The Fisheries School
By a special law of the XI Ordinary National Assembly of 29.02.1924 it was decided to build a “Practical Fisheries School” in Sozopol. The initiative comes into force with Decree No 7/14.03.1924 of Tsar (King) Boris III, for which the state budget provides for BGN 5 000 000. A special commission proposes that the building to be built on the island “St. St. Kirik and Julita” and the municipality of Sozopol provides the land for this purpose.
In the summer of 1924 the famous Burgas architect, a graduate of the German School of Architecture, Stoyan Nikolov, worked out the design of the building in a modern architectural style on an area of 800 sq. m.
On April 5, with great solemnity, the main stone of the future building was laid. The event was attended by His Majesty Tsar Boris III, who arrived on the battleship “Drazki”. At 11:15 the king, dressed in the uniform of a naval officer, congratulates the honorable platoon, and with thanksgiving prayer begins the ceremony of consecrating the building.
A special certificate signed by the king, the minister of agriculture and state property, members of the parliament and officials from the region, was placed in a metal capsule and built into the foundations of the building. In his speech, Tsar Boris III wished the graduates of the school – sons of brave men who died for the Fatherland – to follow the path of their fathers with dignity.
Simultaneously with the construction of the school, in the period 1926 – 1927, a 250 m long breakwater was built, connecting the island to the Skamni peninsula. In 1930, the building of the Fisheries School was completed and on October 3 regular, first-class teaching activities began.
In 1930, the brilliant proletarian poet Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov studied here. A few years later, the school was forced to close under the pretext of “insufficient fishing resources in the Black Sea”, after which it was made available to a naval school fleet.
Between 1945 and 2005 the island was a naval base for the Bulgarian Navy.
In 2007, the Naval School was declared an architectural monument of culture of local importance and made available to the Ministry of Culture to build a future museum of marine culture and underwater archeology.
