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Damascus

 

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Damascus

دمشق Dimashq

 

View of Damascus from a bank of Barada river.

Nickname(s): (Al-Fayhaa) The Fragrant City

 

Damascus

 

Coordinates: 33°30′47″N 36°17′31″E / 33.51306°N 36.29194°E / 33.51306; 36.29194

Country Syria

Governorates Damascus Governorate, Capital City

Government

- Governor Bishr Al Sabban

Area

- City 573 km2 (221.2 sq mi)

- Metro 1,200 km2 (463.3 sq mi)

Elevation 600 m (1,969 ft)

Population (2007)[citation needed]

- City over 4 million

- Metro 6,500,000

Time zone EET (UTC+2)

- Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)

Area code(s) Country code: 963, City code: 11

Demonym Damascene

Damascus (Arabic: دمشق‎, transliteration: Dimashq, also commonly known as الشام ash-Shām) is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is one of the the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000[citation needed]. The city is a governorate by itself, and the capital of the governorate of Rif Dimashq ("Rural Damascus").

   

Etymology

In Arabic, the city is called دمشق الشام (Dimashq ash-Shām), although this is often shortened to either Dimashq or ash-Shām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbors. Ash-Shām is an Arabic term for north and for Syria (Syria—particularly historical Greater Syria—is called Bilād ash-Shām—بلاد الشام, "land of the north"—in Arabic.) The etymology of the ancient name "Damascus" is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq (דמשק) in Old Aramaic and Dammeśeq (דמשק) in Biblical Hebrew. The Akkadian spelling is the earliest attestation, found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BCE. Later Aramaic spellings of the name often include an intrusive resh (letter r), perhaps influenced by the root dr, meaning "dwelling". Thus, the Qumranic Darmeśeq (דרמשק), and Darmsûq (ܕܪܡܣܘܩ) in Syriac.[1][2]

  

History

Ancient City of Damascus*

UNESCO World Heritage Site

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

State Party Syria

Type Cultural

Criteria i, ii, iii, iv, vi

Reference 20

Region** Arab States

Inscription history

Inscription 1979 (3rd Session)

* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List.

** Region as classified by UNESCO.

 

Ancient history

Excavations at Tell Ramad on the outskirts of the city have demonstrated that Damascus has been inhabited as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BC. It is due to this that Damascus is considered to be among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. However, Damascus is not documented as an important city until the coming of the Aramaeans, Semitic nomads who arrived from Mesopotamia. It is known that it was the Aramaeans who first established the water distribution system of Damascus by constructing canals and tunnels which maximized the efficiency of the Barada river. The same network was later improved by the Romans and the Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of Damascus today. It was mentioned in Genesis 14 as existing at the time of the War of the Kings.

 

According to the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his twenty-one volume Antiquities of the Jews, Damascus (along with Trachonitis), was founded by Uz, the son of Aram. Elsewhere, he stated:

 

Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham.

 

Damascus is designated as having been part of the ancient province of Amurru in the Hyksos Kingdom, from 1720 to 1570 BC. (MacMillan, pp. 30–31). Some of the earliest Egyptian records are from the 1350 BC Amarna letters, when Damascus-(called Dimasqu) was ruled by king Biryawaza. In 1100 BC, the city became the center of a powerful Aramaean state called Aram Damascus. The Kings of Aram Damascus were involved in many wars in the area against the Assyrians and the Israelites. One of the Kings, Ben-Hadad II, fought Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar. The ruins of the Aramean town most probably lie under the eastern part of the old walled city. After Tiglath-Pileser III captured and destroyed the city in 732 BC, it lost its independence for hundreds of years, and it fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar starting in 572 BC. The Babylonian rule of the city came to an end in 538 BC when the Persians under Cyrus captured the city and made it the capital of the Persian province of Syria.

  

Greco-Roman

Damascus first came under western control with the giant campaign of Alexander the Great that swept through the near east. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Damascus became the site of a struggle between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. The control of the city passed frequently from one empire to the other. Seleucus Nicator, one of Alexander's generals, had made Antioch the capital of his vast empire, a decision that led Damascus' importance to decline compared with the newly founded Seleucid cities such as Latakia in the north.

 

In 64 BC, the Roman general Pompey annexed the western part of Syria. The Romans occupied Damascus and subsequently incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis because it was considered such an important center of Greco-Roman culture. According to the New Testament, St. Paul was on the road to Damascus when he received a vision, was struck blind and as a result converted to Christianity. In the year 37, Roman Emperor Caligula transferred Damascus into Nabataean control by decree.[citation needed] The Nabataean king Aretas IV Philopatris ruled Damascus from his capital Petra. However, around the year 106, Nabataea was conquered by the Romans, and Damascus returned to Roman control.

 

Damascus became a metropolis by the beginning of the second century and in 222 it was upgraded to a colonia by the Emperor Septimius Severus. During the Pax Romana, Damascus and the Roman province of Syria in general began to prosper. Damascus's importance as a caravan city was evident with the trade routes from southern Arabia, Palmyra, Petra, and the silk routes from China all converging on it. The city satisfied the Roman demands for eastern luxuries.

 

Little remains of the architecture of the Romans, but the town planning of the old city did have a lasting effect. The Roman architects brought together the Greek and Aramaean foundations of the city and fused them into a new layout measuring approximately 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) by 750 metres (2,500 ft), surrounded by a city wall. The city wall contained seven gates, but only the eastern gate (Bab Sharqi) remains from the Roman period. Roman Damascus lies mostly at depths of up to five meters (16.4 ft) below the modern city.

 

The old borough of Bab Tuma was developed at the end of the Roman/Byzantine era by the local Eastern Orthodox community. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul and Saint Thomas both lived in that neighborhood. Roman Catholic historians also consider Bab Tuma to be the birthplace of several Popes such as John V and Gregory III.

  

Islamic Arab period

 

The Umayyad Mosque

Alsayyida Zaynab shrine domeDamascus was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate during the reign of Umar by forces under Khaled ibn al-Walid in 634 CE. Immediately thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached its peak when it became the capital of the Umayyad Empire, which extended from Spain to India from 661 to 750. In 744, the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, moved the capital to Harran in the Jazira,[3] and Damascus was never to regain the political prominence it had held in that period.

 

After the fall of the Umayyads and the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate in 750, Damascus was ruled from Baghdad, although in 858 al-Mutawakkil briefly established his residence there with the intention of transferring his capital there from Samarra. However, he soon abandoned the idea. As the Abbasid caliphate declined, Damascus suffered from the prevailing instability, and came under the control of local dynasties.

 

In 970, the Fatimid Caliphs in Cairo gained control of Damascus. This was to usher in a turbulent period in the city's history, as the Berber troops who formed the backbone of the Fatimid forces became deeply unpopular among its citizens. The presence in Syria of the Qaramita and occasionally of Turkish military bands added to the constant pressure from the Bedouin. For a brief period from 978, Damascus was self-governing, under the leadership of a certain Qassam and protected by a citizen militia. However, the Ghouta was ravaged by the Bedouin and after a Turkish-led campaign the city once again surrendered to Fatimid rule. From 1029 to 1041 the Turkish military leader Anushtakin was governor of Damascus under the Fatimid caliph Al-Zahir, and did much to restore the city's prosperity.

 

It appears that during this period the slow transformation of Damascus from a Graeco-Roman city layout - characterised by blocks of insulae — to a more familiar Islamic pattern took place: the grid of straight streets changed to a pattern of narrow streets, with most residents living inside harat closed off at night by heavy wooden gates to protect against criminals and the exactions of the soldiery.

  

Seljuks and Crusader rule

 

The statue of Saladin in front of Damascus citadel.

Azem Palace.

Damascus WallsWith the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th century, Damascus again became the capital of independent states. It was ruled by a Seljuk dynasty from 1079 to 1104, and then by another Turkish dynasty - the Burid Emirs, who withstood a siege of the city during the Second Crusade in 1148 . In 1154 Damascus was conquered from the Burids by the famous Zengid Atabeg Nur ad-Din of Aleppo, the great foe of the Crusaders. He made it his capital, and following his death, it was acquired by Saladin, the ruler of Egypt, who also made it his capital. Saladin rebuilt the citadel, and it is reported that under his rule the suburbs were as extensive as the city itself. It is reported by Ibn Jubayr that during the time of Saladin, Damascus welcomed seekers of knowledge and industrious youth from around the world, who arrived for the sake of "undistracted study and seclusion" in Damascus' many colleges.

