site.bta Bulgarian Town of Tutrakan Boasts Unique Fishery and Boat-building Museum on Danube

Bulgarian Town of Tutrakan Boasts Unique Fishery and Boat-building Museum on Danube


Silistra, December 16 (BTA) - If you have never been to
Northeast Bulgaria or if you happen to travel along the Danube,
the town of Tutrakan is a must see destination. It has a rich
history going back to Ancient Rome, when it was founded.
Tutrakan is currently famous for being a fishing town, for its
boat-building and fishing equipment manufacturing, its
Fisherman's Quarter, but above all for its Ethnographical Danube
 Fishery and Boat-building Museum, which is one of a kind in
Europe.

The Museum was founded in 1974. Four decades ago, Racho Zmeev -
a Bulgarian with a passion for history - helped make the Museum
a keeper of the rich material and spiritual culture, social
order and way of life of the Bulgarians from the fishing
settlements along the Danube.

The Museum's exhibitions are arranged across seven halls in
chronological sequence and include genuine fishermen's
instruments and devices dating from Antiquity to the present
day. One can see fishing rods and hooks made of bone and copper,
 harpoons, clay leads for fishing nets, iron orifices and
various types of nets, made by Tutrakan fishermen from vegetal
fibers. An exhibition of photographs and drawings sheds light on
 the history of fishing in the settlements along the Lower
Danube. In addition to fishing artefacts, one can get an idea of
 the fishermen's social structure, their accounting practices,
the inner structure of their homes and their spiritual culture.

Fishing along the Danube started in pre-historic times and
continues to this day, with major fishing settlements being
Vidin, Nikopol, Silistra, Svishtov and Tutrakan. The last two
towns become major fishing and trade centres, exporting fish,
fish oil and caviar to the rest of Bulgaria and across Europe.
The first fishermen's cooperative was founded in 1907 in
Tutrakan.