View allAll Photos Tagged decentralized
Emirates Airbus A380-861 A6-EUA on final approach to the runway 3L of the Athens International Airport
From the participation of the Hellenic Air Force in Athens Flying Week 2017 come these two F-4s.
They belong to the 338 Fighter Bomber Squadron "Ares", 117 Combat Wing, stationed in Andravida, Greece.
Die alte Marienkirche im Ort Asklipio zeigt eine beeindruckende Sammlung gut erhaltener Fresken. Ein frommer Mann malte hierbei die biblische Apokalypse an die Wände und Decken der kleinen Kirche. Die Darstellungen sind beeindruckend und besonders sehenswert. Die älteste Baustufe der Kirche stammt vermutlich aus 1060 - damit wäre sie die älteste Kirche auf der Insel.
Neben der Kirche gibt es ein kleines Museum und etwas unterhalb ein altes griechisches Wohnhaus.
Triest
seen from Castello di San Giusto
gesehen vom Castello di San Giusto
Trieste (/triˈɛst/ tree-EST, Italian: [triˈɛste]; Slovene: Trst [tə̀ɾst, tə́ɾst] is a city and seaport in northeast Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the regional decentralization entity of Trieste. As of 2025, it has a population of 198,668.
Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste, on a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia; Slovenia lies close, at approximately 8 km (5 mi) east and 10–15 km (6–9 mi) southeast of the city, while Croatia is about 30 km (19 mi) to the south of the city.
The city has a long coastline and is surrounded by grassland, forest, and karstic areas.
Trieste belonged, as Triest, to the Habsburg monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century, the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous trading hub in the Mediterranean region, Trieste grew to become the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after Vienna, Budapest, and Prague). At the turn of the 20th century, it emerged as an important hub for literature and music. Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and the Free Territory of Trieste became a major site of the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War.
A deep-water port, Trieste is a maritime gateway for northern Italy, Germany, Austria and Central Europe. It is considered the end point of the maritime Silk Road, with its connections to the Suez Canal and Turkey. Since the 1960s, Trieste has emerged as a prominent research location in Europe because of its many international organisations and institutions. The city lies at the intersection of Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures, where Central Europe meets the Mediterranean Sea, and is home to diverse ethnic groups and religious communities.
A scholarly area, Trieste has the highest percentage of researchers, per capita, in Europe. Città della Barcolana ("City of the Barcolana"), Città della bora ("City of the bora"), Città del vento ("City of Wind"), "Vienna by the sea" and "City of Coffee" are epithets used to describe Trieste.
Etymology
The most likely origin is the word, Tergeste – with the -est- suffix typical of Venetic – and derived from the hypothetical Illyrian word *terg- "market" (etymologically cognate to the Albanian term treg 'market, marketplace' and reconstructed Proto-Slavic "*tъrgъ") Roman authors also transliterated the name as Tergestum (according to Strabo, the name of the oppidum Tergestum originated from the three battles the Roman Army had to engage in with local tribes, "TER GESTUM [BELLUM]").
History
Ancient history
Arco di Riccardo, a Roman triumphal arch constructed from 33–32 BC
Since the second millennium BC, the location was an inhabited site. Originally an Illyrian settlement, the Veneti entered the region in the 10th–9th c. BC and seem to have given the town its name, Tergeste, because terg* is a Venetic word meaning market (q.v. Oderzo, whose ancient name was Opitergium). Later, the town was captured by the Carni, a tribe of the Eastern Alps, before becoming part of the Roman Republic in 177 BC during the Second Istrian War.
After being attacked by barbarians from the interior in 52 BC, and until 46 BC, it was granted the status of Roman colony under Julius Caesar, who recorded its name as Tergeste in Commentarii de Bello Gallico (51 BC), in which he recounts events of the Gallic Wars.
During the imperial period the border of Roman Italy moved from the Timavo River to the Formione (today Risano). Roman Tergeste flourished due to its position on the road from Aquileia, the main Roman city in the area, to Istria, and as a port, some ruins of which are still visible. Emperor Augustus built a line of walls around the city in 33–32 BC, while Trajan built a theatre in the 2nd century. At the same time, the citizens of the town were enrolled in the tribe Pupinia. In 27 BC, Trieste was incorporated in Regio X of Augustan Italia.
In the early Christian era Trieste continued to flourish. Between 138 and 161 AD, its territory was enlarged and nearby Carni and Catali were granted Roman citizenship by the Roman Senate and Emperor Antoninus Pius at the pleading of a leading Tergestine citizen, the quaestor urbanus, Fabius Severus.
Already at the time of the Roman Empire there was a fishing village called Vallicula ("small valley") in the Barcola area. Remains of richly decorated Roman villas, including wellness facilities, piers and extensive gardens suggest that Barcola was already a place for relaxation among the Romans because of its favourable microclimate, as it was located directly on the sea and protected from the bora. At that time, Pliny the Elder mentioned the vines of the wine Pulcino ("Vinum Pucinum" – probably today's "Prosecco"), which were grown on the slopes.
Middle Ages
In 788, Trieste submitted to Charlemagne, who placed it under the authority of the count-bishop who in turn was subject to the Duke of Friùli.
During the 13th and 14th centuries, Trieste became a maritime trade rival to the Republic of Venice, which briefly occupied it in 1283–87, before coming under the patronage of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. After it committed a perceived offence against Venice, the Venetian State declared war against Trieste in July 1368 and by November had occupied the city. Venice intended to keep the city and began rebuilding its defences, but was forced to leave in 1372. Due to the Peace of Turin in 1381, Venice renounced its claim to Trieste and the leading citizens of Trieste petitioned Leopold III of Habsburg, Duke of Austria, to annex Trieste to his domains. The agreement of voluntary submission (dedizione) was signed at the castle of Graz on 30 September 1382.
The city maintained a high degree of autonomy under the Habsburgs, but was increasingly losing ground as a trade hub, both to Venice and to Ragusa. In 1463, a number of Istrian communities petitioned Venice to attack Trieste. Trieste was saved from utter ruin by the intervention of Pope Pius II who had previously been bishop of Trieste. However, Venice limited Trieste's territory to three miles (4.8 kilometres) outside the city. Trieste would be assaulted again in 1468–1469 by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. His sack of the city is remembered as the "Destruction of Trieste." He then restored the city walls for the fourth time.[9] Trieste was fortunate to be spared another sack in 1470 by the Ottomans who burned the village of Prosecco, only about 5.3 miles (8.5 kilometres) from Trieste, while on their way to attack Friuli.
Early modern period
Following an unsuccessful Habsburg invasion of Venice in the prelude to the 1508–16 War of the League of Cambrai, the Venetians occupied Trieste again in 1508, and were allowed to keep the city under the terms of the peace treaty. However, the Habsburg Empire recovered Trieste a little over one year later, when the conflict resumed. By the 18th century Trieste became an important port and commercial hub for the Austrians. In 1719, it was granted status as a free port within the Habsburg Empire by Emperor Charles VI, and remained a free port until 1 July 1791. The reign of his successor, Maria Theresa of Austria, marked the beginning of a very prosperous era for the city. Serbs settled Trieste largely in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they soon formed an influential and rich community within the city, as a number of Serbian traders came into ownership of many important businesses and built palaces across Trieste.
19th century
In the following decades, Trieste was briefly occupied by troops of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars on several occasions, in 1797, 1805 and 1809. From 1809 to 1813, Trieste was annexed into the Illyrian Provinces, interrupting its status of free port and losing its autonomy. The municipal autonomy was not restored after the return of the city to the Austrian Empire in 1813. Following the Napoleonic Wars, Trieste continued to prosper as the Free Imperial City of Trieste (German: Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest), a status that granted economic freedom, but limited its political self-government. The city's role as Austria's main trading port and shipbuilding centre was later emphasised by the foundation of the merchant shipping line Austrian Lloyd in 1836, whose headquarters stood at the corner of the Piazza Grande and Sanità (today's Piazza Unità d'Italia). By 1913, Austrian Lloyd had a fleet of 62 ships totalling 236,000 tonnes. With the introduction of constitutionalism in the Austrian Empire in 1860, the municipal autonomy of the city was restored, with Trieste becoming capital of the Austrian Littoral crown land (German: Österreichisches Küstenland).
With anti-clericalism on the rise in the rest of the Italian peninsula due to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardina's bellicose policies towards the church and its estates, Pope Leo XIII at times considered moving his residence to Trieste or Salzburg. However, Emperor Franz Joseph rejected the idea. Trieste, along with Rijeka (Fiume), served as an important base for the Imperial-Royal Navy, which in the first decade of the 20th century embarked on a major modernisation programme. With the construction of the Austrian Southern Railway, the first major railway in the Empire, in 1857, Trieste acquired a significant role in the trade of coal.
Trieste had long been home to Italian irredentist sentiment, as evidenced by the activity at Caffè Tommaseo. In 1882 this fervour culminated in an attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph at the hands of Wilhem Oberdank (Guglielmo Oberdan), while His Majesty was visiting the city. The perpetrator was arrested, tried, found guilty and ultimately sentenced to death. His legacy was regarded as worthy of martyrdom status by fellow irredentists, while monarchical elements regarded his actions as ignominious. The Emperor, who went on to reign for thirty-four more years, never again visited Trieste.
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a bustling cosmopolitan city frequented by artists and philosophers. James Joyce was a long-stay tourist between 1904 and 1915. Joyce worked on Dubliners and Ulysses while in Trieste. His students included Italo Svevo and a bookshop ran by Umberto Saba was near Joyce's apartment. Other authors with roots in Trieste include Claudio Magris, Jan Morris, Fulvio Tomizza, Enzo Bettiza, Susanna Tamaro, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. Sigmund Freud, Zofka Kveder, Dragotin Kette, Ivan Cankar, and Scipio Slataper have also been associated with Trieste. The city was the major port on the Austrian Riviera, a term used in tourist marketing.
World War I, annexation to Italy and Fascist era
Italy, in return for entering World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, had been promised substantial territorial gains, which included the former Austrian Littoral and western Inner Carniola. Italy therefore annexed the city of Trieste at the end of the war, in accordance with the provisions of the 1915 Treaty of London and the Italian-Yugoslav 1920 Treaty of Rapallo.
In the late 1920s, following Italian fascists burning down of the Slovene cultural centre in July 1920, the Slovene militant anti-fascist organisation TIGR carried out several bomb attacks in the city centre. In 1930 and 1941, two trials of Slovene activists were held in Trieste by the fascist Special Tribunal for the Security of the State. During the 1920s and 1930s, several monumental buildings were built in the Fascist architectural style, including the University of Trieste and the almost 70 m (229.66 ft) tall Victory Lighthouse (Faro della Vittoria), which became a city landmark. The economy improved in the late 1930s, and several large infrastructure projects were carried out.
World War II and aftermath
Following the trisection of Slovenia, starting from the winter of 1941, the first Slovene Partisans appeared in Trieste province, although the resistance movement did not become active in the city itself until late 1943.
After the Italian armistice in September 1943, the city was occupied by Wehrmacht troops. Trieste became nominally part of the newly constituted Italian Social Republic, but it was de facto ruled by Germany, who created the Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral (OZAK) out of former Italian north-eastern regions, with Trieste as the administrative centre. The new administrative entity was headed by Friedrich Rainer, Gauleiter of Carinthia, named supreme commissary of the AK zone. A semblance of indigenous Italian rule was kept in the form of Cesare Pagnini, mayor of Trieste, but every civil official was assigned a representative of the supreme commissar in the form of a Deutsche Berater (German Adviser). Under German occupation, the only concentration camp with a crematorium on Italian soil was built in a suburb of Trieste, at the Risiera di San Sabba on 4 April 1944. From 20 October 1943, to the spring of 1944, around 25,000 Jews and partisans were interrogated and tortured in the Risiera. Three to four thousand of them were murdered here by shooting, beating or in gas vans. Most were imprisoned before being transferred to other concentration camps.
The city saw intense Italian and Yugoslav partisan activity and suffered from Allied bombings, over 20 air raids in 1944–1945, targeting the oil refineries, port and marshalling yard but causing considerable collateral damage to the city and 651 deaths among the population. The worst raid took place on 10 June 1944, when a hundred tons of bombs dropped by 40 USAAF bombers, targeting the oil refineries, resulted in the destruction of 250 buildings, damage to another 700 and 463 victims.
Occupation by Yugoslav partisans
On 30 April 1945, the Slovenian and Italian anti-Fascist Osvobodilna fronta (OF) and National Liberation Committee (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, or CLN) of Edoardo Marzari and Antonio Fonda Savio, made up of approximately 3,500 volunteers, incited a riot against the Nazi occupiers. On 1 May Allied members of the Yugoslav Partisans' 8th Dalmatian Corps took over most of the city, except for the courts and the castle of San Giusto, where the German garrisons refused to surrender to anyone but the New Zealanders, due to the partisans' reputation for shooting German and Italian prisoners of war. The 2nd New Zealand Division under General Freyberg continued to advance towards Trieste along Route 14 around the northern coast of the Adriatic sea and arrived in the city the following day (see official histories The Italian Campaign and Through the Venetian Line). The German forces surrendered on the evening of 2 May, but were then turned over to the Yugoslav forces.
The Yugoslavs held full control of the city until 12 June, a period known in Italian historiography as the "forty days of Trieste". During this period, hundreds of local Italians and anti-Communist Slovenes were arrested by the Yugoslav authorities, and many of them were never seen again. Some were interned in Yugoslav internment camps (in particular at Borovnica, Slovenia), while others were murdered on the Karst Plateau. British Field Marshal Harold Alexander condemned the Yugoslav military occupation, stating that "Marshal Tito's apparent intention to establish his claims by force of arms...[is] all too reminiscent of Hitler, Mussolini and Japan. It is to prevent such actions that we have been fighting this war." In this most turbulent of periods, the city saw a thorough reorganisation of the political-administrative system: the Yugoslav Fourth Army, to which many figures of prominence were attached (including Edvard Kardelj, a sign of just how important the Isonzo front was in Yugoslav aims) established a provisional Military Command in the occupied areas. Fully understanding the precarious position it found itself in, the Yugoslav Command undertook great efforts to claim the success for itself, faced with the presence of the 2nd New Zealand Division under General Bernard Freyberg in Trieste, which could undermine, as it did, postwar claims of sovereignty and control over the seaport. Cox wrote that it was the first major confrontation of the Cold War and was the one corner of Europe where no demarcation line had been agreed upon in advance by the Allies.. To this effect, a Tanjug Agency communiqué stated: "The seaport of Trieste, Monfalcone and Gorizia could not be occupied by the above mentioned division [the New Zealand Division] as these cities had already been liberated...by the Yugoslav army...It is true that some Allied forces have without our permission entered into the above mentioned cities which might have undesirable consequences unless this misunderstanding is promptly settled by mutual agreement".
A city in limbo (1945–1947)
After an agreement between the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and Field Marshal Alexander, the Yugoslav forces withdrew from Trieste, which came under a joint British-U.S. military administration. The Julian March was divided by the Morgan Line between Anglo-American and Yugoslav military administration until September 1947 when the Paris Peace Treaty established the Free Territory of Trieste. The effective turning point for Trieste's fortunes had already been established, though: President Truman's stipulations, later named the Truman Doctrine, in all but name had sealed the status quo, formalised only in the above-mentioned treaty, one that proved to be a careful balancing act between Yugoslav demands, Italian claims and international aims toward the Adriatic gulf and Eastern Europe in general. Questions arose on the structure of government as soon and even earlier than the signing of the treaty, with neither Italy nor Yugoslavia willing to recognise a joint governor. Initially, the newly established Allied Military Government (AMG) found it difficult to exercise its authority over the newly administered territories (the Italian majority provinces of Trieste, Gorizia and Pola), because of a rooted communist presence, especially in the countryside. This state of affairs did not change until a formal peace treaty with Italy had been signed, granting the AMG the full powers to administer justice and re-establish law and order in those areas under its administration. Replacing the People's Militia, the AMG recruited a civilian police force from the indigenous population along the Anglo-Saxon police model. This exercise of jurisdiction was thus articulated: pursuant to Proclamation No. 1, three tiers of tribunals were established: the Summary Military Courts, with jurisdiction over petty crime, the Superior Military Courts, which could impose punishments not exceeding 10 years imprisonment, and the General Military Court, which could impose the death penalty. Civil courts, as modelled on the Kingdom of Italy's code, were, pursuant to General Order No. 6, re-established July 12, 1945, but the Slovene minority was given the right to be heard, and for proceedings to be, in their own language.
Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste (1947–54)
n 1947, Trieste was declared an independent city state under the protection of the United Nations as the Free Territory of Trieste. The territory was divided into two zones, A and B, along the Morgan Line established in 1945.
From 1947 to 1954, Zone A was occupied and governed by the Allied Military Government, composed of the American Trieste United States Troops (TRUST), commanded by Major General Bryant E. Moore, the commanding general of the American 88th Infantry Division, and the "British Element Trieste Forces" (BETFOR), commanded by Sir Terence Airey, who were the joint forces commander and also the military governors.
Zone A covered almost the same area of the current Italian Province of Trieste, except for four small villages south of Muggia (see below), which were given to Yugoslavia after the dissolution of the Free Territory in 1954. Occupied Zone B, which was under the administration of Miloš Stamatović, then a colonel in the Yugoslav People's Army, was composed of the north-westernmost portion of the Istrian peninsula, between the Mirna River and the cape Debeli Rtič.
In 1954, in accordance with the Memorandum of London, the vast majority of Zone A—including the city of Trieste—joined Italy, whereas Zone B and four villages from Zone A (Plavje, Spodnje Škofije, Hrvatini, and Elerji) became part of Yugoslavia, divided between Slovenia and Croatia. The final border line with Yugoslavia and the status of the ethnic minorities in the areas was settled bilaterally in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo. This line now constitutes the border between Italy and Slovenia.
(Wikipedia)
Triest ([triˈɛst], in Südtirol auch [ˈtriəst] triestinisch/venetisch sowie italienisch Trieste, furlanisch Triest, slowenisch, serbisch, kroatisch Trst, lateinisch Tergeste) ist eine in Norditalien am Golf von Triest gelegene Hafen- und Großstadt mit 198.668 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2024), darunter eine slowenische Minderheit. Triest liegt an der oberen Adria direkt an der Grenze zu Slowenien, ist Hauptstadt der autonomen Region Friaul-Julisch Venetien und war bis 2017 Hauptstadt der Provinz Triest, bevor diese aufgelöst wurde.
Triest ist Sitz des römisch-katholischen Bistums Triest. Die Stadt ist seit 1924 Universitätsstadt und beherbergt zwei bekannte Observatorien für Astronomie bzw. für Geophysik. Sie ist Hauptsitz von weltweit tätigen Unternehmen wie dem Kaffeeproduzenten illycaffè S.p.A., der Versicherungsgesellschaft Generali, dem Schiffbauunternehmen Fincantieri und dem Schifffahrtsunternehmen Italia Marittima (ehemals Lloyd Triestino bzw. Österreichischer Lloyd).
Bereits 774 wurde Triest Teil des Frankenreiches unter dem späteren Kaiser Karl dem Großen. In der Kontinuität des Kaisertums entwickelte sich aus dem Ostteil des Frankenreiches das Heilige Römische Reich deutscher Nation, dessen Bestandteil Triest mit kurzen Unterbrechungen (siehe Absatz Geschichte) bis zu dessen Untergang 1806 fast 1000 Jahre lang blieb. Auch danach gehörte die Stadt als Teil des dem Deutschen Bund angehörigen Kaisertums Österreich von 1815 bis 1866 zum deutschen Staatsverband. Von 1382 bis 1918 war Triest Teil der Habsburgermonarchie bzw. von Österreich-Ungarn. Es war sein bedeutendster Handelshafen, einer der Stützpunkte der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine sowie Sitz des Statthalters des Österreichischen Küstenlandes (Litorale) bzw. der 1861 daraus gebildeten drei Kronländer Gefürstete Grafschaft Görz und Gradisca, Markgrafschaft Istrien und Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest.
Kulturell und historisch blieb Triest auch als Teil Italiens seit 1918 ein Ort des Zusammentreffens von Kulturen, Sprachen, Ethnien und Religionen („Città mitteleuropea“). Nach dem Kriegsende 1945 wurden die Stadt und ihr gemischtsprachiges Hinterland erfolgreich von Jugoslawien beansprucht; nach einem Intermezzo als Freies Territorium Triest unterstand Triest ab 1954 wieder dem italienischen Staat.
Triest geriet durch den Ost-West-Konflikt, als es so wie Berlin an der Bruchlinie zwischen Ost und West lag, jahrzehntelang in eine verkehrspolitische Randposition. Der Nachteil dieser Grenzlage und der daraus resultierende Verlust an wirtschaftlicher Bedeutung fielen mit dem EU-Beitritt Sloweniens 2004 und seinem Beitritt zum Schengen-Raum, der am 21. Dezember 2007 zum Wegfall der Grenzkontrollen zu Italien führte, und dem Beitritt Kroatiens zur EU im Jahr 2013 weg.
Triest ist mit seinem Tiefwasserhafen heute wie vor 1918 ein maritimes Tor für Norditalien, Deutschland, Österreich und Mitteleuropa und gilt als Endpunkt der maritimen Seidenstraße (Maritim Silk Road bzw. 21st Century Maritim Silk Road) mit ihren Verbindungen über den Suezkanal bzw. die Türkei und dem Landweg nach China, Japan und viele Länder Asiens.
Der Hafen von Triest hat ein internationales Zollfreigebiet (Freihafen) mit fünf Freizonen. Seit den 1960er Jahren ist Triest durch seine vielen internationalen Organisationen und Einrichtungen einer der wichtigsten Forschungsstandorte Europas, eine internationale Schul- und Universitätsstadt und hat einen der höchsten Lebensstandards unter Italiens Städten. Die Stadt wurde 2020 als eine der 25 kleinen Städte der Welt mit der besten Lebensqualität und 2021 als eine der zehn sichersten Städte der Welt bewertet. Sie hat in Europa den höchsten Anteil an Forschern und Wissenschaftlern im Verhältnis zur Bevölkerung.
Triest hat eine sehr lange Küstenlinie, freien Meerzugang in Barcola und ist von Grünland, Wald- und Karstflächen umgeben. In der Stadt befand sich auf dem Molo Sartorio der Mareograf, auf dessen festgelegte Werte aus den Jahren 1875 und 1900 sich in Mitteleuropa die meisten Bezugshöheangaben mit der Kennzeichnung „Meter über Adria“ beziehen. Triest ist auch die Città della Barcolana, wie die Hinweisschilder an den Stadteinfahrten verdeutlichen, und damit jährlicher Austragungsort dieser weltgrößten Segelregatta.
Triest liegt an einem Schnittpunkt der lateinischen, slawischen, griechischen und jüdischen Kultur, wo Mitteleuropa auf den mediterranen Raum trifft. Es gilt daher als eine der literarischen Hauptstädte und wurde wegen seiner unterschiedlichen Ethnien und Religionsgemeinschaften oft als frühes New York bezeichnet. Es gibt daneben noch weitere nationale und internationale Bezeichnungen für die Stadt wie zum Beispiel Trieste città della bora, Città del vento, Trieste città mitteleuropea, Trieste città della scienza – City of Science, Wien am Meer oder Stadt des Kaffees, in denen einzelne prägende Eigenschaften herausgehoben werden.
Geographie
Lage
Triest liegt im Nordosten Italiens am Golf von Triest, einer Meeresbucht der Oberen Adria, wenige Kilometer von der slowenischen Grenze entfernt. Die Stadt ist Teil der historischen Region Julisch Venetien (Venezia Giulia), die vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg auch als Österreichisches Küstenland bekannt war und deren Gebiet heute auf die Staaten Italien, Slowenien und Kroatien verteilt ist. Da Triest durch die Grenzziehungen des 20. Jahrhunderts einen Großteil seines Hinterlandes verlor, wurde Julisch-Venetien mit Friaul zur autonomen Region Friaul-Julisch Venetien vereinigt, deren Hauptstadt Triest seit 1962 ist.
Triest und sein Hinterland erstrecken sich vom Abhang einer hohen Küstenstufe des gleichnamigen Karsts (Triestiner Karst), die zum Binnenland in eine steinige, schrattige, kalkhaltige und wasserarme Hochlandschaft übergeht, hin zu einer küstennahen Flachlandzone am Adriatischen Meer. Die hoch gelegenen Landschaftsbereiche sind für ihre Höhlen, Dolinen und andere Karstformen bekannt. Das Stadtgebiet von Triest dehnt sich dabei südwärts in ein Flyschgebiet aus, das in Form einer Doppelmulde über das Stadtgebiet und die Landesgrenze hinaus bis nach Pazin reicht.
Charakteristisch für diese Gegend ist auch der Bodentyp Terra rossa, ein aus Kalkstein-Verwitterung hervorgegangener roter Lehm, der besonders für den Anbau von Wein geeignet ist. Im Weinbaugebiet Carso, das die Stadt Triest umschließt, wird vor allem die Weinrebe Carso Terrano, eine Varietät der Rebsorte Refosco, angebaut. Das Anbaugebiet erhielt 1985 das Qualitätssiegel DOC. 1986 eröffnete die Provinz Triest zwischen den Ortschaften Opicina und Sistiana die Terrano-Weinstraße („Strada del vino Terrano“).
Als wichtigster Hafen Österreichs bzw. Österreich-Ungarns (1382–1918) wurde Triest zu einem Zentrum der Nautik und der Meereskunde. Das Hafenbecken erhielt am Molo Sartorio einen langfristig beobachteten Pegel, auf den sich seit dem 19. Jahrhundert das mitteleuropäische Höhensystem Meter über Adria bezieht; er wurde von der 1841 gegründeten Wetterwarte betreut, die heute zum Geophysikalischen Institut Triest gehört.
Klima
In Triest herrscht ein feucht-subtropisches Klima (Cfa-Klima nach Köppen).[7][8][9] Es zeichnet sich durch heiße, regenreiche Sommer und milde, regenreiche Winter aus. Im Sommer wird eine Durchschnittstemperatur von 25 °C, im Winter von 8 °C erreicht.
Die sommerlichen Wassertemperaturen bewegen sich in Küstennähe von 24 °C bis zu 28 °C. Der jährliche Niederschlag beträgt ca. 1023 mm, die relative Luftfeuchtigkeit 64 %. In Triest herrscht an ca. 200 Tagen im Jahr Windstille. In der Stadt ist es somit im Vergleich zu anderen Meeresstädten nicht besonders windig.
Charakteristisch für das Klima von Triest sind verschieden auftretende Winde, wie Bora und Scirocco. Die Winde sind die Ursache für das günstige Klima der Stadt, da es selten zur selben Zeit kalt und nass ist. Manche Winde sind nicht von Jahreszeiten abhängig, sondern entstehen im Verlaufe bestimmter Wetterkonstellationen. Im Laufe der Zeit haben sich dafür traditionell überlieferte Bezeichnungen verfestigt. Sie besitzen Namen etwa wie Grecale, Libeccio, Maestrale, Tramontana oder Ponente.
Die oft im Winter, aber auch im sonstigen Jahr aufkommende Bora ist ein kalter, trockener Fallwind aus Nordosten, der plötzlich beginnt, auch wochenlang andauern kann und in starken Böen vom Land auf das offene Meer bläst. Er wird in der Bucht von Triest kanalisiert und erreicht dadurch in der Stadt hohe Windgeschwindigkeiten, in Einzelfällen weit über 100 km/h. Während die hohen Windgeschwindigkeiten im Stadtgebiet von Triest besonders im Winter in Verbindung mit Eis und Schnee zu Chaos führen können, hat die Bora auf das Wohlempfinden der Menschen positive Auswirkungen. Man sagt: „Die Bora bläst die schlechten Launen fort.“ Viele Kranke fühlen sich an Boratagen von ihren Leiden, der Wetterfühligkeit und den Schmerzen befreit.
Der seltenere Scirocco ist im Gegensatz zur Bora ein warmer, feuchter Ost-Südostwind, der von schweren Wolken und Regen begleitet wird. Im Sommer ist der Libeccio am häufigsten, eine leichte Brise aus Südwesten durch Fallwinde aus den Apenninen, die vom Meer Richtung Land weht und warme Sommernächte abkühlt. Die Tramontana ist ein kalter Winterwind und folgt der Bora oder dem Maestro in deren Anschluss. Sie kann sehr schnell aufkommen, was mit einem Temperaturabfall oder mit dem plötzlichen Ende lokaler Winde beginnt.
Die meteorologische Station im Triester Hafen gehört zum Istituto Tecnico Nautico “Tomaso di Savoia”. Ebenfalls betreibt die Universität Triest eine meteorologische Mess- und Beobachtungsstation im Stadtgebiet.
Infolge des Klimas und trotz der nördlichen Lage kann in Triest einerseits noch ausgezeichnetes Olivenöl gewonnen werden (man spricht von der Lage der Stadt an der Olivenöl-Buttergrenze) und andererseits kämpft die Stadtverwaltung bzw. kämpfen die Hauseigentümer regelmäßig mit Termitenbefall der historischen Immobilien.
Geschichte
Gründung
Zur Zeit der Gründung Aquileias durch die Römer war die Gegend um Triest von keltischen und illyrischen Stämmen bewohnt. Als die Römer ab 177 v. Chr. von Aquileia aus Feldzüge nach Istrien unternahmen, erhielten sie Unterstützung durch Bewohner einer Ortschaft namens Tergeste, des ersten Ortes in Illyrien, im Gebiet der Histrer. In diese Zeit fällt auch die Gründung von drei römischen Militärlagern, der 13 Hektar großen Hauptanlage San Rocco zwischen den zwei kleineren Forts in Monte Grociana Piccola im Nordosten und Montedoro im Südwesten. Im Jahr 128 v. Chr. kam es zur erstmaligen Ansiedlung römischer Bürger in Tergeste. Die Siedlung Tergeste wurde vom griechischen Geografen Artemidor von Ephesos 104 v. Chr. erwähnt und war damals bereits eine römische Ansiedlung auf dem heutigen Stadthügel San Giusto, wo auch die Siedlungsursprünge liegen.
In der zweiten Hälfte des 1. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. wurde im Triestiner Vorort Barcola eine aufwändige fürstliche römische Villa errichtet. Diese private Villa befand sich zwischen dem heutigen Friedhof und der Kirche San Bartolomeo, ungefähr auf der Höhe Viale Miramare 48, unmittelbar am Meer mit einmaligem Panoramablick. Die Villa Maritima erstreckte sich an der Küste entlang und gliederte sich in Terrassen in einen feudalen Repräsentationsbereich, Prunksaal, einen separaten Wohnbereich, einen Garten, einige zum Meer offene Einrichtungen und eine Therme. Erweiterungen und Umbauarbeiten lassen sich bis in die zweite Hälfte des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. nachweisen. Die gefundenen Kunstwerke, Statuen und Mosaike befinden sich heute im Museum Lapidario Tergestino im Kastell San Giusto, wobei vergleichbare Werke bisher nur in Rom und Kampanien gefunden wurden.
Schon ab dem ersten Jahrhundert nach Christus entwickelte sich dann Barcola (als Vallicula bzw. später Valcula) mit seinen klimatischen Vorzügen und einer Reihe von Villen für Patrizier und Adligen zu einem exklusiven römischen Touristenort. An den Hängen wurden damals, wie schon Plinius der Ältere erwähnt, die Reben des Weines Pulcino (ein vermutlicher Vorgänger des Prosecco) angebaut. Es war der nur dort gezogene Lieblingswein der Kaiserin Livia, der Ehefrau des Augustus, und soll schon von den Griechen unter der Bezeichnung Prätetianum gerühmt worden sein.
Um Christi Geburt fungierte Triest als Grenzfestung gegen die in den Ostalpen siedelnden Japyden. Den Namen Tergeste, der wahrscheinlich „Markt“ bedeutet und aus dem Triest wurde, behielten die Römer bei, als sich Mitte des 1. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. Tergeste als römische Kolonie zu einem wichtigen Hafenort im Römischen Reich, mit Handelsstraßen entlang der Adria und über die Julischen Alpen entwickelte. Allerdings erlangte Triest damals nie die Bedeutung des dem Golf von Triest gegenüberliegenden Aquileia. Das römische Tergeste hatte durch einen Hafen Zugang zum Meer und war ab 33 v. Chr. durch neue Mauern geschützt. Im Jahr 27 v. Chr. wurde Tergeste der X. italischen Region „Venetia et Histria“ zugeteilt. Zur Zeit Trajans (98–117 n. Chr.) zählte die Stadt 12.000 Einwohner und erhielt eine Basilika und ein Theater. Gegen Ende des 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. wurden die reichen römischen Wohnhäuser und Villen verlassen und setzte eine Zeit der Rückentwicklung und des Rückzuges auf den Hügelbereich ein, der erneut befestigt wurde. Die Bauwerke bekamen einen ländlichen Charakter und statt Mauerwerk wurde oft Holz verwendet.
