
entrants into the market in Romania.
Dialling into anywhere in County Tulcea,
you must remove any leading zero from the county code portion
of the phone number, so that (0267) becomes (267). Dialling
a mobile number (Vodaphone, Zapp, Orange, Cosmote, etc), you do the
same, dropping the zero from the (07XX) part of the number, to make
it (7XX). Both landlines and mobiles have 6 digits following
the initial county code.
For a supposedly sleepy Danube Delta lands, where life should flow
as slowly as the water, Tulcea has a rather surprising
list of HotSpots in the capital city!
Deep 2, 40 Portului
Street in Tulcea
On the road
down to the port.
+40
(745) 075 813
Old Times Pub,
118 Pogoriilor Street in
Tulcea A
Romanian take on a classic English pub
+40
(743) 035 285
Pizzeria Datino,
34 Pogoriilor Street in
Tulcea In the ground
floor area, down the road from the Old Times Pub
Hotel Delta,
2 Isaccei Street in Tulcea
A rock-solid
favourite hotel with good wi-fi.
+40 (240) 514 720
Hotel Rex,
1 Toamnei Street in Tulcea
A modern megalith with equally
big amenities in the central financial district, with wireless too!+40
(240) 511 354
Internet Cafes
Future Games,
12 Isaccei Street in Tulcea
Just down
from the main square at Piaţa Republicii
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This website is a
general tourist guide, designed to help English-speaking tourists
understand Romania, and as such, provides historical
information for the interest of our traveller readers. History
can be a contentious issue, and we welcome input where readers think
clarification or correction is advisable. Please
e-mail us here
if you have questions or comments about anything in this history
section.
The Booming Port of Tulcea
Tulcea at the end of the 19th century
crowded the river with long series of docks for transhipping
into Bessarabia, Dobrogea, and all points west.
Early Tulcea History
The Independence Monument
High atop a bluff overlooking the Danube,
the monument commemorates the Romanian soldiers who
participated in the final chapter of the long Russo-Turkish
wars which at last ousted the Turks from
Ottoman Dobrogea.
Aegysus (Tulcea) in Scythia Minor
Here part of the early Byzantine empire,
Tulcea was long part of the cohesive Dobrogean region,
It was founded in the 8th century BC under the name of Aegyssos,
mentioned in the documents of Diodorus.
Ovid referred to it in Ex Ponto,
saying that its name would have originated with that of its founder,
a Dacian named Carpyus Aegyssus. The Greeks established a port
at the current site of Tulcea to serve their shallow draft merchant
ships, which were able to make it through the main arms of the
delta.
Aegysus became known as the "Threshold of the Delta" to Greek
traders and developed naturally as an important inland port city
where goods were trans-shipped to the nascent road network.
By the 1st century, Aegysus ceded to Roman control,
and the town's functional importance increased with Roman garissons
being established to defend the Empire's northeastern border and
Danube shipping trade. The Romans built their regulation
citadel structures, with tall defence walls and towers, many still visible
atop Independence hill.
The Roman empire melded into the the Byzantine Empire
by the 8th century, and the influence of the Genoese 10th - 13th century
later reigned.
Tulcea was part of the
local Dobrogean polities of Balik/Balica, Dobrotitsa/Dobrotici, and,
for a brief while after 1390, ruled by the Wallachian Prince Mircea
cel Bătrân until the Turks finally took complete control of the
region in 1420, after Mircea's death.
Ottoman Tulcea 1420 - 1878
For 458 years, Tulcea remained as an important port
city in the Turkish Ottoman empire, and it's shipyard business was
important to river trade, a port for chandlery and vessel repair.
In addition to the ethnic Turks in the region, Tulcea in the
1600s and 1700s was a regional centre for significant ethnic
Russian, Wallachian, Transilvanian, Bulgarian, and Tatar
communities, which ringed Tulcea, each with their own townships, a
tradition which remained into the 1900s.
In the early 1840s, Germans began to immigrate to the northern
Dobrogean region under the Turkish government.
Known as the Dobrogean Germans, they established communities in
Tulcea, as well as the outlying communities of Cataloi to the south
(where Tulcea's airport is today), and at Malcoci to the east.
The Turkish government awarded Tulcea city status in 1860, when
it became the provincial capital, and it's importance grew through the war years of the mid 1800s when Russia to the
north and the new Romanian nation to the west united in a series of
skirmishes against Ottoman Dobrogea.
By 1878, the combined Russian and Romanian forces had succeeded in ransacking
Ottoman Dobrogea,
and the entire region became war spoils for the two victors.
Romania gave Russia it's Bessarabia territory to the north and east
of Tulcea in exchange for Russia allowing Romania to occupy the
Dobrogea region between the Danube and Black Sea for the first time
as a nation, and the first time under Wallachian rule since 1419.
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In
County Tulcea
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