 

In the years following Saladin's death in 1193, there were frequent conflicts between different Ayyubid sultans ruling in Damascus and Cairo. Damascus was the capital of independent Ayyubid rulers between 1193 and 1201, from 1218 to 1238, from 1239 to 1245, and from 1250 to 1260. At other times it was ruled by the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt. Damascus steel gained a legendary reputation among the Crusaders, and patterned steel is still "damascened". The patterned Byzantine and Chinese silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road, gave the English language "damask".

  

Mamluk rule

Ayyubid rule (and independence) came to an end with the Mongol invasion of Syria in 1260, and following the Mongol defeat at Ain Jalut in the same year, Damascus became a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire, ruled from Egypt, following the Mongol withdrawal.

  

Timurlane

In 1400 Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror, besieged Damascus. The Mamluk sultan dispatched a deputation from Cairo, including Ibn Khaldun, who negotiated with him, but after their withdrawal he put the city to sack. The Umayyad Mosque was burnt and men and women taken into slavery. A huge number of the city's artisans were taken to Timur's capital at Samarkand. These were the luckier citizens: many were slaughtered and their heads piled up in a field outside the north-east corner of the walls, where a city square still bears the name burj al-ru'us, originally "the tower of heads".

 

Rebuilt, Damascus continued to serve as a Mamluk provincial capital until 1516.

  

The Ottoman conquest

 

Khan As'ad Pasha was built in 1752In early 1516, the Ottoman Turks, wary of the danger of an alliance between the Mamluks and the Persian Safavids, started a campaign of conquest against the Mamluk sultanate. On 21 September, the Mamluk governor of Damascus fled the city, and on 2 October the khutba in the Umayyad mosque was pronounced in the name of Selim I. The day after, the victorious sultan entered the city, staying for three months. On 15 December, he left Damascus by Bab al-Jabiya, intent on the conquest of Egypt. Little appeared to have changed in the city: one army had simply replaced another. However, on his return in October 1517, the sultan ordered the construction of a mosque, taqiyya and mausoleum at the shrine of Shaikh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi in al-Salihiyah. This was to be the first of Damascus' great Ottoman monuments.

 

The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840 . Because of its importance as the point of departure for one of the two great Hajj caravans to Mecca, Damascus was treated with more attention by the Porte than its size might have warranted — for most of this period, Aleppo was more populous and commercially more important. In 1560 the Taqiyya al-Sulaimaniyya, a mosque and khan for pilgrims on the road to Mecca, was completed to a design by the famous Ottoman architect Sinan, and soon afterwards a madrasa was built adjoining it.

  

The destroyed Christian quarter of Damascus, 1860.Perhaps the most notorious incident of these centuries was the massacre of Christians in 1860, when fighting between Druze (most probably supported by foreign countries to weaken the economical power) and Maronites in Mount Lebanon spilled over into the city. Several thousand Christians were killed, with many more being saved through the intervention of the Algerian exile Abd al-Qadir and his soldiers (three days after the massacre started), who brought them to safety in Abd al-Qadir's residence and the citadel. The Christian quarter of the old city (mostly inhabited by Catholics), including a number of churches, was burnt down. The Christian inhabitants of the notoriously poor and refractory Midan district outside the walls (mostly Orthodox) were, however, protected by their Muslim neighbours.

 

American Missionary E.C. Miller records that in 1867 the population of the city was 'about' 140,000, of whom 30,000 where Christians, 10,000 Jews and 100,000 'Mohammedans' with less than 100 Protestant Christians.[4]

  

Rise of Arab nationalism

In the early years of the twentieth century, nationalist sentiment in Damascus, initially cultural in its interest, began to take a political colouring, largely in reaction to the turkicisation programme of the Committee of Union and Progress government established in Istanbul in 1908. The hanging of a number of patriotic intellectuals by Jamal Pasha, governor of Damascus, in Beirut and Damascus in 1915 and 1916 further stoked nationalist feeling, and in 1918, as the forces of the Arab Revolt and the British army approached, residents fired on the retreating Turkish troops.

  

Modern

 

The Turkish Hospital in Damascus on 1 October 1918, shortly after the entry of the 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment.

Damascus in flames as the result of the French air raid on October 18, 1925.On 1 October 1918, the forces of the Arab revolt led by Nuri as-Said entered Damascus. The same day, Australian soldiers from the 4th and 10th Light Horse Regiments reinforced with detachments from the British Yeomanry Mounted Division entered the city and accepted its surrender from the Turkish appointed Governor Emir Said (installed as Governor the previous afternoon by the retreating Turkish Commander)[1][2]. A military government under Shukri Pasha was named. Other British forces including T. E. Lawrence followed later that day, and Faisal ibn Hussein was proclaimed king of Syria. Political tension rose in November 1917, when the new Bolshevik government in Russia revealed the Sykes-Picot Agreement whereby Britain and France had arranged to partition the Arab east between them. A new Franco-British proclamation on 17 November promised the "complete and definitive freeing of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks." The Syrian Congress in March adopted a democratic constitution. However, the Versailles Conference had granted France a mandate over Syria, and in 1920 a French army commanded by the General Mariano Goybet crossed the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, defeated a small Syrian defensive expedition at the Battle of Maysalun and entered Damascus. The French made Damascus capital of their League of Nations Mandate of Syria.

 

When in 1925 the Druze revolt in the Hauran spread to Damascus, the French suppressed it brutally, bombing and shelling the city. The area of the old city between Al-Hamidiyah Souq and Medhat Pasha Souq was burned to the ground, with many deaths, and has since then been known as al-Hariqa ("the fire"). The old city was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent rebels infiltrating from the Ghouta, and a new road was built outside the northern ramparts to facilitate the movement of armored cars.

 

On 21 June 1941, Damascus was captured from the Vichy French forces by the Allies during the Syria-Lebanon campaign.

 

In 1945 the French once more bombed Damascus, but on this occasion British forces intervened and the French agreed to withdraw, thus leading to the full independence of Syria in 1946 . Damascus remained the capital. With the influx of Iraqi refugees beginning in 2003, and funds from the Persian Gulf, Damascus has been going through an economic boom ever since.

  

Geography

 

Damascus in spring seen from Spot satelliteDamascus lies about 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Mediterranean Sea, sheltered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It lies on a plateau 680 metres (2,200 ft) above sea-level.

 

The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, lies on the south bank of the river Barada which is almost dry(3 cm left). To the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages: Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These districts originally arose on roads leading out of the city, near the tombs of religious figures. In the nineteenth century outlying villages developed on the slopes of Jabal Qasioun, overlooking the city, already the site of the al-Salihiyah district centred around the important shrine of Sheikh Muhi al-Din ibn Arabi. These new districts were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule. Thus they were known as al-Akrad (the Kurds) and al-Muhajirin (the migrants). They lay two to three kilometres (2 mi) north of the old city.

 

From the late nineteenth century on, a modern administrative and commercial centre began to spring up to the west of the old city, around the Barada, centred on the area known as al-Marjeh or the meadow. Al-Marjeh soon became the name of what was initially the central square of modern Damascus, with the city hall on it. The courts of justice, post office and railway station stood on higher ground slightly to the south. A Europeanised residential quarter soon began to be built on the road leading between al-Marjeh and al-Salihiyah. The commercial and administrative centre of the new city gradually shifted northwards slightly towards this area.

 

In the twentieth century, newer suburbs developed north of the Barada, and to some extent to the south, invading the Ghouta oasis. From 1955 the new district of Yarmouk became a second home to thousands of Palestinian refugees. City planners preferred to preserve the Ghouta as far as possible, and in the later twentieth century some of the main areas of development were to the north, in the western Mezzeh district and most recently along the Barada valley in Dummar in the northwest and on the slopes of the mountains at Berze in the north-east. Poorer areas, often built without official approval, have mostly developed south of the main city.

 

Damascus used to be surrounded by an oasis, the Ghouta region (الغوطة al-ġūṭä), watered by the Barada river. The Fijeh spring, west along the Barada valley, used to provides the city with drinking water. The Ghouta oasis has been decreasing in size with the rapid expansion of housing and industry in the city and it is almost dry. It has also become polluted due to the city's traffic, industry, and sewage.

