The narrow, claustrophobic space seems to press in on you. The smell of machine oil, metal and people. The sense of the unknown… Descending into a submarine is an unforgettable experience. If you want to try it – and learn more about Bulgaria's submarines – your destination is Beloslav, a town west of Varna. Here, on the southern shore of Lake Varna, is a surprising museum: the last submarine of the Bulgarian Navy. Its name – Slava, or Glory.

People have wondered, with a mix of fear and curiosity, about what lies beneath the water's surface probably ever since they emerged from inner Africa and laid eyes for the first time on the Mediterranean. A medieval legend attributes the first underwater journey to Alexander the Great, who was lowered beneath the surface in a barrel. Experiments in building submarines began in the 17th century, but the breakthrough came in the mid-19th century, when engineers figured out how to make subaqueous boats with mechanical, rather than human, propulsion. In the following decades, European nations started designing and building more elaborate submarines. When the First World War broke out, this new technology was ripe for military use – to devastating effect, such as the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by the German submarine SM U-20 in 1915.

Bulgaria was an early adopter of submarines. It bought its first vessel in 1916 – a German UB I-8, which was named Submarine No. 18.

However, the Bulgarian Navy developed its own underwater unit after the Communist coup of 1944, when the Bulgarian army was restructured along Soviet lines and acquired mainly Soviet military equipment. The first Soviet submarines – three M-type ("Malyutka") vessels – officially received their Bulgarian markings in Varna, on 18 August 1954. On the same day, the Bulgarian Navy established a special submarine division.

In the following decades, Bulgaria continued to purchase newer Soviet submarines, while older ones were decommissioned. Between 1985 and 1990, four vessels were in service – a period considered the peak of Bulgarian submarine operations.

The restructuring of the Bulgarian military after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the gradual phaseout of submarines. The last vessel of this type in the Bulgarian Navy, Slava, was decommissioned in 2011. It was a rather old submarine – made for Soviet use in 1959 and purchased by Bulgaria, after some necessary upgrades, in 1985. At the time of purchase, it was named Lenin's Komsomol, after the youth organisation of the Bolshevik Party. It became Slava, or Glory, in the early 1990s, when Bulgaria broke away with Communism and its symbols.

Initially, the submarine participated in NATO trainings, but was eventually abandoned.

Today, Bulgaria has no military submarines.

But Slava is still here – as a museum. In 2018, the owner of a local glass factory, Inhom, and the Beloslav Glass foundation joined an initiative of the Union of Bulgarian Submariners. Together, they restored Slava and two years later turned it into a museum.

Entering it, you find yourself in an incredible, unexpected world – a world of confined spaces, fascinating machinery, and stories of endurance and stamina. The tour takes you through the ammunition compartment, the captain's bridge, the crew quarters and officers' mess, the engine room: a walk back in time that you will remember for a... long time.

Slava S84 Submarine in numbers

Type, country: Project 633, USSR
NATO classification: Romeo
Launched: 27 September 1959
Commissioned by the Bulgarian Navy: 28 December 1985
Decommissioned: 1 November 2011
Displacement surfaced/submerged: 1,333 tonnes / 1,714 tonnes
Length: 76.6 m
Height: 12.85 m
Width: 6.5 m
Speed surfaced/submerged: 15.2 / 13.2 knots
Torpedo tubes (533 mm): 6 in the bow, 2 at the stern
Torpedoes (or mines): 14 (28)
Dive depth (operational/maximal): 270 / 300 m
Endurance surfaced/submerged: 60 days / >600 hours
Crew: 60 men (11 officers)