Tulcea

People have lived on Tulcea's hills since the time of the Gumelnița culture. The ancient town, Aegyssus, was founded in the 7th century BC on a high hill overlooking the Danube; Ovid recorded a local tradition naming its founder as Aegisos the Caspian. Amphorae show it was a busy trading centre around the turn of the eras. The Romans took it after Getic raids in AD 12–15, and after Trajan's Dacian Wars it became a fort and port of the Danube fleet on the frontier. A cohort raised in Britain was stationed here in the 3rd century. Huns destroyed it in the 5th century, Justinian rebuilt it, and it was abandoned in the 7th century after Avar and Slav attacks.

Byzantium built a new fort in the late 10th century, destroyed by the Uzes in 1064. Ottoman rule began around 1420 and lasted four centuries; the name Tulcea first appears in Ottoman customs records of 1506, describing an important transit-trade centre. In 1853 The Times called it the last fortified place held by the Turks on the Danube. It became the capital of an Ottoman sanjak in 1860, and in the following years the Azizyie Mosque and the pasha's palace, now the art museum, were built, partly paid for with money from the raids of Circassians settled in the region in 1864.

In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish War, Tulcea passed to Romania with the rest of Northern Dobruja, and Carol I attended the start of work on the Independence Monument the next year. The Central Powers occupied the city from 1916 to 1918, and Bulgarian troops took down the statue of Mircea the Elder. In the 20th century Tulcea grew into an industrial town and the gateway to the Danube Delta, which became a biosphere reserve in the 1990s.

Tulcea's culture is shaped by the river and by the many peoples of Northern Dobruja. Lipovans, Russian-speaking Old Believers who found refuge in the delta, keep religious traditions older than Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the Russian Church, while the Azizyie Mosque recalls four centuries of Ottoman rule and the Turkish community that remains. Ukrainians, Greeks and Bulgarians have also lived here, and the city has a Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art.

The town has a strong musical tradition for its size. The George Georgescu Contest, a music competition created by teachers at the Tulcea Arts High School and held every year since 1992, is named after the conductor born in Tulcea County and now admits international students. The Jean Bart Theatre opened in 2008, the art museum shows painting, sculpture, icons and decorative arts, and the Avramide House holds further art collections.

The Danube Delta is central to local identity. Fishermen, boatmen and reed-cutters work its channels, and the sportsman Ivan Patzaichin was among the county's notable people. The city sits on seven hills, and the Independence Monument above the river is one of its main attractions.

Tulcea had about 65,600 people at the 2021 census, down from about 73,700 in 2011. Most are Romanians, with Lipovan, Roma, Turkish, Ukrainian and Greek minorities; the city also administers the village of Tudor Vladimirescu.

It is one of six Romanian county seats on the Danube and an important industrial centre. The VARD shipyard builds ships, the ALUM plant is the country's only producer of calcined alumina, and the port handles both passenger boats and freight, mostly raw materials. Tourism to the delta supports hotels, boat operators and guides, and a Danube Delta information centre on the promenade serves visitors.

Life follows the seasons. From late spring to early autumn the waterfront is busy with tour boats, and ferries run to Sulina and to villages that have no road; delta communities depend on boats. In winter the town quietens. The war across the Danube in Ukraine is close at hand, and drone debris falling in Tulcea County has been a recurring concern.

Tulcea's table is set by the Danube. From the delta come carp, pike, catfish and zander, cooked as saramură, fish grilled and then soaked or sprinkled with brine; as plachie, a ragout of river fish with vegetables; or in ciorbă de pește, also called borș de pește, a freshwater-fish soup normally soured with borș, made from fermented wheat bran. Storceag is a fish soup enriched with sour cream and egg and soured with vinegar or lemon juice.

Other river dishes include saramură de crap, carp in brine; crap pane, breaded carp fillet; and salată de icre, a roe salad of carp or pike, one version of which is protected by the European Union. Smoked Danube shad, scrumbie de Dunăre afumată, also carries an EU protected geographical indication.

Șuberek, half-moon pastries filled with minced meat and fried, come from Crimean Tatar cooking and are a Dobruja speciality; baclava is among Romanian desserts, and plăcintă dobrogeană is the region's protected pastry. The Sarica-Niculițel vineyards in the hills south-west of Tulcea form one of Dobruja's wine regions.