  

Climate

Damascus' climate is semi arid, due to rain shadow effect of Anti-Lebanon mountain. Summers are hot with less humidity. Winters are cool and rainy or snowy. January Maximum & Minimum Temperatures are 11 °C (52 °F) and 0 °C (32 °F), lowest ever recorded are −13.5 °C (8 °F), The summer August Maximum & Minimum Temperature are 35 °C (95 °F) and 17 °C (63 °F), Highest ever recorded are 45.5 °C (113.9 °F), Annual rainfall around 20 cm (8 in), occur from November to March.[5]

 

Weather averages for Damascus

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year

Average high °C (°F) 11

(53) 13

(57) 17

(64) 23

(74) 28

(84) 33

(92) 36

(96) 36

(96) 33

(91) 27

(81) 19

(67) 13

(56) 24

(76)

Average low °C (°F) 0

(33) 2

(36) 4

(40) 7

(46) 11

(52) 14

(58) 16

(62) 17

(63) 13

(57) 9

(49) 4

(40) 1

(35) 8

(48)

Precipitation cm (inches) 3

(1.5) 3

(1.3) 2

(0.9) 1

(0.5) 0

(0.2) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 0

(0) 1

(0.4) 2

(1) 4

(1.7) 19

(7.6)

Source: Weatherbase[5] 2008

  

Demographics

 

People

 

Three Damascene women; lady wearing qabqabs, a Druze, and a peasant, 1873.The majority of the population in Damascus came as a result of rural-urban migration. It is believed that the local people of Damascus, called Damascene, are about 1.5 million. Damascus is considered by most people to be a very safe city. Haggling is common, especially in the traditional souks. Corruption is widespread, but in the past few years there have been aims at combating it, by both the government and non-governmental organizations. Tea, Mate (popular caffeinated beverage made from Yerba mate), and Turkish Coffee are the most common beverages in Damascus.

 

Religion

The majority of the inhabitants of Damascus—about 75%—are Sunni Muslims. It is believed that there are more than 2,000 mosques in Damascus, the most well-known being the Umayyad Mosque. Christians represent the remaining 15% and there a number of Christian districts, such as Bab Tuma, Kassaa, and Ghassani, with many churches, most notably the ancient Chapel of Saint Paul.

  

Historical sites

 

House of Saint AnaniasDamascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to 8 feet (2.4 m) below the modern level. The Citadel of Damascus is located in the northwest corner of the Old City. The Street Called Straight (referred to in the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as the Via Recta, was the decumanus (East-West main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). Today, it consists of the street of Bab Sharqi and the Souk Medhat Pasha, a covered market. The Bab Sharqi street is filled with small shops and leads to the old Christian quarter of Bab Tuma (St. Thomas's Gate). Souk Medhat Pasha is also a main market in Damascus and was named after Medhat Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Syria who renovated the Souk. At the end of the Bab Sharqi street, one reaches the House of Ananias, an underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house. The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus, is one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam. A shrine in the mosque is said to contain the head of Husayn ibn Ali and the body of St. John the Baptist. The mausoleum where Saladin was buried is located in the gardens just outside the mosque. Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque, the shrine of the yongest daughter of Husayn ibn Ali, can also be found near the Umayyad Mosque. Another heavily visited site is Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque, which is the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali.

  

The walls and gates of Damascus

v • d • eOld City of Damascus

 

Azm PalaceDamascus

CitadelUmayyad Mosque

Gates

al-Jabiya · al-Saghir · Kisan · Sharqi · Tuma · al-Salam · Faradis

The Old City of Damascus is surrounded by ramparts on the northern and eastern sides and part of the southern side. There are seven extant city gates, the oldest of which dates back to the Roman period. These are, clockwise from the north of the citadel:

 

Bab al-Saghir (The Small Gate)

Bab al-Faradis ("the gate of the orchards", or "of the paradise")

Bab al-Salam ("the gate of peace"), all on the north boundary of the Old City

Bab Tuma ("Touma" or "Thomas's Gate") in the north-east corner, leading into the Christian quarter of the same name,

Bab Sharqi ("eastern gate") in the east wall, the only one to retain its Roman plan

Bab Kisan in the south-east, from which tradition holds that Saint Paul made his escape from Damascus, lowered from the ramparts in a basket; this gate is now closed and a chapel marking the event has been built into the structure,

Bab al-Jabiya at the entrance to Souk Midhat Pasha, in the south-west.

Other areas outside the walled city also bear the name "gate": Bab al-Faraj, Bab Mousalla and Bab Sreija, both to the south-west of the walled city.

  

Churches in the old city

 

The Minaret of the Bride, Umayyad Mosque in old Damascus.

Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque

Sayyidah Ruqayya MosqueCathedral of Damascus.

Virgin Mary's Cathedral.

House of Saint Ananias.

Chapel of Saint Paul.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Zaitoon (Olive) Alley.

The Damascene Saint Johan church.

Saint Paul's Laura.

Saint Georgeus's sanctuary.

 

Islamic sites in the old city

Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque

Sayyidah Ruqayya Mosque

Bab Saghir cemetery

Umayyad Mosque

Saladin Shrine.

 

Madrasas

Al-Adiliyah Madrasa.

Az-Zahiriyah Library.

Nur al-Din Madrasa.

 

Old Damascene houses

Azm Palace

Bayt al-Aqqad (Danish Institute in Damascus)

Maktab Anbar

Beit al-Mamlouka (Boutique Hotel)

 

Khans

Khan Jaqmaq

Khan As'ad Pasha

Khan Sulayman Pasha

 

Threats to the future of the old City

Due to the rapid decline of the population of Old Damascus (between 1995-2005 more than 20,000 people moved out of the old city for more modern accommodation), a growing number of buildings are being abandoned or are falling into disrepair. In March 2007, the local government announced that it would be demolishing Old City buildings along a 1,400-metre (4,600 ft) stretch of rampart walls as part of a redevelopment scheme. These factors resulted in the Old City being placed by the World Monuments Fund on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world. It is hoped that its inclusion on the list will draw more public awareness to these significant threats to the future of the historic Old City of Damascus.

  

Current state of old Damascus

In spite of the recommendations of the UNESCO World Heritage Center:[3]

 

Souk El Atik, a protected buffer zone, was destroyed in three days in November 2006;

King Faysal Street, a traditional hand-craft region in a protected buffer zone near the walls of Old Damascus between the Citadel and Bab Touma, is threatened by a proposed motorway.

In 2007, the Old City of Damascus and notably the district of Bab Tuma have been recognized by The World Monument Fund as one of the most endangered sites in the world.[4]

 

Subdivisions

 

The ancient city of Damascus around the Omayyad Mosque

Azmeh Square in downtown DamascusDamascus is divided into many districts. Among them there are:

 

Abbasiyyin

Abou Rummaneh

Amara

Bahsa

Baramkah

Barzeh

Dummar

Jobar

Kafar Souseh

Malki

Mazraa

Mezzeh

Midan

Muhajreen

Qanawat

Rukn Eddeen

Al-Salihiyah

Sarouja

Sha'alan

Shaghoor

Tijara

 

ducation

Damascus is the main center of education in Syria. It is home to Damascus University, which is the oldest and by far the largest university in Syria. After the enactment of legislation allowing private secondary institutions, several new universities were established in the city and in the surrounding area.

  

Universities

 

Damascus National Museum.Damascus University

Syrian Virtual University

International University for Science and Technology

Higher Institute of Business Administration (HIBA)

Higher Institute for Applied Science and Technology (HIAST)

University of Kalamoon

Arab European University

National Institute of Administration

 

Transportation

 

Al-Hijaz StationThe main airport is Damascus International Airport, approximately 20 km (12 mi) away from the city center, with connections to many Asian, Europe, African, and recently, South American cities. Streets in Damascus are often narrow, mostly in the older parts of the city, and speed bumps are widely used to limit the speed.

 

Public transport in Damascus depends extensively on minibuses. There are about one hundred lines that operate inside the city and some of them extend from the city center to nearby suburbs. There is no schedule for the lines, and due to the limited number of official bus stops, buses will usually stop wherever a passenger needs to get on or off. The number of buses serving the same line is relatively high, which minimizes the waiting time. Lines are not numbered, rather they are given captions mostly indicating the two end points and possibly an important station along the line.

 

Al-Hijaz railway station, lies in the city center. Currently this station is closed, and railway connections with other cities take place in a suburb.

