География
Златни пясъци (до 29 юни 1942 г. Узун кум) е един от трите големи български морски курорта, разположен в северната част на българското Черноморие. Намира се на 16 км от центъра на Варна.
Разположен е в полите на природния парк „Златни пясъци“ – територия, защитена от закона. Плажната ивица, покрита със златист пясък, е с дължина 3,5 км и е широка до 100 м..
Златни пясъци е най-известният курорт по северното черноморско крайбрежие. Той е вторият по капацитет и посещаемост български курорт.
Територията около курорта е уникална със своите растителни видове и крайморска растителност. Тя е обособена като природен парк. В него се съхраняват застрашени и защитени растителни и животински видове и има изградени пет туристически маршрута, които преминават през стари чешми, кътове за отдих, места с очарователен изглед към морето. Културно-историческото наследство на парка обхваща широк период – от Древността до късното Средновековие.
Освен за ваканционен туризъм курортът се използва и за целогодишно балнеолечение.
HISTORY
Brothers Herman and Karel Shkorpil, who are remembered as the founders of bulgarian archeological science, were the first supporters of creating a resort in the region of Uzunkum (Turkish – Long sands). In 1915 they put forward the idea of building a sea sanatorium and summer houses in that region.
By the ruling of the Ministers Council of 1st of December 1955, an objective was declared to build two resorts by Varna in the next two years. “Druzhba” (Today, “St. Konstantin and Elena”) for 1000 residents, and “Golden Sands” for 2000 residents.
The choice of the Uzunkum region, north of Varna, was quite logical. The place combines an untouched forest and a spacious beach. A team of thirty bulgarian architects was instructed with designing the resort, and its construction was done in three stages. In the first stage small, mainly two-story hotels along the beach were built. After, hotel complexes and recreational establishments were built on second and third stages.
During the swiftly proceeding construction, an interesting fact was the fighting of snakes. To combat them, hedgehogs were brought from Albania and specialists from zoos were called.
Construction of the complex started on 11th of august 1956. The resort was finished in 1965.
Erection of most of the large hotels and recreational establishments, included in the initial plan of the resort, took around ten years.
By design, the resort was supposed to combine the possibility of family tourism by sea with potential of one of the most famous sanatorium-resort centers of the country. After the finishing of the last stage of construction work of Golden Sands in 1966, a development of a large program of attracting european tourists was started.
The real development jump of the resort happened in the late 1990s, when the previous government property was privatized.
Since 2000, Golden sands is a fully privatized resort.