Nach dem Untergang des Weströmischen Reichs im Jahr 476 teilte Triest das allgemeine Schicksal Istriens, wo Ostgoten, Byzantiner und Langobarden einander in der Herrschaft folgten, bis die Stadt 774 dem Reich Karls des Großen als ein Teil der Mark Friaul einverleibt wurde. Unter Kaiser Lothar III. erhielt der Bischof von Triest weltliche Hoheit über die Stadt.
Triest behielt die Unabhängigkeit unter seinen Bischöfen bis zur Eroberung durch Venedig 1203. Für die nächsten 180 Jahre bestand die Geschichte Triests hauptsächlich aus einer Reihe von Konflikten mit dem mächtigen Venedig im Spannungsverhältnis zum Anspruch des Patriarchen von Aquilea. Venedig erzwang auch den Abriss der Stadtmauer, die aber im Laufe des 14. Jahrhunderts wieder aufgebaut wurde. Da Triest keine eigene Armee hatte, war es Pflicht der Bürger, der sie sich nicht entziehen konnten, selbst Wache auf den Mauern zu halten und Kriegsdienst zu leisten. Um die Unabhängigkeit Triests zu wahren, stellten sich dann die Bürger Triests selbst im Jahr 1382 unter den Schutz Leopolds III. von Österreich, der auch Landesherr des benachbarten Herzogtums Krain war. Die Eigenständigkeit der Stadt musste unangetastet bleiben und die österreichischen Vorrechte bezogen sich nur auf die Ernennung eines militärischen Statthalters.
Unter österreichischer Krone
Triest war von 1382 bis 1918 habsburgisch-österreichisch. Am 30. September 1382 nahm Herzog Leopold III. die freiwillige Unterwerfung der Stadt Triest in der Burg von Graz an. Im 15. Jahrhundert kam es in der Stadt immer wieder zu erbitterten Konflikten zwischen der kaiserlichen Partei, den Anhängern der Herren von Duino und den Venezianern. Besonders in den Jahren 1467 bis 1469 führten die Bürgerkämpfe zu Terrorakten und Verwüstungen in den Straßen Triests. Das Protektorat entwickelte sich aber langsam zu einem wirklichen Besitzverhältnis, dem Österreichischen Küstenland (Litorale). Vertreten wurde die habsburgische Herrschaft in Triest lange Zeit nominell durch das Geschlecht der Grafen von Montenari. Die Statthalterschaft wurde vorerst ad personam vom jeweiligen Monarchen (der zumeist auch Kaiser des Heiligen Römischen Reiches war, aber dort nicht in dieser Funktion entschied, sondern als Herrscher der Habsburgischen Erblande) verliehen, später dann erblich nach dem Gesetz der Primogenitur an den ältesten Sohn des Grafen von Montenari weitergegeben.
Abgesehen von wiederholten kurzen Besetzungen (vor allem 1508/09) durch Venedig und der napoleonischen Periode (1797, 1805–1806 und 1809–1813) blieb Triest bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges Teil des habsburgischen Österreichs.
Triests Aufstieg im 18. Jahrhundert
Triests Aufstieg in der Donaumonarchie begann 1719 mit der Erhebung der Stadt zum Freihafen durch Karl VI. – ein Status, den die Stadt bis 1891 behielt. Karls Nachfolger Maria Theresia und Joseph II. unterstützten Triests wirtschaftlichen Aufschwung durch das Anlegen städtebaulich wichtiger Viertel, der Maria-Theresien-Stadt (Borgo Teresiano) nordöstlich des heutigen Hauptplatzes und der Josephsstadt (Borgo Giuseppino) südwestlich.
Als einziger großer Seehafen Österreichs nahm Triest eine wichtige strategische Stellung in der Habsburgermonarchie ein und war Ausgangspunkt kurzlebiger Kolonialerwerbungen (Triestiner Handelskompanie). Der Druck Venedigs hemmte jedoch lange Zeit die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung Triests. Erst die Eroberung Venedigs durch Napoleon am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts und der anschließende Friede von Campo Formio, in dem Venedig Österreich zugesprochen wurde, leitete den Niedergang der Republik Venedig und die Blütezeit Triests ein.
Mit österreichischer Unterstützung löste Triest Venedig in seiner führenden Rolle im Handel mit dem Nahen Osten ab und entwickelte sich zum größten Handelszentrum der Adria. 1802 wurden im Triester Hafen 483.326 Tonnen Güter umgeschlagen, die von 5.442 Schiffen transportiert worden waren. Auf dem Höhepunkt der Blütezeit Triests waren es rund 100 Jahre später mehr als doppelt so viele Schiffe und mehr als zehnmal so viele Güter, hauptsächlich Kaffee, Zucker und Südfrüchte sowie Weine, Öle, Baumwolle, Eisen, Holz und Maschinen.
Gründerzeit im 19. Jahrhundert
1804 wurde Triest Teil des neu gegründeten Kaisertums Österreich, weiter als Teil des Litorales. Unter Napoleon wurde Triest 1809 den Illyrischen Provinzen zugeschlagen und damit bis 1813 französisch. Diese kurze Zeit hinterließ ihre Spuren in klassizistischen Bauwerken wie der Triester Oper Teatro Verdi, die nach den Plänen des Architekten Matthäus Pertsch entstand.
1813 eroberte Österreich Triest unter General Christoph Freiherr von Lattermann zurück. Nach dem Wiener Kongress 1815 wurde Triest im österreichischen Kaiserstaat in das neu geschaffene Königreich Illyrien eingegliedert.
Nachdem Triest unter der Habsburgerherrschaft bereits über Jahrhunderte Bestandteil des Heiligen Römischen Reiches deutscher Nation war, gehörte es als österreichische Stadt zum Deutschen Bund, der 1815 auf dem Wiener Kongress als Ersatz für das alte, 1806 untergegangene Reich geschaffen wurde. Die Stadt markierte in etwa die Südausdehnung des Deutschen Bundes bis zur Adria. Insofern war Triest in Folge der bürgerlichen Revolution von 1848 Teil des Wahlgebietes zur deutschen bzw. Frankfurter Nationalversammlung. Bei diesen ersten gesamtdeutschen, freien und demokratischen Wahlen wurden in den Wahlkreisen Küstenland-Triest-Stadt 1 und 2 mit Karl Ludwig von Bruck, Gabriel Jenny sowie Friedrich Moritz Burger drei Abgeordnete in das Frankfurter Parlament des sich konstituierenden Deutschen Reiches gewählt. Alle drei waren vor dem 27. Juli 1848 in der Frankfurter Paulskirche eingetroffen. Auch nach dem Scheitern der Revolution und des Reiches blieb Triest Bestandteil des wiederhergestellten Deutschen Bundes bis zu dessen Ende 1866. Mit dem in diesem Jahr zur Beendigung des Deutschen Krieges geschlossenen Prager Frieden schieden Österreich und damit auch Triest nach jahrhundertelanger Zugehörigkeit aus dem deutschen Staatenbund aus.
Am 1. Juli 1829 führte Josef Ressel mit dem in Triest erbauten Schiff Civetta die erste erfolgreiche Testfahrt mit einer Schiffsschraube durch. In dieser Zeit begann in Triest die Gründung von Versicherungsgesellschaften, Werften, Bankniederlassungen und Schifffahrtsunternehmen, darunter die Assicurazioni Generali (1831), der Österreichische Lloyd (1833), die Werft San Marco (1839/1840), die Werft Giuseppe Tonellos (1852) und 1860 das Lloyd-Arsenal, da die privaten Werften mit der Produktion den schnell wachsenden Schifffahrtsunternehmen nicht mehr nachkommen konnten.
1850 wurde Triest Sitz der kaiserlich-königlichen Zentralseebehörde. Seit 1857 verbindet die Österreichische Südbahn Triest über den Semmering mit Wien. Diese erste Gebirgsbahn Europas wurde nach den Plänen und unter der Leitung von Carl Ritter von Ghega erbaut.
1857/58 entstand aus der Maschinenfabrik Strudenhoff in Sant’Andrea und der Werft San Rocco das Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (S.T.T.) in Muggia, der Stadt in der Bucht gegenüberliegend. Dieses neue Großunternehmen kaufte 1897 auch die mittlerweile zur Großwerft ausgebaute Werft von Giuseppe Tonello dazu. Die S.T.T. war in der Lage, Schiffe mit einer Verdrängung von bis zu 20.500 Tonnen – etwa die großen Schlachtschiffe der k. u. k. Kriegsmarine – zu bauen.
Ab 1867 wurden die alten Hafenanlagen, die dem wachsenden Handel nicht mehr entsprachen, ausgebaut. Zuerst wurde der nördlich gelegene Freihafen (punto franco) erweitert. Die Hafenstadt zog in der Monarchie unter anderem den Hauptnutzen aus dem 1869 eröffneten Suezkanal. Österreichische Industrieerzeugnisse wurden nun auch in der Türkei, in Ägypten und Syrien abgesetzt, für diese Handelsbeziehungen brauchte man aber den Kanal nicht.
Von Triest gingen im 19. Jahrhundert Linienschiffe in die Neue Welt, vor allem die Vereinigten Staaten. Diese Linienschiffe fuhren bis in die 1960er Jahre nach New York.
Triest und der Nationalismus
In den Revolutionen von 1848 fanden in den österreichischen Provinzen Lombardei und Venetien Aufstände gegen die habsburgische Herrschaft und für einen geeinten italienischen Nationalstaat statt (siehe auch Risorgimento). 1848 wurde der Triester Hafen von der königlich sardinischen und der neapolitanischen Flotte und später von der ersteren allein unter dem italienischen Vizeadmiral Albini blockiert. Triest blieb Österreich treu und erhielt den Titel Città Fedelissima – die „allergetreuste Stadt“.
1849 wurde die österreichische Verwaltungseinheit Königreich Illyrien in ihre Bestandteile zerlegt. Triest und das unmittelbar angrenzende Territorium wurden als Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest und ihr Gebiet mit eigener Verfassung und Landtag und im Status eines Kronlandes konstituiert; ebenso Görz und Gradisca und Istrien. (Kärnten und Krain, bis dahin ebenso Teile Illyriens, wurden ebenfalls eigene Kronländer.)
1852–1861 wurden die drei politischen Einheiten zum Kronland Österreichisches Küstenland zusammengefasst. Die Reichsverfassung 1861 teilte die drei Teile wieder in eigenständige Kronländer, die bis 1918 bestanden. Gemeinsam blieben ihnen nur der k.k. Statthalter in Triest als Vertreter des Kaisers und der Wiener Regierung und ein gemeinsames Publikationsorgan ihrer Rechtsvorschriften. Der 1867 erfolgte Umbau des Einheitsstaates Kaisertum Österreich zur österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie änderte für die Selbstverwaltung Triests nichts; es wurde nunmehr zu Cisleithanien gerechnet und war im Abgeordnetenhaus des Reichsrats in Wien, dem cisleithanischen Parlament, mit zuletzt fünf Abgeordneten vertreten.
Allerdings setzte auch in dem zum größten Teil von Italienern bewohnten Triest eine zunehmende italienische irredentistische Bewegung ein, die darauf abzielte, Triest als italienischsprachiges Gebiet von Österreich-Ungarn loszulösen und dem 1861 gegründeten Nationalstaat Italien anzuschließen. Der Irredentismus hatte seinen Höhepunkt, als 1882 Kaiser Franz Joseph I. Triest anlässlich der 500-jährigen Dauer der habsburgischen Herrschaft über die Stadt besuchte. Während antiösterreichischer Demonstrationen entging der Kaiser nur knapp dem Bombenattentat von Guglielmo Oberdan (Wilhelm Oberdank) und seinen Komplizen. Triest blieb im Nationalitätenkampf bis 1914 einer der heißesten Konfliktherde Österreich-Ungarns, da Österreich auf diese für Handel und k.u.k. Kriegsmarine überaus wichtige Hafenstadt weder verzichten konnte noch wollte. (Ungarn hatte für sich die Hafenstadt Rijeka ausgebaut.)
Insgesamt blickte die Triestiner Elite Richtung Wien, während sich einige wenige junge italienische Irredentisten für Italien aufopferten. Nur eine Minderheit forderte eine Vereinigung mit dem Königreich von Savoyen bzw. Italien, aber von vielen italienischsprachigen Triestinern wurde der slawische Nationalismus als Herausforderung wahrgenommen.
Weiterer Aufschwung vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg
1880 betrug die Umschlagsmenge in den Triester Häfen 1,225 Millionen Tonnen. Bis 1912 stieg diese Menge auf 4,573 Millionen Tonnen. 1883 wurde der 30 Millionen Kronen teure Hafenumbau im Süden der Stadt vollendet. Die Lagerflächen sowie der neue Südbahnhof (stazione meridionale, heute Trieste Centrale), der heute als einziger Personenbahnhof der Stadt noch besteht, wurden großteils auf aufgeschüttetem Land errichtet.
Trotz der politischen und nationalen Probleme blühte Triest wirtschaftlich und kulturell weiter auf. Neben der Südbahn Triest–Wien mit Anschluss an das mährisch-schlesische Industriegebiet bot ab 1909 die Neue Alpenbahn über Görz und Villach nach Salzburg eine Direktverbindung nach Westösterreich und Süddeutschland. Der wichtigste Bahnhof bis 1918 war der Staatsbahnhof (stazione dello stato) der k.k. Staatsbahnen. Zwischen ihm und dem Lloydareal erstreckte sich der neue Hafen (porto nuovo), der ab 1898 ausgebaut wurde und bis zum Ende der Monarchie Josephs-Hafen hieß.
Um 1900 stand die Stadt in ihrer vollen wirtschaftlichen Blüte und stellte ihren Reichtum durch zahlreiche Prachtbauten zur Schau. In Triest wirkten einige der Architekten, die in Wien für prächtige Ringstraßengebäude im Stil des Historismus verantwortlich zeichneten, wie etwa Heinrich von Ferstel (z. B. Lloydpalast), Wilhelm von Flattich (z. B. Südbahnhof) und Friedrich Schachner (diverse Palais). Schriftsteller und Künstler wie James Joyce und Italo Svevo verkehrten in der Stadt. Der Ire Joyce kam gerade in der Hafenstadt Triest mit dem Vielvölkerstaat Österreich-Ungarn in Kontakt, wobei er einerseits seine Eindrücke aus Triest in seinen Werken verarbeitete und andererseits das damalige Staatswesen wie folgt beurteilte: “They called the Austrian Empire a ramshackle empire, I wish to God there were more such empires.”
Triest war eines der ökonomisch bestentwickelten Gebiete des Habsburgerreiches. 1906 lag das zu versteuernde Pro-Kopf-Einkommen eines Triestiners bei 54 Kronen, während jenes eines Wieners bei rund 9 Kronen lag.
Die Triester Innenstadt mit ihrem kosmopolitischen Bevölkerungsgemenge aus Italienern (75 %), Slawen (18 %), Deutschen (5 %) und Einwohnern anderer Völker avancierte, wie Claudio Magris Jahrzehnte später festhielt, zur literarischen Hauptstadt Mitteleuropas. Die anliegenden Bezirke zählten meist Slowenen (52 %), Italiener (43 %) und Deutsche (4 %) als Einwohner, die ländliche Umgebung war fast vollständig slowenisch (93 %). Fast jeder Triestiner war mehrsprachig, wobei Italienisch die führende Verständigungssprache war.
In den Jahren vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg wurde, vor allem auf Drängen von Erzherzog Thronfolger Franz Ferdinand, in Triest eine Serie von Schiffbauten für die k.u.k. Kriegsmarine durchgeführt. Der Thronfolger nahm an den Stapelläufen meist teil, z. B. 1911 bei Viribus Unitis und 1912 bei Tegetthoff.