 

In 2008, the government announced a plan to construct an underground system in Damascus with opening time for the green line scheduled for 2015 Damascus Metro

  

Culture

Damascus was the 2008 Arab Capital of Culture.

  

Museums

National Museum of Damascus

Azem Palace

Military Museum

Museum of Arabic Calligraphy

 

Leisure activities

 

Damascus by night, pictured from Jabal Qasioun; the green spots are minarets

Parks and gardens

Tishreen Park is by far the largest park in Damascus. It is home to the yearly held Damascus Flower Show. Other parks include Aljahiz, Al sibbki, Altijara and Alwahda. Damascus' Ghouta (Oasis) is also a popular destination for recreation.

  

Cafe culture

Cafes are popular meeting spots for Damascene, where Arghilehs (water pipes) and popular beverages are served. Card games, Tables (backgammon variants), and chess are common in these cafes.

  

Sports

Popular sports include football, basketball, swimming and table tennis. Damascus is home to many sports clubs, such as:

 

Al Jaish

Al Wahda

Al Majd

Barada

 

Nearby attractions

Madaya

Bloudan

Zabadani

Maaloula

Saidnaya

 

Born in Damascus

Hadadezer King of Aram Damascus and leader of the coalition the 12 kings coalition that fought against Shalmaneser III

Nicolaus of Damascus (historian and philosopher)

John of Damascus (676-749) Christian saint

Ananias (Christian disciple involved in healing and preaching to Paul the Apostle)

Sophronius (Patriarch of Jerusalem)

Abd ar-Rahman I, Founder of Omayyad dynasty in Cordoba.

Izzat Husrieh, A renowned journalist and founder of the Syrian labor unions.

Khalid al-Azm, Former prime minister of Syria.

Shukri al-Quwatli, Former Syrian president and co-founder of the United Arab Republic.

Muna Wassef ( A Movie Star, and a United Nations Goodwill ambassador.)

Damascius (Byzantine philosopher)

Yasser Seirawan (chess player)

Ahmed Kuftaro (former grand mufti of Syria)

Ikram Antaki (Mexican writer)

Ghada al-Samman (novelist)

Nizar Qabbani (poet)

Michel Aflaq (political thinker and co-founder of the Baath Party)

Salah al-Din al-Bitar (political thinker and co-founder of the Baath Party)

Constantin Zureiq (academic and Arab nationalist intellectual)

Zakaria Tamer (writer)

Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh (academic, PhD in Oriental Studies)

Nazir Ismail (Artist)

Sheik Bashir Al Bani (Grand Sheik in Syria)

Mehdi Mourtada (Famous journalist and founder of WAS News Agency.

 

for 4.5.2012

The enigma proposed by the Sphinx was as follows: "Which animal that in the morning has four feet, two at noon and three in the afternoon?" Oedipus replied, "It is the man. For in the morning of life (childhood) he crawls with his feet and hands; At noon (in adulthood) he walks on two feet; And in the afternoon (old age) he needs both legs and the support of a cane. "

A design livery for Mersan, link below shows other option that they can choose from. I have also added logo and typeface design for rebranding...

 

www.flickr.com/photos/44887141@N03/6132269043/in/photostream

www.flickr.com/photos/44887141@N03/6132268517/in/photostream

www.flickr.com/photos/44887141@N03/6132268067/in/photostream

 

Take a glimpse on my ACTUAL WORK

 

Proposed but not adopted Northern liveried 156425 at Bamber Bridge on a Blackpool South – Colne service on 13/07/08.

She says yes!

View large Explore # 347

A scaled down model of Tracey Emin's proposal for the fourth plinth on display at the National Gallery , London.

 

From 1841 until 1999 there was nothing on the Fourth Plinth in the north-west of Trafalgar Square. It is now the location for contemporary art works, commissioned specially from leading artists, which are housed on the plinth for a year or two each.

 

Emin proposes to place a sculpture of a small group of meerkats on the empty plinth as a symbol of unity and safety - my favourite amongst those proposed!

Official Schindler Wagons (Switzerland) drawing of a three-car diesel train proposed to Israel Railways in 1950. Four such trains were suggested for service on the Haifa-Tel Aviv main line, with each train made of a driving car, a passenger coach in the middle, and a powered car for passengers and baggage

Mr. J. W. Lawler applied for a conditional publican’s license at Narromine in April, 1898.

 

At the Licensing Court, Lawler stated that he proposed to erect a hotel on Allotment 5, Section 16 fronting Burraway and Merilba Streets, opposite the railway station. The hotel would be built on his land, it would be a brick two storey house according to plan produced, containing 16 rooms, and costing between £800 and £900. At the time, all other hotels in Narromine were of wood and one storey. The population of Narromine had considerably increased, especially during the last twelve months owing to the large areas of land taken up. The railway traffic had doubled in the last twelve months owing to the low level bridge constructed at the end of Manildra Street which gave access to the town from the northern side of the river and increased the traffic. Signatures were presented to the court in the form of a petition in support of the application.

 

There were four hotels in Narromine at this time and accommodation was short. Mr. Lawler was not sure of the population of the town or the number of dwellings, but said there were seven (7) stores and there was a direct road for traffic through Narromine going west. There was also a good deal of traffic from Peak Hill, and a considerable outlet from the Bogan.

The Bench suggested certain alterations to the plan to improve ventilation, which were agreed to by the applicant.

Sergeant Butler, Sub-Inspector under the Licensing Act, had visited Narromine the week before and inspected the site of the proposed hotel. He said the population of the town was 650, and within a radius of five miles of the town 1,000. There were 170 children on the roll at the public school. Five general stores, three being of fair size. The total number of dwellings was about 200. There were three churches.

Narromine had 4 hotels, three being comparatively new buildings, one had been licensed within the last few months (Exchange), and another had been recently rebuilt (Railway was improved in 1897). With one exception they were substantial buildings, well kept and furnished. He believed these were sufficient to meet the requirements of Narromine and district. Very little traffic passed through Narromine except by rail, and the only time a great number of people would be likely to be in the town would be at harvest time.

(The other pubs in town at the time were the Royal (southern side of the town, E. Obus, prop.), the Railway Hotel (now Imperial, further along Burraway Street, J. Cowell, prop.) and the Commercial (Dandaloo Street, where the Bank of N.S.W. was later built, Isabella Robinson, prop).

There are 14,000 acres under cultivation within a 14 mile radius of Narromine. Within the last few years the town had come into prominence for its wheat growing capabilities. It is a large grazing district, and had the nearest railway to Tomingley, Myall and Peak Hill. There are no brick buildings in Narromine.

At the same hearing Horace S. Antill of Nevertire applied for a conditional publican’s license at Narromine on Lot 5, Section 12 fronting Merilba Street, adjoining the Court House, and to call it the Court House Hotel. Cost £600 to £700, a wooden building.

An objection was filed by the police on the grounds that there was a church in the vicinity of the proposed site.

Sergeant Butler inspected the site and stated that if this hotel was built it would be not more than 100 feet from the Union Church. The hotel yard would only be divided from the Church by a lane 12 foot wide.

(There was a Union Church building on the block behind the present Treseder’s Timber Mill, facing Merilba Street. The Court House, later a Hall and Municipal Chambers, was on the corner of Merilba & Nymagee Streets - Section 12, Lot 6, Sub. 11 and as stated there was only a lane between the proposed hotel and church).

Another application was made at the same sitting of the court by Mr. James Elliott for a hotel to be erected of wood on the southern side of the railway line as there was only one hotel on that side of the line at the present time (Royal).

The Bench refused the applications of Antill and Elliott and granted Lawler’s application. When completed it was known as The Court House Hotel, the same name submitted by Mr. Antill.

On 4th June. 1898 in the Dubbo Liberal newspaper an extension of time for tenders for the Court House Hotel was given, tenders to close on 11 June.

The Court House Hotel was opened in April, 1899

Hotels in the 1890’s were the equivalent of today’s motels. Many travellers (train or horse and sulky) stayed at the hotel, as did dentists. In the case of the Court House Hotel, it had a butcher shop on the corner of Burraway/Merilba Streets, it was opened by Jerry Smith and his partner Robert Barnett.

There was also a small shop for a barber and an Estate Agent.

Ads in the local paper usually carried a notice saying a “Porter” would meet the train to assist patrons. “Good stabling” was also mentioned, plus many mentions of the “good stock” held in the hotel.

