Via Pontica

Today the name "Via Pontica" is given to Europe's second largest bird migration route, through the western part of the Black Sea Biogeographic Region.

The migrating birds use the coastal lakes, marshes and lagoons behind the shoreline, and some spend the winter in these wetlands.

[1] For the first time in ornithology the term "Via Pontica" was used by the Bulgarian ornithologist Nikolay Boev (1922-1985) to denote the Western Black Sea migratory way of birds.

In 2010 Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the National Historical Museum, and Simeon Dyankov, Deputy Prime Minister, started the Via Pontica project of restoring twenty ancient fortifications along the Black Sea coast.

As a result of this work, several new archeological sites have been uncovered, including the Akra fortification near Apollonia, Thrace, now Sozopol.