Erster Weltkrieg
Mit dem Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges im August 1914 stockte die wirtschaftliche und künstlerisch-literarische Entwicklung in Triest schlagartig. Viele tausende Triestiner übersiedelten noch vor der Kriegserklärung Italiens an Österreich-Ungarn am 23. Mai 1915 ins Innere Österreich-Ungarns. Aus Triest zogen anfangs etwa 32.500 Männer zwischen 18 und 37 Jahren an die Front und im Laufe des Krieges wurden ungefähr 50.000 Triestiner im Alter bis 50 Jahren eingezogen. Das Hausregiment der Triestiner, das k.u.k. Infanterieregiment Nr. 97, wurde am 11. August 1914 per Eisenbahn Richtung Lemberg in Galizien transportiert und war dort in schwerste Abwehrkämpfe gegen die vordringende russische Armee verwickelt.
Am 23. Mai 1915 erklärte das bis dahin neutrale Italien als neues Mitglied der Triple Entente Österreich-Ungarn den Krieg. Damit entstand wenige Kilometer nordwestlich der Stadt eine Front; viele Ausländer wie James Joyce mussten Triest verlassen. Die italienische Kriegserklärung löste massive Protestkundgebungen gegen Italiener aus, insbesondere stürmte eine Menschenmenge die Redaktion der Zeitung Il Piccolo, wurde der Sitz der Lega nazionale zerstört bzw. Geschäfte und Kaffeehäuser italienischer Besitzer geplündert. Mit dem Kriegseintritt Italiens wurde Triest militarisiert. Wegen der nahen Front wurden Luftabwehr-Stellungen auf Dächern und Plätzen gebaut; Schulen und Gebäude wurden in Spitäler umfunktioniert. Junge Marinaretti und Scauti halfen älteren Soldaten bei der Überwachung der öffentlichen Ordnung. Die Stadt entvölkerte sich und es kehrten etwa 35.000 Regnicoli – in Triest lebende italienische Arbeiter – mit ihren Familien in die italienische Heimat zurück. Viele Regnicoli verließen jedoch die Stadt nicht und etwa 15.000 von ihnen wurden von den Behörden zusammen mit über tausend verdächtig erscheinenden Personen in verschiedene Lager interniert. Etwa 900 Triestiner mit italienischer Gesinnung desertierten aus dem Habsburger Heer, passierten illegal die Grenze und traten den italienischen Streitkräften bei. Oft mit Misstrauen von den italienischen Kameraden und Kommandanten betrachtet, erreichte trotzdem die Hälfte dieser Irredentisten den Dienstgrad eines italienischen Offiziers. Die italienfreundliche Einstellung mancher Triestiner und die Frontlage Triests führte zu scharfer Überwachung der Stadt durch die k.u.k. Militärbehörden. Das 10. Bataillon des k.u.k. Infanterieregiments Nr. 97 war in Triest verblieben; es war an der Verteidigung der Karstlinie in den Isonzoschlachten beteiligt und wurde 1915/16 fast vollständig aufgerieben.
Der altem irredentistischen istrianischen Adel entstammende, 1907 geborene Schriftsteller Diego de Castro schätzte später die Triestiner während des Krieges als weitgehend habsburgisch bzw. austrophil ein und äußerte, die kleine, unbeugsame Gruppe von Irredentisten um Mario Alberti sei auf zweieinhalb Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung von Triest beschränkt gewesen.
Erst 1917 verlagerte sich die Front an den von Triest weiter entfernten Piave. Im Herbst 1918 begann sich die Doppelmonarchie aufzulösen. Am 29. Oktober 1918 wurde der neue südslawische Staat, der SHS-Staat, gegründet. Er schnitt Deutschösterreich, am 30. Oktober gegründet, und die nördlich und östlich davon gelegenen Gebiete Altösterreichs von der Adria ab. Valentino Pittoni, der Führer der Triestiner Linken, forderte im Oktober 1918 die Bildung einer „Adriarepublik Triest“, um so den Anschluss an Italien zu verhindern.
Der k.k. österreichische Statthalter Alfred von Fries-Skene übergab am 30. Oktober 1918 dem triestinischen Comitato di salute pubblica die Macht. Am gleichen Tag beauftragte Kaiser Karl I. Admiral Nikolaus Horthy, die k.u.k. Kriegsmarine dem südslawischen Staat zu übergeben; dies wurde am nächsten Tag vollzogen.
Da mit baldigem Eintreffen italienischer Truppen nicht gerechnet werden konnte und unklar war, ob Triest an den südslawischen Staat fällt, beschloss das Komitee, die italienischen Marinebehörden in Venedig um die Entsendung von Truppen zu bitten. Da k.u.k. Schiffe aber nicht mehr zur Verfügung standen, mussten sich die Triestiner von den Südslawen eine ehemalige k.u.k. Korvette ausleihen, um unter südslawischer Flagge nach Venedig zu gelangen.
Die Waffenstillstandskommission der zerfallenden k.u.k. Armee unter Viktor Weber von Webenau unterzeichnete am 3. November 1918 bei Padua den Waffenstillstand von Villa Giusti. Am gleichen Tag landeten Italiener, von Venedig kommend, unbehelligt am Molo San Carlo von Triest, der 1922 Molo Audace benannt wurde, und nahmen die Stadt symbolisch für Italien in Besitz. Die Begeisterung der Bevölkerung war, wie de Castro später deutete, nicht mit dem bisherigen Elitenphänomen Irredentismus zu erklären, sondern mit der Freude über das Ende der Hungerzeit während des Krieges und über den Nicht-Einschluss der Stadt in den SHS-Staat. Das Stadtzentrum war überwiegend von Italienern bewohnt, die anliegenden Viertel aber teilweise von Slowenen (18 %). Im Vertrag von Saint-Germain wurde Triest im Herbst 1919 gemeinsam mit Istrien und Ostfriaul auch formell Italien zugesprochen.
Viele k.u.k. Soldaten aus Triest und Umgebung kehrten erst 1920 aus der russischen Kriegsgefangenschaft zurück.
Faschismus
Nach dem Anschluss Triests an Italien strebten die nationalen Kräfte eine Italianisierung der ansässigen nichtitalienischen Bevölkerung an, was insbesondere zur Unterdrückung der slowenischen Minderheit führte. Triest wurde zu einem Zentrum der jungen faschistischen Bewegung.[36] Slowenische Vereinigungen und Versammlungen wurden verboten. Der Gebrauch der slowenischen Sprache im öffentlichen Leben wurde untersagt. Slowenische Familiennamen wurden willkürlich und ohne Einverständnis der Betroffenen italianisiert. Zahlreiche Slowenen flohen in dieser Zeit in das benachbarte Königreich der Serben, Kroaten und Slowenen. In Triest kam es wiederholt zu gewaltsamen Ausschreitungen zwischen Italienern und Slowenen.
Der Konflikt erreichte einen seiner Höhepunkte am 13. Juli 1920, als das Narodni dom, das Gemeindezentrum der slowenischen Bevölkerung, von italienischen Faschisten niedergebrannt wurde. Der Anschlag wurde vom späteren Sekretär der National-Faschistischen Partei (Partito Nazionale Fascista), Francesco Giunta, initiiert und wurde als Vergeltungsmaßnahme bezeichnet, weil bei Unruhen in Split zwei italienische Soldaten von jugoslawischen Sicherheitskräften erschossen worden waren.
Obwohl sich in der Zeit nach 1919 vor allem die Industrie in Triest entwickelte, hatte die Angliederung an Italien langfristig negative Konsequenzen für die wirtschaftliche Situation der Stadt. Die ehemals wichtigste Hafenstadt der Habsburgermonarchie wurde mit einem Schlag zu einem der zahlreichen italienischen Adriahäfen und verlor aufgrund ihrer Randlage in Italien ihre wirtschaftliche Bedeutung.
Seit dem 30. Oktober 1922 stand ganz Italien unter der faschistischen Herrschaft Mussolinis. Die Italianisierung der Slowenen im nordöstlichen Italien wurde nun verstärkt.
Zweiter Weltkrieg
Im Zweiten Weltkrieg war Italien mit Deutschland verbündet. Nach der Landung alliierter Truppen in Süditalien im Juli 1943 und der italienischen Kapitulation am 8. September 1943 durch König Viktor Emanuel III. wurde Norditalien von deutschen Truppen besetzt, die sich Mussolinis Repubblica Sociale Italiana bis Ende April 1945 als Marionettendiktatur hielten, um den endgültigen Zusammenbruch der Achsenmächte zu verhindern.
Die deutsche Besatzungsmacht fasste Triest mit Udine, Gorizia, Pula, Fiume (Rijeka) und Laibach/Lubiana zur Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland (OZAK) zusammen. Die Zone unterstand dem Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer Odilo Globocnik. Auf seine Veranlassung wurde in einem Vorort von Triest in der ehemaligen Reismühle Risiera di San Sabba das einzige nationalsozialistische Konzentrationslager auf italienischem Boden eingerichtet. Der Gebäudekomplex der ehemaligen Reismühle diente nach dem Kriegsaustritt Italiens und dem Einmarsch von Wehrmacht und SS als Gefangenenlager für entwaffnete italienische Soldaten. Von Oktober 1943 an kam die Risiera unter SS-Kommando. Das Lager diente hauptsächlich zur Inhaftierung von Geiseln, Partisanen und anderen politischen Gefangenen bzw. als Sammellager für Juden vor ihrer Deportation in die Vernichtungslager. Es wurden aber auch mobile Gaskammern installiert und ein Krematorium gebaut. Vom 20. Oktober 1943 bis zum Frühjahr 1944 wurden in der Risiera etwa 25.000 Juden und Partisanen verhört und gequält. 3000 bis 5000 von ihnen wurden hier durch Erschießen, Erschlagen oder in Gaswagen ermordet. Die Mannschaft des Konzentrationslagers bestand vorwiegend aus deutschen SS-Mitgliedern. Als 1945 jugoslawische Partisanen Triest einnahmen, sprengte die SS einige Teile des Lagers, um ihre Spuren zu verwischen.
Freies Territorium Triest
Am Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges wurde Triest von den jugoslawischen Partisanen Titos für Jugoslawien beansprucht, was mit der Existenz der dortigen slowenischen Bevölkerungsgruppe begründet wurde. Triest wurde von den jugoslawischen Partisanen besetzt, die die Stadt selbst jedoch kurz darauf auf Druck der Alliierten wieder verließen, ohne aber den Anspruch auf Triest aufzugeben. Damit begann eine Zeit, in der sich Jugoslawien und Italien um den Besitz der Stadt stritten.
Durch den Pariser Friedensvertrag von 1947 zwischen Italien und den Alliierten wurde Triest mit dem nordwestlichen Teil Istriens bis einschließlich Cittanova/Novigrad im Süden als Freies Territorium Triest (englisch Free Territory of Trieste, italienisch Territorio Libero di Trieste, slowenisch Svobodno tržaško ozemlje, kroatisch Slobodni teritorij Trsta) zu einem neutralen Staat unter Oberhoheit der Vereinten Nationen erklärt (ähnlich wie es die Freie Stadt Danzig unter dem Schutz des Völkerbundes in der Zwischenkriegszeit gewesen war). Der Gouverneur sollte vom Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen ernannt werden, administrativ war das Gebiet jedoch in zwei Zonen unterteilt. Die Zone A, die die Stadt Triest mit ihrer nächsten Umgebung umfasste, unterstand britisch-amerikanischer Militärverwaltung, die Zone B, die das Hinterland der Stadt und den Nordwesten Istriens umfasste, jugoslawischer Militärverwaltung.
Vom Provisorium zum Definitivum
Durch das Londoner Abkommen zwischen Italien und Jugoslawien von 1954 wurde das Freie Territorium Triest aufgelöst. Das Gebiet der bisherigen Zone A wurde provisorisch wieder italienischer Zivilverwaltung unterstellt, das Gebiet der bisherigen Zone B jugoslawischer Zivilverwaltung, wobei der jugoslawische Teil nördlich des Flüsschens Dragonja der damaligen Teilrepublik Slowenien einverleibt wurde, der Teil südlich der Dragonja jedoch Kroatien (über den Grenzverlauf bestehen bis heute Divergenzen; siehe auch: Internationale Konflikte der Nachfolgestaaten Jugoslawiens). Von 1954 bis 1961 verließen mehr als 20.000 Triestiner ihre Stadt und wanderten aus. Die Mehrzahl ging nach Australien und dabei besonders nach Melbourne und Sydney.
Am 10. November 1975 wurde im Vertrag von Osimo die Demarkationslinie von 1954 endgültig als italienisch-jugoslawische Grenze festgelegt und damit die Zugehörigkeit der Stadt Triest zu Italien definitiv bestätigt. 1962 wurde Triest die Hauptstadt der Region Friaul-Julisch Venetien.
Durch die Auflösung der Donaumonarchie und die unmittelbare Grenzlage zum nach 1945 sozialistisch regierten Jugoslawien war Triest bis Mitte der 1980er Jahre wirtschaftlich weitgehend isoliert. Mit dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens, dem Eintritt des nunmehr unabhängigen Slowenien in die EU im Jahr 2004 und dem Beitritt Sloweniens zum Schengen-Raum Ende 2007 verlor die Stadt ihre jahrzehntelange Randposition. 2004 bewarb sich Triest (erfolglos) für die EXPO 2008. Der Hafenumschlag ging zeitweise gerade wegen des Zusammenbruchs des Kommunismus bzw. der positiven Entwicklung des benachbarten Hafens von Koper (Slowenien) zurück.
Seit 2011 gibt es die auf Selbstbestimmung der Triestiner bzw. Ausbau des Freihafens pochende Bewegung „Trieste Libera / Svobodni Trst / Free Triest“. Diese Bewegung möchte mit Bezug auf den Friedensvertrag von 1947 bzw. 1954 an die wirtschaftlichen Erfolge eines geeinten großen mitteleuropäischen Wirtschaftsraumes anknüpfen und verlangt, dass Triest von einem Gouverneur der UNO verwaltet werden soll. Am Molo Audace kommt es immer wieder zu anti-italienischem Vandalismus. Die Organisation Trieste Pro Patria bzw. Trieste Italiana veranstaltet in Triest immer wieder Demonstrationen, um auf die italienischen Wurzeln Triests bzw. das „italienische“ Istrien aufmerksam zu machen.
Am Beginn der Wirtschaftskrise im Jahr 2008 stockte die umstrittene städtebauliche Entwicklung des Porto Vecchio (Alter Hafen). Im Februar 2019 genehmigte der Stadtrat die Rahmenplanung für die Erneuerung des Hafens. Auch durch das Abwandern der Industrie ist die früher erhebliche Umweltverschmutzung (vorwiegend Bleibelastung des Golfs von Triest) stark zurückgegangen. Die Jugendarbeitslosigkeit betrug 2012 17,67 % und stieg 2013 auf 23,25 %.
(Wikipedia)
Der Mandraki Hafen in Rhodos Stadt
Mandraki Harbour in Rhodes (City) on the island of Rhodes, Greece
Thessaloniki (Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη, often referred to internationally as Thessalonica or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia, the administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace.[3][4] Its honorific title is Συμπρωτεύουσα (Symprotévousa), literally "co-capital",[5] and stands as a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα (Symvasilévousa) or "co-reigning" city of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, alongside Constantinople.[6]
According to the preliminary results of the 2011 census, the municipality of Thessaloniki today has a population of 322,240,[1] while the Thessaloniki Urban Area (the contiguous built up area forming the "City of Thessaloniki") has a population of 790,824.[1] Furthermore, the Thessaloniki Metropolitan Area extends over an area of 1,455.62 km2 (562.02 sq mi) and its population in 2011 reached a total of 1,104,460 inhabitants.[1]
Thessaloniki is Greece's second major economic, industrial, commercial and political centre, and a major transportation hub for the rest of southeastern Europe;[7] its commercial port is also of great importance for Greece and the southeastern European hinterland.[7] The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general,[8] and is considered to be Greece's cultural capital.[8] Events such as the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival are held annually, while the city also hosts the largest bi-annual meeting of the Greek diaspora.[9] Thessaloniki is the 2014 European Youth Capital.[10]
Founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, Thessaloniki's history spans some 2,300 years. An important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. Thessaloniki is home to numerous notable Byzantine monuments, including the Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as several Roman, Ottoman and Sephardic Jewish structures. The city's main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans.[11]
Thessaloniki is a popular tourist destination in Greece. In 2010, Lonely Planet ranked Thessaloniki as the world's fifth-best party city worldwide, comparable to other cities such as Dubai and Montreal.[12] For 2013 National Geographic Magazine included Thessaloniki in its top tourist destinations worldwide,[13] while in 2014 Financial Times FDI magazine (Foreign Direct Investments) declared Thessaloniki as the best mid-sized European city of the future for human capital and lifestyle.
