Constanța

• 1. Introduction

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  Constanța sits on the Black Sea coast of Romania, and it has been inhabited without interruption since around 600 BC. That makes it the oldest continuously inhabited city in Romania and one of the oldest in Europe. In the 1st century AD, the Roman poet Ovid spent the last eight years of his life here in exile, lamenting that Tomis, as it was then called, was a town located in a war-stricken cultural wasteland on the remotest margins of the empire. Today, the city holds a population of 263,688 and commands the largest port on the Black Sea. How did a remote Greek colony on the edge of the ancient world become Romania's principal seaport and one of Europe's biggest commercial harbors? And what layers of empire, conquest, and rebuilding lie beneath its modern streets? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. A Colony at the Edge

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  Tomis was founded in the 6th century BC as a Greek colony, at the same time as nearby Histria, Orgame, and Kallatis. The site was chosen carefully. A peninsula with high cliffs protected the settlement from cold winds and from attack. The Carasu valley offered an inland shortcut from the sea to the Danube, and fertile land lay close by. By the 5th century BC, Tomis had come under the influence of the Delian League, shifting during that period from oligarchy to democracy. A war over the emporion, or trading post, of Tomis broke out in the middle of the 3rd century BC, signaling that the city's commercial value was already worth fighting over. In 29 BC, Rome captured the region from the Odrysian kingdom and annexed it as far north as the Danube. Tomis became a member, and perhaps the capital, of the Hexapolis, an alliance of six Greek cities that also included Histria, Callatis, Dionysupolis, Odessos, and Mesambria. Artifacts found in and around the city that confirm it stands over ancient Tomis are now preserved in the British Museum in London.

• 3. Ovid's Bitter Shore

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  In AD 8, Emperor Augustus banished the poet Ovid, who had been born in 43 BC and would die in AD 17, to Tomis. Ovid spent the final eight years of his life there, far from Rome, and he poured his misery into two collections of poetry: Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. By his own account, Tomis was a town on the remotest margins of the empire, caught in an almost constant state of war. His testimony is one of the most vivid literary records any ancient city possesses, though it was written by a man desperate to leave. In 1887, the sculptor Ettore Ferrari designed a statue of Ovid that gave its name to what is now Ovid's Square in the old town. When the Central Powers occupied Dobruja in 1916, Bulgarian troops took the statue down. The Germans later reinstated it. The square, the statue, and the continuing use of the name Ovidius for a local university and a high school show that after two thousand years, Ovid remains the city's most famous unwilling resident.

• 4. Centuries of Conquest

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  From the time of Diocletian, Tomis served as the capital of the Roman province of Scythia Minor. In 269, the Goths attacked and managed to destroy only the suburbs outside the city walls. In 395, Tomis was assigned to the Eastern Roman Empire. Then the medieval turbulence began. During Maurice's Balkan campaigns, the Avars besieged Tomis in the winter of 597/598. The First Bulgarian Empire conquered the city at the Battle of Ongal in 680. Byzantines under John I Tzimiskes retook it during the Rus-Byzantine War of 970-971. The Second Bulgarian Empire then seized it again during the Uprising of Asen and Peter in 1186. By the 14th century, Italian nautical maps were already using the name Constanza. After nearly two centuries under Bulgarian rule, and then as part of the independent principality of Dobrotitsa and later Wallachia under Mircea I of Wallachia, Constanța fell under Ottoman rule around 1411. The city had passed through Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman hands before a railroad linking it to Cernavodă was laid in 1860.

• 5. From Fishing Village to Port Giant

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  As recently as 1878, Constanța was described as a poor Turkish fishing village. That description aged quickly. Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Ottoman Empire ceded Constanța and the rest of Northern Dobruja to Romania. The city became Romania's main seaport almost immediately, serving as the transit point for a large share of the country's exports. The Constanța Casino, which became a symbol of the modern city, was the first building constructed on the Black Sea shore after Dobruja came under Romanian administration; its cornerstone was laid in 1880. By 1895, a railway to Bucharest crossed the Danube at the bridge at Cernavodă, bringing a surge of transit trade in grain and petroleum. By 1920, the city was described as flourishing. In the interwar years it became Romania's main commercial hub, and by the 1930s more than half of Romania's exports were leaving through the port. The Port of Constanța today covers 39.26 square kilometers, stretches about 30 kilometers in length, and is ranked fourth among all European ports. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the blockading of Ukrainian Black Sea ports drew renewed international attention to Constanța as a possible route for transporting grain to the rest of the world.

• 6. A City Shaped by Many Peoples

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  In 1853, Constanța had a population of just over 5,200 people, and ethnic Romanians made up only about 5.4 percent of that total. Greeks, Tatars, and Bulgarians each accounted for a substantial share. Ethnic Romanians did not become a majority in the city until the early 20th century; by the 1930 census, they made up 68 percent of the population. The city's population grew dramatically through the 20th century, reaching 350,581 at the 1992 census before declining to 263,688 by the 2021 census. The city still retains small Tatar, Greek, Turkish, and Romani communities alongside the Romanian majority. Tatar residents have deep roots here; one of the city's native sons, Sîdîyîk Ibrahim H. Mîrzî, who was born in 1909 and died in 1959, served as imam and Mufti of the Muslim community of Romania. The Grand Mosque of Constanța, built in 1910 by King Carol I and originally called the Carol I Mosque, stands alongside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, built between 1883 and 1885, as a reminder that this Black Sea port has long been a meeting point of faiths and cultures. The city's sister-city list spans four continents, stretching from Havana and Callao to Yokohama and Shanghai.

• 7. Landmarks and Notable Residents

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  Commissioned by King Carol I in 1910 and designed by architects Daniel Renard and Petre Antonescu on the seashore, the Constanța Casino features sumptuous Art Nouveau architecture. Once a major draw for European tourists, it lost its customers after the collapse of communism, and renovation only began in 2021. The Genoese Lighthouse, known locally as Farul Genovez, stands 26 feet high near the water. A large mosaic pavement, thought to be one of the longest in the world, was uncovered during 19th-century railway construction. Among the city's native sons and daughters, Sebastian Stan, born in 1982, became an actor known internationally, while Simona Halep, born in 1991, became a tennis player and businesswoman. Cătălina Ponor, born in 1987, and Simona Amânar, born in 1979, each won Olympic gold medals in gymnastics. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a mathematician born in 1906 and died in 1994, and Anastasia Soare, born in 1957 and described as an American billionaire businesswoman, round out a list of figures whose careers took them far from the Black Sea coast where they grew up. Ovidius University of Constanța and the Mircea cel Bătrân Naval Academy continue to anchor the city's educational life, carrying forward names that connect the present city to its ancient and medieval past.