Sporting teams, i.e. cricket and football, would travel from Trangie or Dubbo by train. The teams arrived on the morning train, played their matches, and a “tea” was organised by hotels at night, Mr. Bass the baker, was one of the caterers in these early years. At 10 p.m. the team would catch the train back to Dubbo.

In later years teachers and members of the banking staff boarded at the hotels in town.

In 1902 Mr. Fitch had fine commodious brick stables erected at the rear of the Court House Hotel with 20 large roomy stalls.

In the same year extensions were also added to the hotel.

On the 4 November, 1908 the Dubbo Liberal newspaper reported -

“On Monday night last Mr. W.L. Lloyd addressed a fairly large audience from the balcony of Mr. D. Fitch’s Court House Hotel on the failure of the No License movement in New Zealand and America. The speaker dealt principally with Government figures, and alleged there had been an increase in crime in New Zealand since the prohibition movement commenced, according to statistics. Mr. Lloyd was accorded a patient hearing. Mr. D. Fitch occupied the chair.”

Other organisations also held meetings in various hotels in the town.

“On the 24 February, 1909 the Dubbo Liberal reported a serious accident that took place at Fitch’s Hotel, Narromine on Monday afternoon, the victim being a man named J.G. Knox. It appears Mr. Knox was working in the well at the hotel which is about 80’ deep, and it was intended to remove the bricks for use in another well. Knox went down for this purpose, but while he was at work the sides of the wall caved in completely burying the unfortunate man. Men were put on it at once to try to extricate Knox, but owing to the earth continuing to fall in this was a necessarily slow job, and though work was kept up all Monday night the body was not recovered at the time we telephoned on Tuesday morning. Knox was a man of 45 years of age, and followed the occupation of a selector and well sinker, and was formerly employed by Mr. Utley. He leaves a widow and family and was the father of a girl killed in a riding accident some time ago. Great sympathy has been expressed with the family in their troubles.”

A local man Mr. Thom was called in to try and recover Mr. Knox’s body, but he was unable to locate him. Mr. Fitch had to call on experts from Sydney to complete the search.

It was not until the Liberal dated 10 March, 1909 that the paper reported that the body of Knox had been recovered, one of the largest funerals seen in Narromine, three quarters of a mile long conducted from the Town Hall where the remains were taken. A subscription was taken up for his wife and young family.

The Narromine News & Trangie Advocate dated 13 February, 1929 reported Mr. Le Brun Brown, a member of the Licensing Reduction Board, held a court at Narromine and inquired into the matter of the improvements as desired by the police of Narromine Hotels.

Mr. W.H. Kelly of Wellington appeared on behalf of Mrs. Mostyn, the owner of the Court House Hotel.

“Mr. Kelly: I take it the police will give evidence to show that the work they want done is necessary. In this case I would like to point out, that although Mrs. Mostyn is, strictly speaking, the owner, she is, in a way, really only a life tenant and if all the improvements asked for are carried it will be a big financial strain.

The Bench: She will get 8% on her money won’t she?

Mr. Kelly: I am quite aware of that and I want to say that as far as the Inspector is concerned we want to treat him fairly. Regarding the septic tank, I would like to point out that the water is not on the town yet, and I don’t know where the effluent is to go.

The Bench: We are only asking for a small septic tank, and the water can be carried away.

Mr. Kelly: I don’t know if the local Municipal Council will approve of that.

The Bench: But the Department of Public Health does.

Mr. Kelly: I can’t see how the effluent is to be got rid of.

The Bench: That is not difficult. At one up-to-date hotel I know of the water from the septic tank is used to grow vegetables for the hotel tables. At Leeton or Griffith, the effluent is used to water trees on recreation reserves.

Mr. Kelly: Room 32 on the left wing of the Court Hotel can be divided and made into a lavatory and a bath room. We are willing to do that. We are also agreeable to put in two bathrooms and two lavatories.

Sergeant Christian: What about the septic tank?

Mr. Kelly: We are also agreeable to put in a septic tank, and I hope the Bench will allow the owner as long as possible to do the work.

Other improvements Mr. Kelly agreed to do were: The demolishing of the old wooden building adjoining the billiard room; erection of a galvanised fence at rear of the premises, and the complete remodelling of the kitchen, laundry and pantry.

In regard to the galvanised fence Mr. Kelly pointed out that certain time would be required in order to notify the owner of the adjoining property of the work. It was not fair to expect his client to pay the whole cost of the fence.

The Bench said whatever time was necessary would be granted.

Mr. Kelly: Alright, we will agree to do all the improvements mentioned, now what about time. For years the Licensing Inspector has been submitting quarterly reports that the hotel was satisfactory, yet after hearing the court at Dubbo recently, the Licensing Board came here and suddenly the police got busy. I suggest the work be done 9 months from today.

Sergeant Christian: I think six months is quite sufficient. The work is urgent.

Mr. Kelly: The work is urgent now, evidently it was not for the last five years.

After further discussion the Bench ordered that the work be all completed in 8 months.”

Part of the verandah has been removed from this hotel, although when it went is not known.

Amazingly after 104 years there is still a barber shop located in a shop at this hotel.

The following people have held the license of this hotel -

12. 4.1899John Garret Lawler13. 4.1934C. Matthews

11. 4.1900Alfred Moston20. 4.1936Mrs. M. Matthews/H.J. King

12. 4.1901David Fitch22. 7.1942L. Thompson

11. 4.1904George Bell21. 6.1943W.J. Powell

12. 4.1905David Fitch15.11.1943M.A.Moran

11. 3.1910Alfred J. Collins22. 6.1956N.P. Robertson

28.11.1911Thomas S. Green30. 8.1963Mrs. J.V. Farlow

11. 4.1918Alfred G. Samuels22. 8.1969M.A. Betah

1. 1.1920Francis B. Colley22. 4.1971M.G. Hoare

25. 9.1922Joseph M. Golding22. 3.1972J.D. Rothery

20. 5.1929J. Walker

4. 9.1933L. Gobette

 

David Fitch was the son in law of Alfred Moston. He was also a councillor and Mayor of the Municipal Council. Mr. George Bell also served time as the Mayor, and Mr. Golding was a Municipal councillor.

 

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.

lpfw.org/forest-service-to-expedite-logging-and-habitat-c...

 

filmed back in summer of 2016

 

Day 25 of 40

 

Morning was still and silent. After photographing sunrise, I made myself breakfast. As I was eating, the click-clack of carbide tipped hiking poles and boots upon rocks broke the silence mingled with the sound of breathing. Looking up I saw a lone backpacker pass by my campsite from a distance, he rounded the lake and continued over the horizon. He never saw me and not a word was spoken. Then the silence returned.

After packing up I took one last picture of Cotton Lake, one that surpassed the photos I got of the alpine glow. flic.kr/p/SV5TK3

Then, I began hiking, I rounded the lake following the route the other backpacker had taken. The meadowlands became lightly forested. The few trees then dissolved into glacier polished, slab covered mountainside. Dark clouds moved in and filled the bowl of the sky; a gentle breeze rose up and the scent of rain danced upon the air. In the valley below me lay a meadow (named Horse Heaven, 9680, on my map) surrounded by thick forest, hewn in two by Fish Creek snaking through the middle, glinting in rays of sun that spilled though a hole in the clouds. flic.kr/p/SRPBgL

The glacial polished slabs were smooth and slippery, even when dry. I tried to find a route down the slabs that mostly avoided the smooth, shiny sections where a slip was guaranteed. The clouds were struggling to rain, and I got a few brief moments of sprinkles, but none of it lasted. Then off in the distance, a faint, low rumble of thunder resonated, fully and deeply within the granite landscape.

As I navigated the slabs, forest once again closed in, this time thicker than before. The slabs became steeper and more broken, until the slabs ended and soil and pine needles took their place with a few boulders strewn about.

I then reached a gorge with a babbling creek flowing through it. I walked along the edge looking for a way down to the bottom. Upstream from me, a waterfall cascaded down over multiple levels. I worked my way towards it, still looking for a way down to the creek. I finally found a place that provided an easy, safe climb down, but I still had to use all four limbs.