Etymology
All variations of the city's name derive from the original (and current) appellation in Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη (from Θεσσαλός, Thessalos, and Νίκη, Nike), literally translating to "Thessalian Victory". The name of the city came from the name of a princess, Thessalonike of Macedon, half sister of Alexander the Great, so named because of her birth on the day of the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Crocus Field (353/352 BCE).[16]
The alternative name Salonica (or Salonika) derives from the variant form Σαλονίκη (Saloníki) in popular Greek speech, and has given rise to the form of the city's name in several languages. Names in other languages prominent in the city's history include Солѹнь (Solun) in Old Church Slavonic, סלוניקה (Salonika) in Ladino, Selanik (also Selânik) in Turkish (سلانیك in Ottoman Turkish), Solun (also written as Солун) in the local and neighboring South Slavic languages, Салоники (Saloníki) in Russian, and Sãrunã in Aromanian. In local speech, the city's name is typically pronounced with a dark and deep L characteristic of Macedonian Greek accent.[17][18]
The name often appears in writing in the abbreviated form Θεσ/νίκη
History
From antiquity to the Roman Empire
The city was founded around 315 BC by the King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and 26 other local villages.[20] He named it after his wife Thessalonike,[21] a half-sister of Alexander the Great and princess of Macedon as daughter of Philip II. Under the kingdom of Macedon the city retained its own autonomy and parliament[22] and evolved to become the most important city in Macedon.[21]
After the fall of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC, Thessalonica became a free city of the Roman Republic under Mark Antony in 41 BC.[21][23] It grew to be an important trade-hub located on the Via Egnatia,[24] the road connecting Dyrrhachium with Byzantium,[25] which facilitated trade between Thessaloniki and great centers of commerce such as Rome and Byzantium.[26] Thessaloniki also lay at the southern end of the main north-south route through the Balkans along the valleys of the Morava and Axios river valleys, thereby linking the Balkans with the rest of Greece.[27] The city later became the capital of one of the four Roman districts of Macedonia.[24] Later it became the capital of all the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire due to the city's importance in the Balkan peninsula. When the Roman Empire was divided into the tetrarchy, Thessaloniki became the administrative capital of one of the four portions of the Empire under Galerius Maximianus Caesar,[28][29] where Galerius commissioned an imperial palace, a new hippodrome, a triumphal arch and a mausoleum among others.[29][30][31]
In 379 when the Roman Prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the East and West Roman Empires, Thessaloniki became the capital of the new Prefecture of Illyricum.[24] In 390 Gothic troops under the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, led a massacre against the inhabitants of Thessalonica, who had risen in revolt against the Germanic soldiers. With the Fall of Rome in 476, Thessaloniki became the second-largest city of the Eastern Roman Empire.[26] Around the time of the Roman Empire Thessaloniki was also an important center for the spread of Christianity; some scholars hold that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians written by Paul the Apostle is the first written book of the New Testament.
Byzantine era and Middle Ages
From the first years of the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki was considered the second city in the Empire after Constantinople,[33][34][35] both in terms of wealth and size.[33] with an population of 150,000 in the mid 1100s.[36] The city held this status until it was transferred to Venice in 1423. In the 14th century the city's population exceeded 100,000 to 150,000,[37][38][39] making it larger than London at the time.[40]
During the 6th and 7th centuries the area around Thessaloniki was invaded by Avars and Slavs, who unsuccessfully laid siege to the city several times.[41] Traditional historiography stipulates that many Slavs settled in the hinterland of Thessaloniki,[42] however, this migration was allegedly on a much smaller scale than previously thought.[42][42][43] In the 9th century, the Byzantine Greek missionaries Cyril and Methodius, both natives of the city, created the first literary language of the Slavs, the Glagolic alphabet, most likely based on the Slavic dialect used in the hinterland of their hometown.[44][45][46][47][48]
An Arab naval attack in 904 resulted in the sack of the city.[49] The economic expansion of the city continued through the 12th century as the rule of the Komnenoi emperors expanded Byzantine control to the north. Thessaloniki passed out of Byzantine hands in 1204,[50] when Constantinople was captured by the forces of the Fourth Crusade and incorporated the city and its surrounding territories in the Kingdom of Thessalonica[51] — which then became the largest vassal of the Latin Empire. In 1224, the Kingdom of Thessalonica was overrun by the Despotate of Epirus, a remnant of the former Byzantine Empire, under Theodore Komnenos Doukas who crowned himself Emperor,[52] and the city became the Despotat's capital.[52][53] This era of the Despotate of Epirus is also known as the Empire of Thessalonica.[52][54][55] Following his defeat at Klokotnitsa however in 1230,[52][54] the Empire of Thessalonica became a vassal state of the Second Bulgarian Empire until it was recovered again in 1246, this time by the Nicaean Empire.[52] In 1342,[56] the city saw the rise of the Commune of the Zealots, an anti-aristocratic party formed of sailors and the poor,[57] which is nowadays described as social-revolutionary.[56] The city was practically independent of the rest of the Empire,[56][57][58] as it had its own government, a form of republic.[56] The zealot movement was overthrown in 1350 and the city was reunited with the rest of the Empire.[56]
In 1423, Despot Andronicus, who was in charge of the city, ceded it to the Republic of Venice with the hope that it could be protected from the Ottomans who were besieging the city (there is no evidence to support the oft-repeated story that he sold the city to them). The Venetians held Thessaloniki until it was captured by the Ottoman Sultan Murad II on 29 March 1430.
Ottoman period
When Sultan Murad II captured Thessaloniki and sacked it in 1430, contemporary reports estimated that about one-fifth of the city's population was enslaved.[60] Upon the conquest of Thessaloniki, some of its inhabitants escaped,[61] including intellectuals such as Theodorus Gaza "Thessalonicensis" and Andronicus Callistus.[62] However, the change of sovereignty from the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman one did not affect the city's prestige as a major imperial city and trading hub.[63][64] Thessaloniki and Smyrna, although smaller in size than Constantinople, were the Ottoman Empire's most important trading hubs.[63] Thessaloniki's importance was mostly in the field of shipping,[63] but also in manufacturing,[64] while most of the city's trade was controlled by ethnic Greeks.[63]
During the Ottoman period, the city's population of mainly Greek Jews and Ottoman Muslims (including those of Turkish and Albanian, as well as Bulgarian Muslim and Greek Muslim convert origin) grew substantially. By 1478 Selânik (سلانیك), as the city came to be known in Ottoman Turkish, had a population of 4,320 Muslims, 6,094 Greek Orthodox and some Catholics, but no Jews. Soon after the turn of the 15th to 16th century, nearly 20,000 Sephardic Jews had immigrated to Greece from Spain following their expulsion by the 1492 Alhambra Decree.[65] By c. 1500, the numbers had grown to 7,986 Greeks, 8,575 Muslims, and 3,770 Jews. By 1519, Sephardic Jews numbered 15,715, 54% of the city's population. Some historians consider the Ottoman regime's invitation to Jewish settlement was a strategy to prevent the ethnic Greek population (Eastern Orthodox Christians) from dominating the city.[38]
Thessaloniki was the capital of the Sanjak of Selanik within the wider Rumeli Eyalet (Balkans)[66] until 1826, and subsequently the capital of Selanik Eyalet (after 1867, the Selanik Vilayet).[67][68] This consisted of the sanjaks of Selanik, Serres and Drama between 1826 and 1912.[69] Thessaloniki was also a Janissary stronghold where novice Janissaries were trained. In June 1826, regular Ottoman soldiers attacked and destroyed the Janissary base in Thessaloniki while also killing over 10,000 Janissaries, an event known as The Auspicious Incident in Ottoman history.[70] From 1870, driven by economic growth, the city's population expanded by 70%, reaching 135,000 in 1917.[71]
The last few decades of Ottoman control over the city were an era of revival, particularly in terms of the city's infrastructure. It was at that time that the Ottoman administration of the city acquired an "official" face with the creation of the Command Post[72] while a number of new public buildings were built in the eclectic style in order to project the European face both of Thessaloniki and the Ottoman Empire.[72][73] The city walls were torn down between 1869 and 1889,[74] efforts for a planned expansion of the city are evident as early as 1879,[75] the first tram service started in 1888[76] and the city streets were illuminated with electric lamp posts in 1908.[77] In 1888 Thessaloniki was connected to Central Europe via rail through Belgrade, Monastir in 1893 and Constantinople in 1896.
Since the 20th century
In the early 20th century, Thessaloniki was in the center of radical activities by various groups; the Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, founded in 1897,[78] and the Greek Macedonian Committee, founded in 1903.[79] In 1903 an anarchist group known as the Boatmen of Thessaloniki planted bombs in several buildings in Thessaloniki, including the Ottoman Bank, with some assistance from the IMRO. The Greek consulate in Ottoman Thessaloniki (now the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle) served as the center of operations for the Greek guerillas. In 1908 the Young Turks movement broke out in the city, sparking the Young Turk Revolution.[80]
The Ottoman Feth-i Bülend being sunk in Thessaloniki in 1912 by a Greek ship during the First Balkan War.
Constantine I of Greece with George I of Greece and the Greek army enter the city.
As the First Balkan War broke out, Greece declared war on the Ottoman Empire and expanded its borders. When Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister at the time, was asked if the Greek army should move towards Thessaloniki or Monastir (now Bitola, Republic of Macedonia), Venizelos replied "Salonique à tout prix!" (Thessaloniki, at all costs!).[81] As both Greece and Bulgaria wanted Thessaloniki, the Ottoman garrison of the city entered negotiations with both armies.[82] On 8 November 1912 (26 October Old Style), the feast day of the city's patron saint, Saint Demetrius, the Greek Army accepted the surrender of the Ottoman garrison at Thessaloniki.[83] The Bulgarian army arrived one day after the surrender of the city to Greece and Tahsin Pasha, ruler of the city, told the Bulgarian officials that "I have only one Thessaloniki, which I have surrendered".[82] After the Second Balkan War, Thessaloniki and the rest of the Greek portion of Macedonia were officially annexed to Greece by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913.[84] On 18 March 1913 George I of Greece was assassinated in the city by Alexandros Schinas.[85]
In 1915, during World War I, a large Allied expeditionary force established a base at Thessaloniki for operations against pro-German Bulgaria.[86] This culminated in the establishment of the Macedonian Front, also known as the Salonika Front.[87][88] In 1916, pro-Venizelist Greek army officers and civilians, with the support of the Allies, launched an uprising,[89] creating a pro-Allied[90] temporary government by the name of the "Provisional Government of National Defence"[89][91] that controlled the "New Lands" (lands that were gained by Greece in the Balkan Wars, most of Northern Greece including Greek Macedonia, the North Aegean as well as the island of Crete);[89][91] the official government of the King in Athens, the "State of Athens",[89] controlled "Old Greece"[89][91] which were traditionally monarchist. The State of Thessaloniki was disestablished with the unification of the two opposing Greek governments under Venizelos, following the abdication of King Constantine in 1917.[86][91]
The 1st Battalion of the National Defence army marches on its way to the front.
Aerial picture of the Great Fire of 1917.
Most of the old center of the city was destroyed by the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, which started accidentally by an unattended kitchen fire on 18 August 1917.[92] The fire swept through the centre of the city, leaving 72,000 people homeless; according to the Pallis Report, most of them were Jewish (50,000). Many businesses were destroyed, as a result, 70% of the population were unemployed.[92] Also a number of religious structures of the three major faiths were lost. Nearly one-quarter of the total population of approximately 271,157 became homeless.[92] Following the fire the government prohibited quick rebuilding, so it could implement the new redesign of the city according to the European-style urban plan[6] prepared by a group of architects, including the Briton Thomas Mawson, and headed by French architect Ernest Hébrard.[92] Property values fell from 6.5 million Greek drachmas to 750,000.[93]
After the defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War and during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, a population exchange took place between Greece and Turkey.[90] Over 160,000 ethnic Greeks deported from the former Ottoman Empire were resettled in the city,[90] changing its demographics. Additionally many of the city's Muslims were deported to Turkey, ranging at about 20,000 people.[94]
During World War II Thessaloniki was heavily bombarded by Fascist Italy (with 232 people dead, 871 wounded and over 800 buildings damaged or destroyed in November 1940 alone),[95] and, the Italians having failed to succeed in their invasion of Greece, it fell to the forces of Nazi Germany on 8 April 1941[96] and remained under German occupation until 30 October 1944 when it was liberated by the Greek People's Liberation Army.[97] The Nazis soon forced the Jewish residents into a ghetto near the railroads and on 15 March 1943 began the deportation process of the city's 56,000 Jews to its concentration camps.[98][99] They deported over 43,000 of the city's Jews in concentration camps,[98] where most were killed in the gas chambers. The Germans also deported 11,000 Jews to forced labor camps, where most perished.[100] Only 1,200 Jews live in the city today.
Part of Eleftherias Square during the Axis occupation.
The importance of Thessaloniki to Nazi Germany can be demonstrated by the fact that, initially, Hitler had planned to incorporate it directly in the Third Reich[101] (that is, make it part of Germany) and not have it controlled by a puppet state such as the Hellenic State or an ally of Germany (Thessaloniki had been promised to Yugoslavia as a reward for joining the Axis on 25 March 1941).[102] Having been the first major city in Greece to fall to the occupying forces just two days after the German invasion, it was in Thessaloniki that the first Greek resistance group was formed (under the name «Ελευθερία», Eleftheria, "Freedom")[103] as well as the first anti-Nazi newspaper in an occupied territory anywhere in Europe,[104] also by the name Eleftheria. Thessaloniki was also home to a military camp-converted-concentration camp, known in German as "Konzentrationslager Pavlo Mela" (Pavlos Melas Concentration Camp),[105] where members of the resistance and other non-favourable people towards the German occupation from all over Greece[105] were held either to be killed or sent to concentration camps elsewhere in Europe.[105] In the 1946 monarchy referendum, the majority of the locals voted in favour of a republic, contrary to the rest of Greece.[106]
After the war, Thessaloniki was rebuilt with large-scale development of new infrastructure and industry throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many of its architectural treasures still remain, adding value to the city as a tourist destination, while several early Christian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1988.[107] In 1997, Thessaloniki was celebrated as the European Capital of Culture,[108] sponsoring events across the city and the region. Agency established to oversee the cultural activities of that year 1997 was still in existence by 2010.[109] In 2004 the city hosted a number of the football events as part of the 2004 Summer Olympics.[110]
Today Thessaloniki has become one of the most important trade and business hubs in Southeastern Europe, with its port, the Port of Thessaloniki being one of the largest in the Aegean and facilitating trade throughout the Balkan hinterland.[7] On 26 October 2012 the city celebrated its centennial since its incorporation into Greece.[111] The city also forms one of the largest student centres in Southeastern Europe, is host to the largest student population in Greece and will be the European Youth Capital in 2014
Geography
Geology
Thessaloniki lies on the northern fringe of the Thermaic Gulf on its eastern coast and is bound by Mount Chortiatis on its southeast. Its proximity to imposing mountain ranges, hills and fault lines, especially towards its southeast have historically made the city prone to geological changes.
Since medieval times, Thessaloniki was hit by strong earthquakes, notably in 1759, 1902, 1978 and 1995.[113] On 19–20 June 1978, the city suffered a series of powerful earthquakes, registering 5.5 and 6.5 on the Richter scale.[114][115] The tremors caused considerable damage to a number of buildings and ancient monuments,[114] but the city withstood the catastrophe without any major problems.[115] One apartment building in central Thessaloniki collapsed during the second earthquake, killing many, raising the final death toll to 51.[114][115]
Climate
Thessaloniki's climate is directly affected by the sea it is situated on.[116] The city lies in a transitional climatic zone, so its climate displays characteristics of several climates. According to the Köppen climate classification, it is a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) that borders on a semi-arid climate (BSk), with annual average precipitation of 450 millimetres (18 in) due to the Pindus rain shadow drying the westerly winds. However, the city has a summer precipitation between 20 to 30 millimetres (0.79 to 1.18 in), which borders it close to a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa).
