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Among the housing estates that mark the city's northwestern margins lies the bizarrely named Park of Fighting Friendship (bus #22 from the Cathedral), where a granite monument tops a Thracian tumulus marking the site of the Battle of Varna . An army of 30,000 Crusaders made their way here in November 1444, intending to meet a fleet of Venetian and Genoese ships before sailing on to Constantinople. Unfortunately, the fleet had already set off, in a vain attempt to stop Sultan Murad II and his forces from crossing the Bosphorus. Murad rapidly made his way up the coast and during the subsequent clash, King Ladislas III of Poland and Hungary (known to the Bulgarians as Vladislav Varnenchik) recklessly led a charge to capture Sultan Murad in his tent, but was cut down in the attempt. His army wavered, forcing Janos Hunyadi to order an inglorious retreat, marking the end of Christendom's last attempt to check the Ottoman advance. A small museum (officially daily 9am-5pm; US$1.50) built into the mound displays medieval armour and tributes to the various East European races that made up Ladislas' army.
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