Once at the bottom, I crossed the creek and followed it downstream towards the meadow. I wove my way between trees, through ferns and flowers and around thorny goose berry bushes, snacking on their berries as I went. The pine trees gathered thicker the further downstream I traveled. Then out of the random chaos of trees appeared order; the trees grew up arranged in a circle, the ground cleared of all vegetation in the middle.

Here I stopped, I dropped my pack, sat down in the middle of the circle and took a moment to meditate. Time slowed down and a deeper peace fell over me. The nearby creek murmured, a breeze whispered through the branches, a few more brief moments of rain fell gently upon my skin and a second distant low rumble of thunder rolled.

Then in that moment inspiration struck, I pulled out my notebook and wrote:

...

The Sacred Grove

 

The ancient elders gather

Encircled in a sacred grove

Rain falls entwined with thunder

Roots below, branches above

The murmuring creek, the whispering wind

Ancient wisdom spoken

For those who know how to listen

...

After writing that down I took a little more time to sit and take in the energy of the place. Then I stood back up, put my pack back on, thanked the trees and continued on my way.

Not long after leaving the "sacred" grove behind, the gorge opened and the trees spilled out into a flat open area, then they suddenly ended. I crossed the tree line and entered into the meadow called Horse Heaven. The creek I was following slowed down and spread out into many rivulets, lazily drifting their way over to merged with Fish Creek. Wild onions lined the creek, their wonderful sent wafting to my nose. I pick some to munch on now and tie a bundle to my pack for later. I also refilled my water bottles.

Navigating my way across the many rivulets while trying to keep my shoes dry was nearly impossible, so I decided to just take them off and path-find barefoot. The soft, cushiony grass and cool flowing water felt refreshing on my feet. Once I reach the far side of the meadow and crossed Fish Creek a trail appeared. Here I put my shoes back on and followed the trail on a northwesterly route back into the forest on the opposite side from where I entered the meadow.

A bit later I reached a camping area and a group of people. They had entered at McGee Creek trailhead a few days ago, and had just come over McGee Pass. They asked me about the onions tied to my pack and I offered them some, but only one of them was adventurous enough to try one. After saying goodbye and happy trails I continued on.

A short distance later another meadow opened up on the right side of the trail, this one is called Tully Hole. On the far end of Tully Hole this trail merged with the Pacific Crest and John Muir Trails (9520). From here I took the right fork and began climbing long switchbacks up towards Lake Virginia. As I climbed higher the gentle breeze grew stronger, gusting fiercely, becoming a rushing, roaring wind, that with each breath whipped the grasses bordering the trail and the branches of the trees that lined a creek that tumbled down from above. The clouds began to break, and where now rolling across the sky with their shadows chasing after them. This section of trail was heavily traveled and I came across many interesting people.

(I can now retire my Mono Divide map and begin using my Ansel Adams Wilderness map.)

Once I reached the top of the switchbacks the terrain leveled out and the trail took a pretty direct route to Lake Virginia (10338). The gusting wind was now blowing steadily and the large lake was covered in white caps, with foamy waves lapping the shore. After crossing a creek that flowed into the northeastern end of the lake I turned right, leaving the trail behind. I was once again cross-countying. I made my way between two mountains navigating through the hilly terrain between them. I passed a few small lakes and then pasted through an area littered with obsidian flakes, the shiny, black volcanic glass glinting in the sun, a remnant of ancient Paiute or Mono peoples that frequented this area, either as a seasonal home or as hunting grounds. Then I reach the first of the Glennette Lakes. Here I rested, and ate my last spoonful of peanut butter.

There is a mountain rising to my south whose summit is not on the Ansel Adams Wilderness map nor the Mono Pass map. I can see a patch of snow beneath its peak, half hidden behind a glacial bowl. It appears that there might be some interesting photo opportunities up there, so I have decided to climb up and see.

I left my pack where I rested and made my way towards the peak. The climb started on talus, then turned to slabs, then went back to talus. flic.kr/p/SXhNdS I could hear a stream of melt water flowing beneath the large jagged blocks. Hearing it made me hopeful that when I reached the bowl there would be a pond beneath a large snow patch or glacier with the towering peak looming over it. That would make an excellent photo, especially during alpine glow. When I reached the rim of the glacial bowl and gazed down into its heart, I was disappointed to see just more talus.

For whatever reason going down made the talus blocks way more unstable. There was one block, the size of a large tractor tire, that I gently touched with my foot to test its stability and it gave way; slowly at first as it slid over the polished block beneath it, then as it cleared that one it picked up speed as it started tumbling downhill, dislodging others as it went. The sound of granite on granite reverberated and a large cloud of dust billowed up. It was now a full-fledged rock slide. The rock that started it all hit another large, immovable boulder and with a loud distinct crack, split in two. Finally, they all came to rest upon the slabs below, but the echoes continued to bounce around for a few more seconds. I’m so glad I tested it first before putting all my weight on it. Now I’m not sure I want to continue down, I think I’ll just stay here... Carefully and slowly, I worked my way down, testing the stability of each boulder before I put weight on it. After the first one I caused a few more rock slides until I eventually reached the slabs. Beautiful stable slabs. I climb the rest of the way down following the sound of the water trickling beneath the talus until it broke through onto the surface. I followed the creek the rest of the way back to my gear.

I continued on my way to where I was going to spend the night and as I occasionally do while hiking I turned around to look back at where I had just been to see things from a different perspective and to see if there might be a good photo. This time as I turned around I saw a shadowy figure peering out from behind a rock watching me. It was not a backpacker because there were no features on it as it was only a dark, black mass and it was not an animal because it had a humanoid shape. As soon as I saw it, the spirit ducked back behind the rock. At this point a shiver ran down my spine and all my hairs stood on end.

I then said to the spirit, “I'm here, I mean no offense. What do you want?”

Then a wind picked up and on the breath of breeze I heard a word whispered in my ear, “Aho.”

It was spoken in an airy, wispy voice as wind would speak it but I heard it as clearly as though a person where standing next to me.

I was not sure what to make of it and I still had that uneasy feeling of being watched, so I quickly continued onward in the direction of Ram Lake.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky and sunset was drawing nearer. I worked my way through rolling meadows and meandering creeks and around the multiple Glen and Glennette Lakes. Finally, the sun sank behind the saw-toothed ridge that separated this basin from Duck and Pika Lake. I picked a spot on soft grass near a small "U" shaped pond with fish jumping, to set up camp. I never made it to Ram Lake but I really liked this spot. While I still had some time before the cloak of night descended I tried fishing, but once again I had no luck. I had one more night after this on trail before my next and final resupply and I had some extra meals so I decided to eat one instead of my usual Cliff Bar for dinner.

As I ate the sky darkened and the stars came out. The temperature was dropping quickly so I layered up. After eating I took a quick photo of the peak I climbed earlier when I caused the rock slide, as it still glowed in a faint pale light. Then, I crawled into my sleeping bag, beneath a million stars.

flic.kr/p/ThTytM

...

A year after I had finished this journey I went to the town of Bishop, California to visit the Paiute reservation's museum and visitor center to see if there was someone I could talk to about the encounter I had had at the Glennette Lakes. I was directed to Qwina who owns the only martial art studio in town and his wife, Irma, who runs a healing center out of the same building. I arrived there after the sun had set and while a Kenpo Karate class was going on in the background I spoke to him about what I had seen and heard while we sipped some home grown rose hip and elder berry herbal tea.

Qwina told me it was not uncommon for wilderness travelers to see spirits up in the high mountains, but most of the encounters were usually negative ones because the human would take an artifact that they had found. He told me of one particular time his wife, Irma, the Healer, had met with this one guy who had a large artifact sitting on his desk that he was very proud of. The guy had a broken leg and was experiencing a series of unfortunate events.

The first question that Irma asked him was, “Well, when did you break your leg?”

“The same day I found this.” He said pointing to the artifact on his desk.

She recommended that he return the artifact.

The first question he asked me was, what was I doing before I saw the spirit. I told him that I had just passed through the obsidian field and had climbed up the mountain and about the rock slides I had created on my way down.

He asked me again what word I had heard and I said, “Aho.”

“Aho” he repeated mulling over it. “Aho means a few things. First it means, 'Hey Man, Alright.' As in being accomplished in something. Second, its used when meeting a stranger, as in 'Oh, there you are.' So taking into context what you had been doing before you saw it, the spirit was either saying, 'Hey man, alright you made it down safe.' The other thing is that it might have been lonely because not many people go through that area and those that do probably never respond to it like you did by speaking to it, so it was basically saying, 'Oh, there you are' which is the same as saying, 'hey whats up'. But in this instance it could mean both.”