Winters are relatively dry, with common morning frost. Snowfalls are sporadic, but οccur more or less every winter, but the snow cover does not last for more than a few days. Fog is common, with an average of 193 foggy days in a year.[117] During the coldest winters, temperatures can drop to −10 °C (14 °F).[117] The record minimum temperature in Thessaloniki was −14 °C (7 °F).[118] On average, Thessaloniki experiences frost (sub-zero temperature) 32 days a year.[117] The coldest month of the year in the city is January, with an average 24-hour temperature of 6 °C (43 °F).[119] Wind is also usual in the winter months, with December and January having an average wind speed of 26 km/h (16 mph).[117]
Thessaloniki's summers are hot with rather humid nights.[117] Maximum temperatures usually rise above 30 °C (86 °F),[117] but rarely go over 40 °C (104 °F);[117] the average number of days the temperature is above 32 °C (90 °F) is 32.[117] The maximum recorded temperature in the city was 42 °C (108 °F).[117][118] Rain seldom falls in summer, mainly during thunderstorms. In the summer months Thessaloniki also experiences strong heat waves.[120] The hottest month of the year in the city is July, with an average 24-hour temperature of 26 °C (79 °F).[119] The average wind speed for June and July in Thessaloniki is 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph)
Government
According to the Kallikratis reform, as of 1 January 2011 the Thessaloniki Urban Area (Greek: Πολεοδομικό Συγκρότημα Θεσσαλονίκης) which makes up the "City of Thessaloniki", is made up of six self-governing municipalities (Greek: Δήμοι) and one municipal unit (Greek: Δημοτική ενότητα). The municipalities that are included in the Thessaloniki Urban Area are those of Thessaloniki (the city center and largest in population size), Kalamaria, Neapoli-Sykies, Pavlos Melas, Kordelio-Evosmos, Ampelokipoi-Menemeni, and the municipal unit of Pylaia, part of the municipality of Pylaia-Chortiatis. Prior to the Kallikratis reform, the Thessaloniki Urban Area was made up of twice as many municipalities, considerably smaller in size, which created bureaucratic problems.[123]
Thessaloniki Municipality
The municipality of Thessaloniki (Greek: Δήμος Θεσαλονίκης) is the second most populous in Greece, after Athens, with a population of 322,240[1] people (in 2011) and an area of 17.832 km2 (7 sq mi). The municipality forms the core of the Thessaloniki Urban Area, with its central district (the city center), referred to as the Kentro, meaning 'center' or 'downtown'.
The institution of mayor of Thessaloniki was inaugurated under the Ottoman Empire, in 1912. The first mayor of Thessaloniki was Osman Sait Bey, while the current mayor of the municipality of Thessaloniki is Yiannis Boutaris. In 2011, the municipality of Thessaloniki had a budget of €464.33 million[124] while the budget of 2012 stands at €409.00 million.[125]
According to an article in The New York Times, the way in which the present mayor of Thessaloniki is treating the city's debt and oversized administration problems could be used as an example by Greece's central government for a successful strategy in dealing with these problems.[126]
Other
Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece. It is an influential city for the northern parts of the country and is the capital of the region of Central Macedonia and the Thessaloniki regional unit. The Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace is also based in Thessaloniki, being that the city is the de facto capital of the Greek region of Macedonia.
It is customary every year for the Prime Minister of Greece to announce his administration's policies on a number of issues, such as the economy, at the opening night of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair. In 2010, during the first months of the 2010 Greek debt crisis, the entire cabinet of Greece met in Thessaloniki to discuss the country's future.[127]
In the Hellenic Parliament, the Thessaloniki urban area constitutes a 16-seat constituency. As of the national elections of 17 June 2012 the largest party in Thessaloniki is New Democracy with 27.8%, followed by the Coalition of the Radical Left (27.0%) and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (10.2%).[128] The table below summarizes the results of the latest elections.
Cityscape
Architecture
Architecture in Thessaloniki is the direct result of the city's position at the centre of all historical developments in the Balkans. Aside from its commercial importance, Thessaloniki was also for many centuries the military and administrative hub of the region, and beyond this the transportation link between Europe and the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel / Palestine). Merchants, traders and refugees from all over Europe settled in the city. The need for commercial and public buildings in this new era of prosperity led to the construction of large edifices in the city center. During this time, the city saw the building of banks, large hotels, theatres, warehouses, and factories. Architects who designed some of the most notable buildings of the city, in the late 19th and early 20th century, include Vitaliano Poselli, Pietro Arrigoni, Xenophon Paionidis, Eli Modiano, Moshé Jacques, Jean Joseph Pleyber, Frederic Charnot, Ernst Ziller, Roubens Max, Levi Ernst, Angelos Siagas and others, using mainly the styles of Eclecticism and Art Nouveau.
The city layout changed after 1870, when the seaside fortifications gave way to extensive piers, and many of the oldest walls of the city were demolished, including those surrounding the White Tower, which today stands as the main landmark of the city. As parts of the early Byzantine walls were demolished, this allowed the city to expand east and west along the coast.[129]
The expansion of Eleftherias Square towards the sea completed the new commercial hub of the city and at the time was considered one of the most vibrant squares of the city. As the city grew, workers moved to the western districts, due to their proximity to factories and industrial activities; while the middle and upper classes gradually moved from the city-center to the eastern suburbs, leaving mainly businesses. In 1917, a devastating fire swept through the city and burned uncontrollably for 32 hours.[71] It destroyed the city's historic center and a large part of its architectural heritage, but paved the way for modern development and allowed Thessaloniki the development of a proper European city center, featuring wider diagonal avenues and monumental squares; which the city initially lacked – much of what was considered to be 'essential' in European architecture.
City Center
After the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, a team of architects and urban planners including Thomas Mawson and Ernest Hebrard, a French architect, chose the Byzantine era as the basis of their (re)building designs for Thessaloniki's city center. The new city plan included axes, diagonal streets and monumental squares, with a street grid that would channel traffic smoothly. The plan of 1917 included provisions for future population expansions and a street and road network that would be, and still is sufficient today.[71] It contained sites for public buildings and provided for the restoration of Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques.
The Metropolitan Church of Saint Gregory Palamas, designed by Ernst Ziller.
Today the city center of Thessaloniki includes the features designed as part of the plan and forms the point in the city where most of the public buildings, historical sites, entertainment venues and stores are located. The center is characterized by its many historical buildings, arcades, laneways and distinct architectural styles such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which can be seen on many of its buildings.
Also called the historic center, it is divided into several districts, of which include Ladadika (where many entertainment venues and tavernas are located), Kapani (were the city's central city market is located), Diagonios, Navarinou, Rotonta, Agia Sofia and Ippodromio (white tower), which are all located around Thessaloniki's most central point, Aristotelous Square.
The west point of the city center is home to Thessaloniki's law courts, its central international railway station and the port, while on its eastern side stands the city's two universities, the Thessaloniki International Exhibition Center, the city's main stadium, its archaeological and Byzantine museums, the new city hall and its central parklands and gardens, namely those of the ΧΑΝΘ/Palios Zoologikos Kipos and Pedio tou Areos. The central road arteries that pass through the city center, designed in the Ernest Hebrard plan, include those of Tsimiski, Egnatia, Nikis, Mitropoleos, Venizelou and St. Demetrius avenues.
Ano Poli
Ano Poli (also called Old Town and literally the Upper Town) is the heritage listed district north of Thessaloniki's city center that was not engulfed by the great fire of 1917 and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site by ministerial actions of Melina Merkouri, during the 1980s. It consists of Thessaloniki's most traditional part of the city, still featuring small stone paved streets, old squares and homes featuring old Greek and Ottoman architecture.
Ano Poli also, is the highest point in Thessaloniki and as such, is the location of the city's acropolis, its Byzantine fort, the Heptapyrgion, a large portion of the city's remaining walls, and with many of its additional Ottoman and Byzantine structures still standing. The area provides access to the Seich Sou Forest National Park[131] and features amphitheatric views of the whole city and the Thermaic Gulf. On clear days Mount Olympus, at about 100 km (62 mi) away across the gulf, can also be seen towering the horizon.
Southeastern Thessaloniki up until the 1920s was home to the city's most affluent residents and formed the outermost suburbs of the city at the time, with the area close to the Thermaic Gulf coast called Exoches, from the 19th century holiday villas which defined the area. Today southeastern Thessaloniki has in some way become a natural extension of the city center, with the avenues of Megalou Alexandrou, Georgiou Papandreou (Antheon), Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, Delfon, Konstantinou Karamanli (Nea Egnatia) and Papanastasiou passing through it, enclosing an area traditionally called Dépôt (Ντεπώ), from the name of the old tram station, owned by a French company. The area extends to Kalamaria and Pylaia, about 9 km (5.59 mi) from the White Tower in the city centre.
Some of the most notable mansions and villas of the old-era of the city remain along Vasilissis Olgas Avenue. Built for the most wealthy residents and designed by well known architects they are used today as museums, art galleries or remain as private properties. Some of them include Villa Bianca, Villa Ahmet Kapanci, Villa Modiano, Villa Mordoch, Villa Mehmet Kapanci, Hatzilazarou Mansion, Chateau Mon Bonheur (often called red tower) and others.
Most of southeastern Thessaloniki is characterized by its modern architecture and apartment buildings, home to the middle-class and more than half of the municipality of Thessaloniki population. Today this area of the city is also home to 3 of the city's main football stadiums, the Thessaloniki Concert Hall, the Posidonio aquatic and athletic complex, the Naval Command post of Northern Greece and the old royal palace (called Palataki), located on the most westerly point of Karabournaki cape. The municipality of Kalamaria is also located in southeastern Thessaloniki and has become this part of the city's most sought after areas, with many open spaces and home to high end bars, cafés and entertainment venues, most notably on Plastira street, along the coast
Northwestern Thessaloniki had always been associated with industry and the working class because as the city grew during the 1920s, many workers had moved there, due to its proximity near factories and industrial activities. Today many factories and industries have been moved further out west and the area is experiencing rapid growth as does the southeast. Many factories in this area have been converted to cultural centres, while past military grounds that are being surrounded by densely built neighborhoods are awaiting transformation into parklands.
Northwest Thessaloniki forms the main entry point into the city of Thessaloniki with the avenues of Monastiriou, Lagkada and 26is Octovriou passing through it, as well as the extension of the A1 motorway, feeding into Thessaloniki's city center. The area is home to the Macedonia InterCity Bus Terminal (KTEL), the Zeitenlik Allied memorial military cemetery and to large entertainment venues of the city, such as Milos, Fix, Vilka (which are housed in converted old factories). Northwestern Thessaloniki is also home to Moni Lazariston, located in Stavroupoli, which today forms one of the most important cultural centers for the city.
To read more please click :-
Singapore National Day Parade
The Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) is an annual parade held in the city-state of Singapore. Held annually on 9 August, it is the main public celebration of National Day, and was first held on 9 August 1966 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Proclamation of Singapore.
In recent years, the parade has usually been held at either The Padang, or The Float at Marina Bay. In the past, it was held at the former National Stadium.
History
A scene from the National Day Parade, 1968, with a contingent from the People's Association in front.
The flag of Singapore set up alongside pavements across the country
Singapore celebrated its first National Day as an independent nation in 1966, one year after Singapore's separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965.
The inaugural National Day Parade was started in the morning at 9:00 a.m. that day. However, people came as early as 7:00 a.m. in order to get good vantage points. Singapore's first President, Yusof bin Ishak and Singapore's first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, were seated with members of the government at the grandstand on the steps of City Hall. When the parade began, six military contingents (including the Singapore Infantry Regiment, Singapore People's Defense Force, the Volunteer Naval Reserve and PDF-Sea and the then Republic of Singapore Police), a mobile column from the SIR, and various schools and civil contingents marched past City Hall and then into the city streets. Three military bands accompanied the parade inspection and later the march past with military music. The Singapore Fire Brigade also took part in this first parade with its firetrucks included in the mobile column. Rounding it all was a massed lion and dragon dance performance from drum and dragon troupes nationwide.
In 1967, the contingents increased to 76, including those of the then established Singapore Armed Forces, the RSP and more cultural groups, with the addition of more civil marching groups.[ The reason is partly due to the introduction of the National Service program in the military and police forces, and later extended to the Fire Brigade (Renamed to Singapore Fire Services in the 1980s). Street performances by various groups and choirs also debuted in that year's parade. The 1968 parade, although held on a rainy morning that surprised even the marching contingents and the dignitaries, saw the first ground performances on the Padang as the weather improved - a prelude to today's show performances. 1969's parade, the one where the Mobile Column made its first drivepast, commemorated the 150th year of the city's founding and had Princess Alexandra of the UK as principal guest.
The fifth NDP edition in 1970 introduced the Flypast of the State Flag and the Republic of Singapore Air Force Flypast, as well as the combat simulation performance by Singapore Army personnel was one of the new highlights for that year.
The 1971 NDP included iconic mobile parade floats from various organizations, 1973 was the first parade to be held from late-afternoon to early-evening time in order to promote the parade with better attendance and marked the official debut of the 1st Commando Battalion. Parade of 1974 was broadcast for the first time in full colour, after such television broadcasts was introduced for the first time a month prior on 7 July.
In 1975, to commemorate the Decennial anniversary of independence, the Parade was, for the first time, decentralized into 13 parade venues for more public participation. Almost all of the venues lasted for an hour and all of them even had route marches on the streets to the participating venues.
By the time the NDP was held at the National Stadium (for the first time) in 1976, the NDP Guard of Honour, composed of officers and personnel of the SAF and the Singapore Police Force made its first appearance, followed after the parade proper by the very first evening presentations by various groups, a prelude to future evening NDPs in 1980 and from 1984 onward. The 1975 parade dance performers were mostly female students from the country's schools, since that year marked the start of the United Nations Decade for Women. 1977's parade was a decentralized event like two years before (and like 1968's was affected by wet weather) while 1978 returned to Padang. 1979's parade saw another decentralized site, this time being held in many high schools and sports stadiums nationwide. The decentralized format would later be used until 1983, which was the final time NDP was held in multiple venues until 2020.
The 15th installment in 1980 was the first parade to introduce the feu de joie of the Guard-of-Honour contingents. The following year, SPF Civil Defense Command, presently the Singapore Civil Defense Force, later combined with the SFS in 1989, made its inaugural appearance, followed by the SCDF in 1982. The 1981 parade was held in both Jurong and Queenstown Sports Stadiums for further increase public attendance and participation in the celebrations. In 1982, the parade returned at Padang, marking the first time the mobile column drove past after the marchpast had concluded, thus making it a predecessor to the parades at the Padang from 1995 onward, once every five years.
The 1984 installment featured many firsts in commemoration with the Singapore's Silver Jubilee of self-governance, which for the first time, introduced a theme song "Stand Up for Singapore", and included a bigger Mobile Column, the first appearance of the popular Silent Precision Drill Squad from the Singapore Armed Forces Military Police Command and the first evening fireworks display.
The 1986 edition was the first parade held in the late evening, and the first to use flashlights for audience use. Other introductions were featured over the years such as the first appearance of the massed military bands of the SAF (1987), the card stunt (1988), and the Red Lions parachute team and the daylight fireworks (1989). In 1989, the parade was held in the afternoon but the 1991 edition returned to the evening format used since 1986.
In 1993, interactive participation by the public debuted in that year's edition to increase public participation and awareness of the parade as an important part of Singaporean life and as a symbol of national unity and identity. In 1997, a National Education Show was also introduced where Primary Five students from a selected number of schools attended in one of the rehearsals.
In 2003, due to overcrowding of tickets, the electronic voting ticketing system was introduced as a countermeasure, and a ballot was conducted where citizens stand a chance at winning the tickets by registering their e-mail addresses or mobile numbers such as the NDP websites or phone lines.
On 16 October 2005, it was announced that due to the planned closure and replacement of the National Stadium as part of the Singapore Sports Hub project, that the 2007 NDP would move to The Float at Marina Bay—a temporary 27,000-seat grandstand and 130 m × 100 m (330 ft) (430 ft × 330 ft) floating platform in Marina Bay. Despite offering a seating capacity almost less than half the capacity of the National Stadium, there was a vast area for approximately 150,000 additional spectators along the Marina Bay waterfront.
