Kiten

Worth a detour

Kiten is small, modern and unpretentious, built on the Urdoviza peninsula between two bays: Atliman to the north, shallow and enclosed, and the south beach bordered by the Kitenska river, larger and more open. Sunbeds are about €3.50 on either. It is the quieter alternative to Primorsko, five kilometres up the road, and it suits families who want short walks.

Story

Background

The place has no long history because there was no settlement here until living memory. Thracian refugee families from the village of Fazanovo began settling the western side of the peninsula in 1932; the name Kiten was adopted in 1937; it was absorbed into Primorsko as a quarter in 1981, separated again after 1990, and confirmed as a town in 2009. Before all that, the Atliman quay shipped coal and timber, busiest until about 1935.

What gives it depth is the headland. Excavation of the Urdoviza fortress began in 2012 and has uncovered a gate, two watchtowers, a flight of twelve steps and a hearth; the site has been listed since 1965. It is unfenced and unexplained and takes twenty minutes.

The choice between the beaches is worth making deliberately. Atliman is calm, warm and very shallow, and by ten in the morning in July it belongs to small children. The south beach takes more weather and is the one to swim from. Neither holds a Blue Flag. There is a campsite at the southern end and a further beach, Karaagach, beyond it. Kiten is about seventy kilometres from Burgas on a road with structural weight restrictions at three points, so allow an hour and a half rather than an hour in August, and note that out of season the town does not so much quieten as shut.