I thanked Qwina for the translation and Irma for the tea, then I headed to Keough Hot Springs for a soak before going to sleep in my car.

 

the song at the beginning and once i reached safety is from a band called Earth youtu.be/GbPeZMpdSjE

the "horror movie-ish" sounds from climbing down the unstable talus is from the soundtrack to The Dark Knight by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard youtu.be/5wjYL0FwpPg

The other song was performed by a street artist at a street fair in my home town, I picked up his CD for 5$. No contact info came with it and no track titles either.

yes, that's right. boyfriend proposed in Colorado. At Rocky Mountain National Park and it was beautiful and romantic and wonderful.

 

Also, I'm starting a new FULL-TIME job this morning so might not have as much time for my flickr friends 'til my schedule is down and I get used to my new life. Blythe has kept me sane this past year since I lost my job. It's given me focus, a creative outlet, and a community of supportive like-minded people. So thank you. And please forgive me if I lag behind on your streams. I'm going to try my hardest to keep up, because I do find looking at all of your photos to be very therapeutic and relaxing at the end of the day.

 

xoxo

*Libba*

More creatures from the proposed MAGLEV 200 acre train yard proposed to be located on federal (NPS, USFWS, USDA, DOD) lands in Maryland. Very small fly. sitting on the head of a pin. Looks Drosophila like, but completely guessing. Shot by Anders Croft.

 

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All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.

 

Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 200mm Pentax-m with Nikon 10X infinity microscope objective lens mounted on front , Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.6, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200

 

Love for Other Things

 

It’s easy to love a deer

But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees

Love the puddle of lukewarm water

From last week’s rain.

Leave the mountains alone for now.

Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.

People are lined up to admire them.

Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.

Be grateful even for the boredom

That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.

Think of the frost

That will crack our bones eventually.

- Tom Hennen

 

You can also follow us on Instagram account USGSBIML Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:

 

Best over all technical resource for photo stacking

stackingextreme-macro.co.uk

 

Basic USGSBIML set up:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY

 

USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4

 

PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:

ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/How%20to%20Take%20MacroPhotographs%20of%20Insects%20BIML%20Lab2.pdf

 

Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:

plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo

or

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU

 

Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:

www.photomacrography.net/

 

Contact information:

Sam Droege

sdroege@usgs.gov

301 497 5840

 

Lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM

One of a series of proposed redesigns for the Diet Pepsi Can. Note the use of Lubalin & Carnase’s Busorama typeface.

“Nietzsche also proposed a second kind of tourism, whereby we may learn how our societies and identities have been formed by the past and so acquire a sense of continuity and belonging.

 

The person practising this kind of tourism ‘looks beyond his own individual transitory existence and feels himself to be the spirit of his house, his race, his city’.

 

He can gaze at old buildings and feel ‘the happiness of knowing that he is not wholly accidental and arbitrary but grown out of a past as its heir, flower, and fruit, and that his existence is thus excused and indeed justified'.”

 

—The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

 

I was the secret photographer :)

Yellowstone prepared an Environmental Assessment to evaluate potential impacts and determine if the park should authorize a right-of-way (ROW) permit from Diamond Communications, LLC. to install a fiber optic cable along 187 miles of park roads. This map is of the proposed fiber optic network service locations in the park.

Air Draft : Height of the highest fixed point of the vessel above the water line.

 

Air Gap : Clearance from the highest fixed point of the vessel to lowest part of bridge.

 

Beam : Width of the vessel.

 

Draft : Depth of vessel’s hull below the waterline.

 

Freeboard : Height of vessel’s deck above the waterline.

 

Length : Overall length of the vessel.

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Bergerson Construction Inc.

 

Olaf J - Tugboat

Length Overall (LOA) : 48.6 feet

Beam : 16.1 feet

Draft : 5.7 feet

Air Draft : 35 feet

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In 1922, community leaders in Sellwood organized to pursue the construction of a bridge to replace the aging Sellwood ferry, but this plan was opposed by the Portland Planning Bureau, noting that the “proposed bridge would only serve a sparsely settled area largely outside of the city limits” (The Oregonian, March 23, 1922). The report advised careful scrutiny of all major investments in the post-war era, noting that a new bridge at Sellwood was not as high a priority as other bridges closer to the city’s business center (The Oregonian, March 22, 1922).

 

However, the Sellwood Club remained active in promoting the idea of a bridge to replace the ferry, and petitioned the county commissioners to place the issue on the ballot.

 

In July 1922 there were plans for a $1 million dollar span at Sellwood, but by September economics led to a shift to save money by re-using spans from the 1894 Burnside Bridge, which was to be replaced by a new bascule bridge (The Oregonian, October 1, 1922). Sellwood Bridge proponents noted that a crossing at Sellwood – at a narrow section of the Willamette River - could be significantly cheaper than competing bridge options at other locations, (The Oregonian, September 15, 1922) and the ability to reuse the spans from the old Burnside bridge would be a cost effective way to create two river crossings. It was also argued that the new Sellwood Bridge would actually save money in the long run, with annual maintenance costs being $7,000 per year cheaper than the current "antiquated and inadequate" ferry service (The Oregonian, October 24, 1923).

 

Voters passed several bonds between 1922 and 1924 to pay for three spans across the Willamette: a rebuilt Burnside Bridge and two new "high spans" to be located at Sellwood and Ross Island. The $5 million bridge program was reputed to be “the most extensive bridge programme of any city in America” (The Oregonian, January 1, 1924).

 

The original designs for the new bridges came from the firm Hedrick & Kremers. The Sellwood Bridge was to make use of the recycled through-truss spans from the Burnside Bridge, while the Ross Island Bridge would be a “high and massive [causeway] of reinforced concrete.” The new Burnside span was also to be made of concrete (The Oregonian, January 1, 1924).

 

Although many members of the public preferred the concrete designs, the Ross Island and Burnside bridges would later be changed to steel due to concrete’s higher cost.

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Moving the 1100-foot long truss span to set up a detour bridge was another milestone in the effort to replace Multnomah County’s 87-year old Sellwood Bridge. The truss span was moved on Saturday, January 19, 2013. Moving it north created space for the new Sellwood Bridge to be built in the alignment of the old bridge.

 

The 3400-ton truss span was one of the longest bridge parts ever moved. The age and shape of the truss combined with the curved path of the move made it a highly complex undertaking.

 

Setting up the detour bridge required the Sellwood Bridge to be closed to all users – motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists – from January 17 to January 23. Originally, the project team had planned for the bridge to be closed until January 24, but it opened one day early after a successful move.

 

The actual move only took about 14 hours, but the extra closure days were needed to install road connections at each end of the truss span and complete an in-depth inspection of the detour bridge before it opened to traffic. The detour bridge is now carrying motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians across the river until the new Sellwood Bridge opens in the summer of 2015.

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Sellwood’s Steel Truss Span:

 

The existing steel truss span is a continuous structure about 1100 feet long.

 

The structure is a four-span continuous truss. The steel structure consists of four spans between support piers but is continuous over the entire 1100-foot length with no hinges or expansion joints.

 

Four-span continuous trusses are exceedingly rare. We’re aware of only a couple of others in the United States. Sellwood’s designer, Gustav Lindenthal (world-famous bridge engineer from New York), chose a continuous truss design to minimize the amount of steel. A small budget required an economical design.

 

In its original position the truss was supported on five concrete piers, three in the river and two at the east and west shorelines. Lengths of the four spans from west to east are about 245 feet, 300 feet, 300 feet and 246 feet.

 

At each of the five piers, the truss was supported on two large steel bearings, with one bearing under the north side of the truss and one under the south side.

 

The individual parts of the steel truss were fabricated in 1924 at Judson Manufacturing Company in Emeryville, California. Sellwood was one of the first large steel bridges in the Portland area that was fabricated on the West Coast. Steel bridges older than Sellwood were generally fabricated in Pennsylvania or other eastern states.

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Why Move the Truss?

 

The Sellwood truss was moved (or “translated,” as engineers and construction crews say) sideways to a new location north of the existing bridge to serve as a temporary detour structure while the new Sellwood Bridge is built at the original bridge location.

