Atliman

Worth a detour

Atliman is the enclosed northern bay at Kiten, sheltered by the Urdoviza headland and shallow enough that children can walk a long way out. It was a working quay within living memory, shipping coal and timber until the mid-1930s. Umbrellas and loungers cost about €3.50, which is half what they cost at Sozopol.

Story

Background

The name is Turkish and means the bay of the stallion. The shelter that makes it a good beach made it a usable port: the Atliman quay handled coal and timber and was at its busiest up to about 1935, before the harbour at Tsarevo took the trade. Nothing of that is visible now.

Kiten itself is young. Thracian refugee families from Fazanovo began settling the western side of the Urdoviza peninsula in 1932; the place took the name Kiten in 1937, was absorbed into Primorsko as a quarter in 1981, separated again after 1990, and was confirmed as a town in 2009. On the headland between the two bays are the remains of the Urdoviza fortress, excavated from 2012, with a gate, two watchtowers and a stepped approach.

For a visitor the choice is between Kiten's two beaches. Atliman, to the north, is the enclosed one: calm, shallow, warm, and full of families by ten in the morning. The south beach, bordered by the Kitenska river, is larger and more open, and is where you go if you want to swim rather than to paddle. Both are concession beaches at modest rates and both are guarded. Neither holds a Blue Flag. Out of season Kiten empties completely and the shutters go up in the first week of October.