site.bta145 Years Bulgarian Navy: Past, Present, and Future

Bulgaria's Navy was born in Ruse (on the Danube) 145 years ago, on July 21 (New Style August 12), 1879. It was then and there that, as the watch bells rang, the guns fired a salute and the band played Bulgaria's national anthem Shumi Maritsa, the national flag was hoisted over four river steamers, one schooner and seven steam launches donated to the recently liberated Bulgarian State by Russia. At noon, Metropolitan Grigorii of Rousse consecrated the Opyt and sprinkled the rest of the steamers with holy water. The first complement was of 145 seamen, selected from among Russian-trained infantry recruits.

The Danube Flotilla and the Maritime Service were commanded by a Russian officer, Navy Lieutenant Aleksandr Konkeevich, and the fleet was headquartered in Ruse. The navy remained under Russian command until 1885 when, over disagreement with Bulgaria's irredentist and independent policy, Russia withdrew its experts from Bulgaria.

French Navy Lieutenant Paul Pichon was commissioned a commander in the Bulgarian Navy and served as the Government's Naval Affairs Advisor and Chief (i.e. commander) of the Bulgarian Navy between 1897 and 1908. Under his guidance, the navy headquarters was transferred from Ruse to Varna in 1899, one training cruiser, six torpedo boats, a training yacht and a survey ship were purchased from France, and coastal defences started to be established.

In the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), Bulgaria deployed moderate but combat-capable naval forces against Turkey. The most remarkable achievement of the Bulgarian Navy during the First Balkan War was an attack and torpedoing of the Turkish ironclad cruiser Hamidiye off Cape Kaliakra on the night of November 20 to 21, 1912 by the torpedo boat Drazky. The cruiser sustained a 10 sq m hole, and 8 members of its crew were killed and 30 injured. The Bulgarian vessel had its smokestack punctured in the engagement.

The coastal artillery had its baptism of fire on October 11, 1912, when a 240 mm battery chased the Turkish cruiser Mecidiye from the Gulf of Varna by just two salvos.

In World War I, the navy engaged in the fighting for the liberation of Dobrudzha, which had been occupied by Romania in 1913, and helped mine-sweep the Bulgarian coastal waters. The Bulgarian Aegean Fleet was formed on January 1, 1915. In the first Bulgarian sea-landing operation, on September 5, 1916, 195 petty officers and seamen together with 40 signalers were landed by five torpedo boats at Balchik, Kavarna and Cape Kaliakra and captured the settlements from Romania without meeting with enemy resistance.

Under the 1919 Peace Treaty of Neuilly, Bulgaria, defeated in WW I, was not allowed to have a navy. The fleet practically ceased to exist. A Sea and River Police Force was established and gradually started to train personnel and repair ships and armament for a future recovery of the navy. Restoration of the Navy de facto started on December 2, 1927, under a highly classified order of the Minister of War in defiance of the clauses of the Treaty of Neuilly and far from the eyes of the Allied Control Commission. The effort began officially after 1938, with three Lurssen Class torpedo boats and four Power Class torpedo boats.

In World War II, the Navy participated mainly by demining the Black Sea and the River Danube and by providing troop transportation on the Danube. Mine clearance continued until October 1948.

Between 1944 and 1989, the Bulgarian Navy was developed along the Soviet model, it was armed with Soviet equipment and drifted away from Europe. At the end of 1944, the Navy started to be reorganized around three principal bases: Varna, Burgas and Ruse. The Naval Headquarters was transferred from Sofia to Varna in 1947. One fleet destroyer, two large and ten small submarine hunters were procured from the USSR in 1947. Under Soviet pressure, the Danube Flotilla, headquartered in Ruse, was liquidated in 1960-1961. Some auxiliary ships were imported from Poland and East Germany, and others were built in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria operated four Romeo class Soviet-built submarines. All four have been decommissioned: Pobeda in 1990, Viktoriya in 1992, Nadezhda in 2008, and Slava in 2011. Slava alone did not end up in the hands of breakers and has been converted into a museum.

After the advent of democracy in 1989, changes dominated in the 1990s. The enlistee-to-conscript ratio in the Navy reached 58%, a system of continuous combat training was introduced along with personnel rotation, and press reports appeared for the first time about the combat training of the submarines, the guided-missile boats and the shore-based missile units. The plans were to enhance the air defence capabilities of tactical groups of ships at sea, form mine-laying forces, maintain a small group of multi-role submarines, optimize the command and control elements, establish computer-aided operations control centres, streamline the reconnaissance, command and communications systems, and improve coordination with the other armed services.

In 1997, the Bulgarian Navy comprised 57 combatant and 37 auxiliary ships and boats, mostly made in the USSR and purchased after long-term use. With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the disrupted military economic ties with Russia, the fleet started to deactivate the ships with expired service life, to sell the disarmed vessels fit for civilian use, and to dispose of the unusable ones.

A Proteus class Italian salvage ship was procured in 2004, followed by three Belgian frigates: one in 2005, one in 2008 and one in 2009, when a Belgian minesweeper was purchased, too.

The latest addition to the inventory came in 2022: a Norwegian-built research/survey, christened Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii, which made two voyages to Antarctica and back in 2023 and 2024 in support of the Bulgarian Antarctic expeditions.

Under a November 2020 contract with NVL B. V. & Co. KG of Germany, Bulgaria is acquiring two multi-role modular patrol vessels, of which the first must arrive until the end of 2025 and the second in 2027.

The armed service currently consists of a Navy Headquarters, frigates, corvettes, patrol craft, coastal mine hunters, coastal and inshore mine sweepers, landing craft, survey ships, oilers, a rescue and salvage ship, and a training craft. Other elements include a Black Sea Maritime Coordination Element (BSMCE), helicopter Naval Aviation, a marines battalion, coastal missile artillery, a Hydrogaphic Service, communications and logistics elements, and a Naval Academy.

In recent years, the Navy has been reorganized up to modern standards so as to be able to integrate with the European and Euro-Atlantic security structures.

The date when the Navy was established in 1879, August 12, was designated Bulgarian Navy Day in 1956 by a decree of the National Assembly Presidium and an order of the Minister of National Defence. It is actually celebrated on the second Sunday of August.