The 2006 installment marked the final time the National Stadium in Kallang was held before the stadium went for retrofitting works and thus relocating the parade to the new venue to The Float @ Marina Bay and held its inaugural parade the following year. Starting in 2008, the NDP is also aired all over the Asia-Pacific region through CNA, and since 2012, it was simulcast to other internet web-streaming websites such as Toggle (now meWATCH), xinmsn (defunct since 2015), and YouTube (along with the parade's official channel, NDPeeps). 2009 featured, for the first time, an integrated show including the parade segment, known as the Pre-parade show (usually not broadcast on television). 2009 was currently the last time to feature multiple theme songs (English and Chinese versions, or originals)
The 2013 installment featured a spin-off reality competition aired on Channel 5, titled Sing a Nation, which featured ten different groups who performed various songs for a chance at a lead performance for the 2013's parade. The 2013's theme song, "One Singapore", was also sung by the cast of Sing a Nation, and the song featured its largest ensemble, with 68 members.
The 2014 installment also featured its first female Red Lion parachutist to jump at the NDP, Third Warrant Officer Shirley Ng, after their initial performance in 2013 was cancelled due to weather conditions. The 2014 parade was notable as it was the last parade with the attendance for the first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was the only member to have attended in every installment of NDP since 1966, as he died on 23 March the following year.
2015's parade was the first parade to be held at both the Padang and at The Float @ Marina Bay, breaking a parade tradition in the process as it became the first parade since 1983 to be held in multiple venues.
In 2016, the NDP was held for the first time at the new National Stadium, in an event that required modifications to the event's format due to the limitations of the venue. In 2017, it was announced that The Float would remain the "preferred" venue for the event, and that it would be redeveloped as a permanent venue known as NS Square.
Due to criticisms relating to budget and logistics,[22] the following parade in 2017 (and later in 2018) returned to The Float @ Marina Bay to celebrate the golden jubilee for National Service. 2017 also saw the first time YouTube live-streamed the parade in a 360-degree format and on Facebook Live.
In October 2017, it was announced that The Float would be redeveloped as a permanent venue known as NS Square (extended to March 2023 due to the pandemic), and serve as the primary venue for the NDP when not held at the Padang every five years. The decision raised questions over whether the costs of renting the National Stadium would diminish the legacy that the former National Stadium had as a site for community events. Contrarily, it was argued that not hosting the NDP at the new National Stadium would free up its schedule for major international sporting events, especially during the summer months.
The 2019 installment, which was held at the Padang again and breaking a trend of holding every five years to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of modern foundation of Singapore in 1819, also marked the first time the parade was screened in 4K ultra-high definition on Toggle.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, the 2020 parade was not held in its traditional form; the event was given the theme "Together, A Stronger Singapore", and a goal was set to bring the NDP "across the island into every Singaporean's home". The public events were replaced by broadcast-only festivities, including a morning segment consisting of the Prime Minister's National Day Message and a downsized parade at the Padang. Appearances by the Mobile Column, Red Lions, and flyovers by F-15SG fighters were scheduled across Singapore, while the traditional Funpacks given at the parade were shipped to each resident. Online programming, home activity ideas, and social media campaigns were also organized. A cultural segment took place at the Star Performing Arts Centre in the evening, reduced to only around 100 performers with social distancing enforced.
It was announced that the 2021 parade would return to a "centralised" event at The Float in a downsized form, with tickets distributed to nominated essential workers who are fully-vaccinated for COVID-19 and undergo testing.[29] On 22 July 2021, the main public parade would be postponed to 21 August instead, so that it can be held after the conclusion of the present Phase 2 "Heightened Alert" restrictions (then scheduled for 18 August). A closed "ceremonial" parade was still held on 9 August at The Float, which was stated to be similar in format to the previous year's parade. The venue was capped at 30% capacity.
In 2022, plans were made to have the parade held at The Float with full capacity subject to COVID rules.
Santorini is one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea. It was devastated by a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BC, forever shaping its rugged landscape. The whitewashed, cubiform houses of its 2 principal towns, Fira and Oia, cling to cliffs above an underwater caldera (crater). They overlook the sea, small islands to the west and beaches made up of black, red and white lava pebbles.
Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement preserved under ash from the eruption, provides a frozen-in-time glimpse into Minoan life. The ruins of Ancient Thera lie on a dramatic bluff that drops to the sea on 3 sides. Fira, the island's commercial heart, has the Archaeological Museum of Thera and boutique shops. It also has a lively bar scene and tavernas serving local grilled seafood and dry white wine, made from the Assyrtiko grape. Oia is famous for sunsets over its old fortress [Santorini Google Travel]
F-15E Strike Eagle from the 492nd Fighter Squadron "Madhatters", USAFE participating in the international exercise Iniochos 2018
Hellenic Air Force F-16 Demo Team “Zeus” during its flying demonstration in Athens Flying Week 2018.
The Aircraft is an F-16C Blk 52+ from 340 Squadron “Fox”, stationed in 115 Combat Wing in Souda Air Force Base.
Demo Pilot: Major (Air Force) Dimitrios Volakakis.
There's no place like Halkidiki.
Pause for a second today and think why you're doing what you're doing. If it doesn't bring you closer to your long-term goal, it drives you away from it.
Connect with me at jimmakos.com/photography
Urbex Hellas -
Ancient Greece (Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. AD 600). Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedon, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. The Hellenistic period came to an end with the conquests and annexations of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, which established the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.
Urbex Hellas -
Later on, during the first Christian centuries, the word "Έλληνες" (Hellenes) became a synonym to "heathen", in order to distinguish the followers of old faith from those of the new -official- religion, and along with Ρωμιοί ("Romei", originating from "Romans") and Ελλαδικοί (=of Greece), the name Γραικοί ("Graeki") stayed in use until the foundation of the new Hellenic state in 1832AC.
With Sr. Cpt. Stefan "Vador" Darte in the cockpit, the "Dark Falcon" is one of the most spectacular F-16 Demo Teams in Europe. Belgian Air Component (Air Force) is represented by an F-16AM in this year’s Athens Flying Week airshow.
Hellenic Air Force F-16 Demo Team “Zeus” during its flying demonstration in Athens Flying Week 2018.
The Aircraft is an F-16C Blk 52+ from 340 Squadron “Fox”, stationed in 115 Combat Wing in Souda Air Force Base.
Demo Pilot: Major (Air Force) Dimitrios Volakakis.
A blockchain, originally block chain, is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way". For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority. Blockchains are secure by design and are an example of a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. Decentralized consensus has therefore been achieved with a blockchain. This makes blockchains potentially suitable for the recording of events, medical records, and other records management activities, such as identity management,transaction processing, documenting provenance, food traceability or voting. Blockchain was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 for use in the cryptocurrency bitcoin, as its public transaction ledger.The first work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta.In 1992, Bayer, Haber and Stornetta incorporated Merkle trees to the design, which improved its efficiency by allowing several documents to be collected into one block.In 2002, David Mazières and Dennis Shasha proposed a network file system with decentralized trust: writers to the file system trust one another but not the network in between; they achieve file system integrity by writing signed commits to a shared, append-only signature chain that captures the root of the file system (which in turn is a Merkle Tree). This system can be viewed as a proto-blockchain in which all authorized clients can always write, whereas, in modern blockchains, a client who solves a cryptographic puzzle can write one block.[citation needed] In 2005, Nick Szabo proposed a blockchain-like system for decentralized property titles and his bit gold payment system that utilised chained proof-of-work and timestamping. However, Szabo's method of double-spending protection was vulnerable to Sybil attacks. The first blockchain was conceptualised by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. It was implemented the following year by Nakamoto as a core component of the cryptocurrency bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions on the network.Through the use of a blockchain, bitcoin became the first digital currency to solve the double spending problem without requiring a trusted authority and has been the inspiration for many additional applications. In August 2014, the bitcoin blockchain file size, containing records of all transactions that have occurred on the network, reached 20GB (gigabytes). In January 2015, the size had grown to almost 30GB, and from January 2016 to January 2017, the bitcoin blockchain grew from 50GB to 100GB in size.The words block and chain were used separately in Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper, but were eventually popularized as a single word, blockchain, by 2016. The term blockchain 2.0 refers to new applications of the distributed blockchain database, first emerging in 2014. The Economist described one implementation of this second-generation programmable blockchain as coming with "a programming language that allows users to write more sophisticated smart contracts, thus creating invoices that pay themselves when a shipment arrives or share certificates which automatically send their owners dividends if profits reach a certain level". Blockchain 2.0 technologies go beyond transactions and enable "exchange of value without powerful intermediaries acting as arbiters of money and information". They are expected to enable excluded people to enter the global economy, protect the privacy of participants, allow people to "monetize their own information", and provide the capability to ensure creators are compensated for their intellectual property. Second-generation blockchain technology makes it possible to store an individual's "persistent digital ID and persona" and are providing an avenue to help solve the problem of social inequality by "potentially changing the way wealth is distributed".:14–15 As of 2016, blockchain 2.0 implementations continue to require an off-chain oracle to access any "external data or events based on time or market conditions [that need] to interact with the blockchain". In 2016, the central securities depository of the Russian Federation (NSD) announced a pilot project, based on the Nxt blockchain 2.0 platform, that would explore the use of blockchain-based automated voting systems. IBM opened a blockchain innovation research center in Singapore in July 2016. A working group for the World Economic Forum met in November 2016 to discuss the development of governance models related to blockchain.[28] According to Accenture, an application of the diffusion of innovations theory suggests that blockchains attained a 13.5% adoption rate within financial services in 2016, therefore reaching the early adopters phase. Industry trade groups joined to create the Global Blockchain Forum in 2016, an initiative of the Chamber of Digital Commerce. A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that the record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and the collusion of the network. This allows the participants to verify and audit transactions inexpensively. A blockchain database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server. They are authenticated by mass collaboration powered by collective self-interests.The result is a robust workflow where participants' uncertainty regarding data security is marginal. The use of a blockchain removes the characteristic of infinite reproducibility from a digital asset. It confirms that each unit of value was transferred only once, solving the long-standing problem of double spending. Blockchains have been described as a value-exchange protocol. This blockchain-based exchange of value can be completed more quickly, more safely and more cheaply than with traditional systems. A blockchain can assign title rights because it provides a record that compels offer and acceptance.
Blocks
Blocks hold batches of valid transactions that are hashed and encoded into a Merkle tree. Each block includes the cryptographic hash of the prior block in the blockchain, linking the two. The linked blocks form a chain.This iterative process confirms the integrity of the previous block, all the way back to the original genesis block.
Sometimes separate blocks can be produced concurrently, creating a temporary fork. In addition to a secure hash-based history, any blockchain has a specified algorithm for scoring different versions of the history so that one with a higher value can be selected over others. Blocks not selected for inclusion in the chain are called orphan blocks. Peers supporting the database have different versions of the history from time to time. They only keep the highest-scoring version of the database known to them. Whenever a peer receives a higher-scoring version (usually the old version with a single new block added) they extend or overwrite their own database and retransmit the improvement to their peers. There is never an absolute guarantee that any particular entry will remain in the best version of the history forever. Because blockchains are typically built to add the score of new blocks onto old blocks and because there are incentives to work only on extending with new blocks rather than overwriting old blocks, the probability of an entry becoming superseded goes down exponentially as more blocks are built on top of it, eventually becoming very low. For example, in a blockchain using the proof-of-work system, the chain with the most cumulative proof-of-work is always considered the valid one by the network. There are a number of methods that can be used to demonstrate a sufficient level of computation. Within a blockchain the computation is carried out redundantly rather than in the traditional segregated and parallel manner.
The block time is the average time it takes for the network to generate one extra block in the blockchain. Some blockchains create a new block as frequently as every five seconds. By the time of block completion, the included data becomes verifiable. In cryptocurrency, this is practically when the money transaction takes place, so a shorter block time means faster transactions. The block time for Ethereum is set to between 14 and 15 seconds, while for bitcoin it is 10 minutes.Express. Why is Ripple XRP falling today? Why is it crashing in value?Ripple price: Why is Ripple XRP falling today? Why is it… 'Ripple is first in line' - CEO reveals next cryptocurrency to catch up with bitcoin
'Ripple is first in line' - CEO reveals next cryptocurrency to…
Ripple price news: Why is XRP falling so fast? What's happening to Ripple?Ripple price news: Why is XRP falling so fast? What's happening… Bitcoin price BOOST: Big investors are FINALLY realising Bitcoin is GAME-CHANGING Bitcoin price WARNING: CEO says cryptocurrency has 'NOTHING to do with the real economy' BITCOIN has come under fire from the CEO of Euronext as the financial expert claimed the cryptocurrency "has nothing to do with the real economy".
Bitcoin price suffered a massive plunge as the cryptocurrency reached the value of $9,114.56, according to Coindesk at 10:37 pm on February. As the crypto-craze started to die down, Euronext CEO Stéphane Boujnah claims bitcoin cannot even be classified as a cryptocurrency. Speaking on Bloomberg, Mr Boujnah said Euronext will never open a bitcoin market. He said: "We will not create a bitcoin market because the mandate of Euronext is to power Pan-European capital markets to finance the real economy and bitcoin has nothing to do with the real economy. "Bitcoin has a lot to do with bitcoin. And we believe bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency.
"Bitcoin is at best a crypto asset. All currencies are assets but not all assets are currencies. "Clearly, bitcoin today is just like a piece of art, or just like a diamond, just like a Pokemon card.
"It can be anything to capture value but today people buy it because it goes up and because it’s not as serious and transparent as a lot of assets. "So great, good luck. Like any emerging assets, it’s very fancy, which is great, but this is not our mandate. "Our mandate is to be the place regulated, transparent, open, reliable. It’s not our mandate to be part of this new game in town." Despite the rollercoaster few months suffered by the crypto mania, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ripple and ethereum still benefit from a "growing" appreciation among institutional investors, according to Dr Garrick Hileman, from the Cambridge University Centre for Alternative Finance.In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Dr Hileman said: "Any breakthrough technology, and bitcoin and blockchain, are certainly breakthrough technologies, hype often outpaces the reality. “In terms of both of how mature the technology is, the rates of adoption. “We’ve seen this before with bitcoin and we’ve seen the price shoot up first in late 2013 when it first entered the mainstream public consciousness. “The price subsequently crashed 85 percent as security at a major exchange broke down and bitcoin’s were stolen. “So we’ve seen this kind of story repeat where bitcoin rises, gets hyped and then there’s a crash.” This section is transcluded from Fork (blockchain). A hard fork occurs when a blockchain splits into two incompatible separate chains. This is a consequence of the use of two incompatible sets of rules trying to govern the system. For example, Ethereum has hard-forked to "make whole" the investors in The DAO, which had been hacked by exploiting a vulnerability in its code. In 2014 the Nxt community was asked to consider a hard fork that would have led to a rollback of the blockchain records to mitigate the effects of a theft of 50 million NXT from a major cryptocurrency exchange. The hard fork proposal was rejected, and some of the funds were recovered after negotiations and ransom payment.
Decentralization
By storing data across its network, the blockchain eliminates the risks that come with data being held centrally. The decentralized blockchain may use ad-hoc message passing and distributed networking. Its network lacks centralized points of vulnerability that computer crackers can exploit; likewise, it has no central point of failure. Blockchain security methods include the use of public-key cryptography. A public key (a long, random-looking string of numbers) is an address on the blockchain. Value tokens sent across the network are recorded as belonging to that address. A private key is like a password that gives its owner access to their digital assets or the means to otherwise interact with the various capabilities that blockchains now support. Data stored on the blockchain is generally considered incorruptible. This is where blockchain has its advantage. While centralized data is more controllable, information and data manipulation are common. By decentralizing it, blockchain makes data transparent to everyone involved. Every node in a decentralized system has a copy of the blockchain. Data quality is maintained by massive database replication[9] and computational trust. No centralized "official" copy exists and no user is "trusted" more than any other. Transactions are broadcast to the network using software. Messages are delivered on a best-effort basis. Mining nodes validate transactions, add them to the block they are building, and then broadcast the completed block to other nodes. Blockchains use various time-stamping schemes, such as proof-of-work, to serialize changes. Alternate consensus methods include proof-of-stake. Growth of a decentralized blockchain is accompanied by the risk of node centralization because the computer resources required to process larger amounts of data become more expensive.
Openness
Open blockchains are more user-friendly than some traditional ownership records, which, while open to the public, still require physical access to view. Because all early blockchains were permissionless, controversy has arisen over the blockchain definition. An issue in this ongoing debate is whether a private system with verifiers tasked and authorized (permissioned) by a central authority should be considered a blockchain. Proponents of permissioned or private chains argue that the term "blockchain" may be applied to any data structure that batches data into time-stamped blocks. These blockchains serve as a distributed version of multiversion concurrency control (MVCC) in databases. Just as MVCC prevents two transactions from concurrently modifying a single object in a database, blockchains prevent two transactions from spending the same single output in a blockchain.[24]:30–31 Opponents say that permissioned systems resemble traditional corporate databases, not supporting decentralized data verification, and that such systems are not hardened against operator tampering and revision. Nikolai Hampton of Computerworld said that "many in-house blockchain solutions will be nothing more than cumbersome databases."Business analysts Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott define blockchain as a distributed ledger or database open to anyone.
Permissionless
The great advantage to an open, permissionless, or public, blockchain network is that guarding against bad actors is not required and no access control is needed.This means that applications can be added to the network without the approval or trust of others, using the blockchain as a transport layer.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies currently secure their blockchain by requiring new entries including a proof of work. To prolong the blockchain, bitcoin uses Hashcash puzzles developed by Adam Back in the 1990s.
Financial companies have not prioritised decentralized blockchains. In 2016, venture capital investment for blockchain related projects was weakening in the USA but increasing in China. Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies use open (public) blockchains. As of January 2018, bitcoin has the highest market capitalization.
Permissioned (private) blockchain
Permissioned blockchains use an access control layer to govern who has access to the network. In contrast to public blockchain networks, validators on private blockchain networks are vetted by the network owner. They do not rely on anonymous nodes to validate transactions nor do they benefit from the network effect. Permissioned blockchains can also go by the name of 'consortium' or 'hybrid' blockchains.
The New York Times noted in both 2016 and 2017 that many corporations are using blockchain networks "with private blockchains, independent of the public system."
Disadvantages
Nikolai Hampton pointed out in Computerworld that "There is also no need for a "51 percent" attack on a private blockchain, as the private blockchain (most likely) already controls 100 percent of all block creation resources. If you could attack or damage the blockchain creation tools on a private corporate server, you could effectively control 100 percent of their network and alter transactions however you wished." This has a set of particularly profound adverse implications during a financial crisis or debt crisis like the financial crisis of 2007–08, where politically powerful actors may make decisions that favor some groups at the expense of others.[citation needed] and "the bitcoin blockchain is protected by the massive group mining effort. It's unlikely that any private blockchain will try to protect records using gigawatts of computing power — it's time consuming and expensive."He also said, "Within a private blockchain there is also no 'race'; there's no incentive to use more power or discover blocks faster than competitors. This means that many in-house blockchain solutions will be nothing more than cumbersome databases."
Uses
Blockchain technology can be integrated into multiple areas. The primary use of blockchains today is as a distributed ledger for cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoin.While a few central banks, in countries such as China, United States, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa and England are studying issuance of a Central Bank Issued Cryptocurrency (CICC), none have done so thus far.
General potentials
Blockchain technology has a large potential to transform business operating models in the long term. Blockchain distributed ledger technology is more a foundational technology—with the potential to create new foundations for global economic and social systems—than a disruptive technology, which typically "attack a traditional business model with a lower-cost solution and overtake incumbent firms quickly".Even so, there are a few operational products maturing from proof of concept by late 2016.The use of blockchains promises to bring significant efficiencies to global supply chains, financial transactions, asset ledgers and decentralized social networking.
As of 2016, some observers remain skeptical. Steve Wilson, of Constellation Research, believes the technology has been hyped with unrealistic claims.To mitigate risk businesses are reluctant to place blockchain at the core of the business structure.
This means specific blockchain applications may be a disruptive innovation, because substantially lower-cost solutions can be instantiated, which can disrupt existing business models. Blockchain protocols facilitate businesses to use new methods of processing digital transactions.[68] Examples include a payment system and digital currency, facilitating crowdsales, or implementing prediction markets and generic governance tools.
Blockchains alleviate the need for a trust service provider and are predicted to result in less capital being tied up in disputes. Blockchains have the potential to reduce systemic risk and financial fraud. They automate processes that were previously time-consuming and done manually, such as the incorporation of businesses.In theory, it would be possible to collect taxes, conduct conveyancing and provide risk management with blockchains.
As a distributed ledger, blockchain reduces the costs involved in verifying transactions, and by removing the need for trusted "third-parties" such as banks to complete transactions, the technology also lowers the cost of networking, therefore allowing several applications.
Starting with a strong focus on financial applications, blockchain technology is extending to activities including decentralized applications and collaborative organizations that eliminate a middleman.
Land registration
"Land is a financial source, if people can prove they own it, they can borrow against it."
Emmanuel Noah, CEO of Ghanian startup BenBen, New York Observer
Frameworks and trials such as the one at the Sweden Land Registry aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of the blockchain at speeding land sale deals.The Republic of Georgia is piloting a blockchain-based property registry.The Ethical and Fair Creators Association uses blockchain to help startups protect their authentic ideas.
The Government of India is fighting land fraud with the help of a blockchain.
In October 2017, one of the first international property transactions was completed successfully using a blockchain-based smart contract.
In the first half of 2018, an experiment will be conducted on the use of blocking technology to monitor the reliability of the Unified State Real Estate Register (USRER) data in the territory of Moscow.
The Big Four
Each of the Big Four accounting firms is testing blockchain technologies in various formats. Ernst & Young has provided cryptocurrency wallets to all (Swiss) employees,has installed a bitcoin ATM in their office in Switzerland, and accepts bitcoin as payment for all its consulting services. Marcel Stalder, CEO of Ernst & Young Switzerland, stated, "We don't only want to talk about digitalization, but also actively drive this process together with our employees and our clients. It is important to us that everybody gets on board and prepares themselves for the revolution set to take place in the business world through blockchains, [to] smart contracts and digital currencies."PwC, Deloitte, and KPMG have taken a different path from Ernst & Young and are all testing private blockchains.
Smart contracts
Blockchain-based smart contracts are contracts that can be partially or fully executed or enforced without human interaction.One of the main objectives of a smart contract is automated escrow. The IMF believes blockchains could reduce moral hazards and optimize the use of contracts in general.Due to the lack of widespread use their legal status is unclear.
Some blockchain implementations could enable the coding of contracts that will execute when specified conditions are met. A blockchain smart contract would be enabled by extensible programming instructions that define and execute an agreement.For example, Ethereum Solidity is an open-source blockchain project that was built specifically to realize this possibility by implementing a Turing-complete programming language capability to implement such contracts.
Nonprofit organizations
Level One Project from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to use blockchain technology to help the two billion people worldwide who lack bank accounts.
Building Blocks project from the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) aims to make WFP's growing cash-based transfer operations faster, cheaper, and more secure. Building Blocks commenced field pilots in Pakistan in January 2017 that will continue throughout spring.
Decentralized networks
The Backfeed project develops a distributed governance system for blockchain-based applications allowing for the collaborative creation and distribution of value in spontaneously emerging networks of peers.[88][89]
The Alexandria project is a blockchain-based Decentralized Library.
Tezos is a blockchain project that governs itself by voting of its token holders. Bitcoin blockchain performs as a cryptocurrency and payment system. Ethereum blockchain added smart contract system on top of a blockchain. Tezos blockchain will add an autonomy system – a decentralized code Development function on top of both bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.
Governments and national currencies
The director of the Office of IT Schedule Contract Operations at the US General Services Administration, Mr. Jose Arrieta, disclosed at the 20 Sep ACT-IAC (American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council) Forum that its organization is using blockchain distributed ledger technology to speed up the FASt Lane process for IT Schedule 70 contracts through automation. Two companies, United Solutions (prime contractor) and Sapient Consulting (subcontractor) are developing for FASt Lane a prototype to automate and shorten the time required to perform the contract review process.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is working on finding practical ways Blockchain could be implemented in its duties.[1]
Companies have supposedly been suggesting blockchain-based currency solutions in the following two countries:
e-Dinar, Tunisia's national currency, was the first state currency using blockchain technology.
eCFA is Senegal's blockchain-based national digital currency.
Some countries, especially Australia, are providing keynote participation in identify the various technical issues associated with developing, governing and using blockchains:
In April 2016 Standards Australia submitted a New Field of Technical Activity (NFTA) proposal on behalf of Australia for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to consider developing standards to support blockchain technology. The proposal for an NFTA to the ISO was intended to establish a new ISO technical committee for blockchain. The new committee would be responsible for supporting innovation and competition by covering blockchain standards topics including interoperability, terminology, privacy, security and auditing.[99] There have been several media releases[100] supporting blockchain integration to Australian businesses.
Banks
Don Tapscott conducted a two-year research project exploring how blockchain technology can securely move and store host "money, titles, deeds, music, art, scientific discoveries, intellectual property, and even votes".. Furthermore, major portions of the financial industry are implementing distributed ledgers for use in banking, and according to a September 2016 IBM study, this is occurring faster than expected.
Banks are interested in this technology because it has potential to speed up back office settlement systems.
Banks such as UBS are opening new research labs dedicated to blockchain technology in order to explore how blockchain can be used in financial services to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Russia has officially completed its first government-level blockchain implementation. The state-run bank Sberbank announced 20 December 2017 that it is partnering with Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to implement document transfer and storage via blockchain.
Deloitte and ConsenSys announced plans in 2016 to create a digital bank called Project ConsenSys.
R3 connects 42 banks to distributed ledgers built by Ethereum, Chain.com, Intel, IBM and Monax.
A Swiss industry consortium, including Swisscom, the Zurich Cantonal Bank and the Swiss stock exchange, is prototyping over-the-counter asset trading on a blockchain-based Ethereum technology.
Other financial companies.
The credit and debits payments company MasterCard has added three blockchain-based APIs for programmers to use in developing both person-to-person (P2P) and business-to-business (B2B) payment systems.
CLS Group is using blockchain technology to expand the number of currency trade deals it can settle.
VISA payment systems, Mastercard,Unionpay and SWIFT have announced the development and plans for using blockchain technology.
Prime Shipping Foundation is using blockchain technology to address issues related to the payments in the shipping industry.
Other uses
Blockchain technology can be used to create a permanent, public, transparent ledger system for compiling data on sales, storing rights data by authenticating copyright registration,[116] and tracking digital use and payments to content creators, such as musicians. In 2017, IBM partnered with ASCAP and PRS for Music to adopt blockchain technology in music distribution.Imogen Heap's Mycelia service, which allows managers to use a blockchain for tracking high-value parts moving through a supply chain, was launched as a concept in July 2016. Everledger is one of the inaugural clients of IBM's blockchain-based tracking service.
Kodak announced plans in 2018 to launch a digital token system for photograph copyright recording.
Another example where smart contracts are used is in the music industry. Every time a dj mix is played, the smart contracts attached to the dj mix pays the artists almost instantly.
An application has been suggested for securing the spectrum sharing for wireless networks.
New distribution methods are available for the insurance industry such as peer-to-peer insurance, parametric insurance and microinsurance following the adoption of blockchain.The sharing economy and IoT are also set to benefit from blockchains because they involve many collaborating peers.Online voting is another application of the blockchain. Blockchains are being used to develop information systems for medical records, which increases interoperability. In theory, legacy disparate systems can be completely replaced by blockchains.Blockchains are being developed for data storage, publishing texts and identifying the origin of digital art. Blockchains facilitate users could take ownership of game assets (digital assets),an example of this is Cryptokitties.
Notable non-cryptocurrency designs include:
Steemit – a blogging/social networking website and a cryptocurrency
Hyperledger – a cross-industry collaborative effort from the Linux Foundation to support blockchain-based distributed ledgers, with projects under this initiative including Hyperledger Burrow (by Monax) and Hyperledger Fabric (spearheaded by IBM)
Counterparty – an open source financial platform for creating peer-to-peer financial applications on the bitcoin blockchain
Quorum – a permissionable private blockchain by JPMorgan Chase with private storage, used for contract applications
Bitnation – a decentralized borderless "voluntary nation" establishing a jurisdiction of contracts and rules, based on Ethereum
Factom, a distributed registry
Tezos, decentralized voting.
Microsoft Visual Studio is making the Ethereum Solidity language available to application developers.
IBM offers a cloud blockchain service based on the open source Hyperledger Fabric project
Oracle Cloud offers Blockchain Cloud Service based on Hyperledger Fabric. Oracle has joined the Hyperledger consortium.
In August 2016, a research team at the Technical University of Munich published a research document about how blockchains may disrupt industries. They analyzed the venture funding that went into blockchain ventures. Their research shows that $1.55 billion went into startups with an industry focus on finance and insurance, information and communication, and professional services. High startup density was found in the USA, UK and Canada.
ABN Amro announced a project in real estate to facilitate the sharing and recording of real estate transactions, and a second project in partnership with the Port of Rotterdam to develop logistics tools.
Academic research
Blockchain panel discussion at the first IEEE Computer Society TechIgnite conference
In October 2014, the MIT Bitcoin Club, with funding from MIT alumni, provided undergraduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology access to $100 of bitcoin. The adoption rates, as studied by Catalini and Tucker (2016), revealed that when people who typically adopt technologies early are given delayed access, they tend to reject the technology.
Journals
In September 2015, the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology research, Ledger, was announced. The inaugural issue was published in December 2016. The journal covers aspects of mathematics, computer science, engineering, law, economics and philosophy that relate to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. There are also research platforms like Strategic coin that offer research for the blockchain and crypto space.
The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which will then be timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain. Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address in the first page of their papers.
Predictions
A World Economic Forum report from September 2015 predicted that by 2025 ten percent of global GDP would be stored on blockchains technology.
In early 2017, Harvard Business School professors Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani said the blockchain is not a disruptive technology that undercuts the cost of an existing business model, but is a foundational technology that "has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems". They further predicted that, while foundational innovations can have enormous impact, "It will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure."
Santorini is one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea. It was devastated by a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BC, forever shaping its rugged landscape. The whitewashed, cubiform houses of its 2 principal towns, Fira and Oia, cling to cliffs above an underwater caldera (crater). They overlook the sea, small islands to the west and beaches made up of black, red and white lava pebbles.
Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement preserved under ash from the eruption, provides a frozen-in-time glimpse into Minoan life. The ruins of Ancient Thera lie on a dramatic bluff that drops to the sea on 3 sides. Fira, the island's commercial heart, has the Archaeological Museum of Thera and boutique shops. It also has a lively bar scene and tavernas serving local grilled seafood and dry white wine, made from the Assyrtiko grape. Oia is famous for sunsets over its old fortress [Santorini Google Travel]
Urbex Hellas -
The city of Rhodes is situated in the north-east tip of the island and forms a triangle from north to south. The municipal unit has an area of 19.481 km2. It is the smallest municipal unit of the island in terms of land area and the largest in population. It borders the Aegean Sea to the north, the east and the west and with the municipalities of Ialysos and Kallithea in the south.
"... it occurred to me that plants do have a secret life, and it is even stranger and more wonderful than the one described by Tompkins and Bird. When most of us think of plants, to the extent that we think about plants at all, we think of them as old—holdovers from a simpler, prehuman evolutionary past. But for Mancuso plants hold the key to a future that will be organized around systems and technologies that are networked, decentralized, modular, reiterated, redundant—and green, able to nourish themselves on light. “Plants are the great symbol of modernity.” Or should be: their brainlessness turns out to be their strength, and perhaps the most valuable inspiration we can take from them."---Michael Pollan, The Intelligent Plant: The New Yorker, December 23, 2013
Some of us may pine away for an America of plantations and farms, of decentralization and rugged individuality. With skin in the game, a property-owning class would be involved in governing. Rural economy vs American capitalism? Are we under Jefferson's or Hamilton's vision of America? “We live, without question, in Hamilton’s America,” says Stephen F. Knott, professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College and co-author of “Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America.”†
These are the politics and history that I thought of when I photographed this statue of Alexander Hamilton in Chicago. I love Jefferson for being the enlightened visionary and idealist that he was. But Mr. Hamilton, I was a major fan of your story, your pragmatism, and your understanding of what this new nation was becoming, decades before the hip-hop in-vogue musical fed a zeitgeist.
---
†Source: quote of Prof. Stephen Knott about whose vision of America won out, Thomas Jefferson's or Alexander Hamilton's?
If only I looked that stylish when I'm riding my bicycle!
Connect with me at jimmakos.com/photography
Urbex Hellas -
From that time on, the ancient terms 'Hellas' and 'Hellenes' are used primarily in the interior of this small peninsula in South-East Europe to identify the country and its inhabitants, while the ones originating from 'Graeci' remain in the vocabularies of the European languages.
So, each time you look at the name of our travel agency, you may think of it as "Dolphin Greece" although we prefer its more Hellenic name of Dolphin Hellas.