 

At the new location, the truss is supported on five temporary steel “bents” or piers. The contractor installed the new bents at the same spacings as the existing concrete piers. The new bents support the truss at the same 10 bearing points (two per bent) where the original concrete piers supported it.

 

The entire 1100-foot long, four-span truss was moved sideways to its new location as a single unit. The bridge was moved in a horizontal slide, rather than a vertical pick-and-move.

While translation of shorter bridges is quite common, it is highly unusual to translate a multi-span bridge of this length in one piece. Considering the rarity of four-span bridges, the Sellwood move could be the first time such an operation has been performed for a structure of this type. Comparisons with similar projects have been difficult to find.

 

Due to the necessary locations of the temporary east and west approaches to the detour bridge, the location of the truss after its move is at a “skew” to its original alignment. The east end of the truss moved north about 33 feet and the west end moved north about 66 feet. This means that the truss traveled along a curved path as it was translated.

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Who Moved the Truss Span?

 

The translation operation was carried out by two contractors working together: the Slayden/Sundt Joint Venture and Omega Morgan. Omega Morgan is an Oregon subcontractor that worked for Slayden/Sundt.

 

The Slayden/Sundt Joint Venture is Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC) for the entire Sellwood Bridge replacement project. The joint venture consists of Slayden, a Stayton, Oregon-based heavy construction contractor, and Sundt, an Arizona-based general contractor.

 

Slayden/Sundt (SSJV) had overall responsibility for the translation operation and performed portions of the translation-related work with their own crews and equipment.

 

Omega Morgan is a Hillsboro-based contractor involved in transporting and handling heavy equipment and structures. As a subcontractor, Omega Morgan provided specialized equipment for the translation and planned and directed the translation operation.

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Methods and Equipment:

 

Since the truss span is continuous over its full 1100-foot length, it was important to support the truss at its 10 main bearing points (two per pier) throughout the move. Otherwise the load-carrying capacity of truss parts could have been exceeded.

 

To support the truss at all 10 bearing points during translation, the contractor installed steel “translation beams” from the five old concrete piers to the five new temporary steel piers.

 

Two translation beams were used at each pier to accommodate Omega Morgan’s “skidding” (or sliding) equipment. One translation beam was positioned on either side (east and west) of the bearings that support the truss on the piers.

 

Omega Morgan’s equipment lifted the truss off the concrete piers, then slid the truss along the translation beams to the steel temporary bents. Hydraulic jacks pushed the truss on its journey. Omega Morgan has used this equipment regularly for operations such as moving newly-built barges at the Port of Portland and loading container cranes on barges at ports.

 

Some of the same equipment was used to load the arch span for the new Sauvie Island Bridge onto a barge in 2007 in preparation for moving it to the bridge site.

 

To prepare for the truss-sliding operation, Omega Morgan first installed U-shaped “track beams” on top of the translation beams from the concrete piers to the steel bents. Teflon pads were glued to the track beams to provide slick sliding surfaces.

 

To actually lift and slide the bridge truss, Omega Morgan used their standard “skid beams.” The skid beams were 14-foot long ski-shaped steel units that slid on the Teflon pads in the track beams. Four skid beams were used at each of the concrete piers, with two of the skid beams located at the north side bridge bearing and two at the south side bearing. At each bridge bearing, the two skid beams sat on the track beams on the east and west sides of the bearing.

 

For the Sellwood operation, each skid beam had two vertically-oriented 150-ton capacity hydraulic jacks for lifting the truss off the concrete piers and lowering it onto the temporary steel piers. With two skid beams at each bearing, this meant that four jacks lifted the truss at each bearing.

 

Since there are 10 bearings in total (two per pier), 40 jacks were used to lift the truss. At each of the three river piers, the weight of the truss (including concrete roadway deck) was about 900 tons. At each of the end piers, the bridge weight was about 340 tons. The total weight of the truss span was estimated to be about 3400 tons.

 

In preparation for the lifting and translation operations, the contractor installed custom-designed steel “cradles” at each truss bearing (10 cradles total). The cradles carried the weight of the truss from the bearing to the four lifting jacks.

 

To move the skid beams and truss along the track beams, Omega Morgan used 10 horizontally-oriented 75-ton capacity hydraulic jacks to push on the south side skid beams. The north skid beams and south skid beams were tied together to assure that they moved together.

 

The pushing jacks were pinned to the rear ends of the skid beams and pushed against clips on the sides on the track beams. Due to the slick surface provided by the Teflon pads in the track beams, only a small part of the pushing jack capacity was needed to move the truss. The pushing jacks could also have been used to pull back in case a skid beam moved too far.

 

The truss moved along a curved path due to the skewed alignment of the detour bridge relative to the original bridge. The steel translation beams were designed to account for this curve. The truss shifted sideways about 33 feet northward at the east end and 66 feet at the west end.

 

To move the truss along the curved path, Omega Morgan controlled the pushing jacks such that the jacks at the west end pushed twice as fast as the east end jacks, with the jacks at the other three points pushing at proportional rates. To accomplish this, Omega Morgan used a “digitally-controlled power pack” that controlled the amount of hydraulic fluid going to each jack.

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Monitoring the Move:

 

The truss moved at different rates along each of the translation beam pairs in order to move on a curved path. Omega Morgan and the general contractor monitored the progress of the truss in two ways:

 

With marks on the translation beams or track beams. Before translation started, each beam was marked to show how far the truss had progressed at any given point in time. During translation, Omega Morgan stopped moving the truss periodically to allow staff to determine the truss location on each beam. The actual locations were compared to figures on an “offset table” to make sure the truss was moving at the desired rate at each beam.

 

A surveying subcontractor on land monitored locations of targets at the bearing points on the truss.

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Additional Monitoring for the Truss:

 

The Sellwood truss is a long, slender structure with a finite amount of inherent strength. Truss members could have been damaged if the truss was bent or twisted excessively during translation. A number of measures were taken to minimize the potential for damage:

 

An engineering firm on the County’s team analyzed the truss to see how much it could be bent or twisted without causing damage. Based on results of the analysis, “tolerance limits” were established for the permissible amount of deformation from vertical bending, horizontal bending and twist.

 

During translation, the contractor team used three methods to check the amount of deformation in the truss:

Marks on the translation beams or track beams as described above. The contractor team periodically checked the actual location of the truss along the beams against numbers on the “offset table” to see if the truss was within tolerance for sideways bending.

 

Laser instruments attached to the truss itself with laser beams aligned along the truss. The contractor monitored the laser beams at each truss support point to make sure the truss stayed in a straight line up and down as well as sideways.

 

Visual surveying by a subcontractor with an instrument set up on shore. The survey program mentioned above provided data on truss shape as well as on truss location.

 

In addition to deformation checks by the contractor team, Multnomah County staff also did the following:

GPS surveying by a County engineering team.

Strain gauge measurements on truss members. A local engineering firm specializing in monitoring stresses in bridges and other structures installed electrical strain gauges on critical truss members. These gauges measured deformations in the members during translation. Engineers on the County team set limits on the amount of allowable strain.

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Attaching the Truss to the Detour Bridge Piers:

 

Once the truss reached its final location over the detour bridge piers, the span was lowered about two inches onto temporary bearings. The 150-ton vertical jacks on the skid beams were used to lower the truss span. The temporary bearings are steel plates installed at the correct heights to support the truss span.

 

At Detour Bridge Pier 19 (in the center of the truss and river), steel guide bars attached to the pier top bearings surround the truss bearings to keep them from moving in any direction. At the other four temporary piers, the truss bearings are held in place with guide bars on the north and south sides but are allowed to slide back and forth in the east/west direction as the truss expands and contracts due to temperature changes. To allow the truss bearings to slide freely on the pier top bearings, Teflon pads ride on stainless steel sheets between the bearing surfaces.

 

The old Sellwood Bridge was also designed to allow for this natural expansion and contraction of several inches. For the old bridge, steel rockers were used to allow east/west movement rather than Teflon pads.

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Safety Inspection After the Move:

 

Immediately after the translation was completed and before public traffic was allowed on the truss, a team of experienced bridge inspectors from a Northwest consulting firm inspected the structure to see if any damage occurred during the move.

 

This inspector team was very familiar with the Sellwood truss since they had inspected it numerous times over the years, including a “pre-translation” inspection to establish a baseline for the post-translation inspection.

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The New Sellwood Bridge was built to withstand a major earthquake:

 

The March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan is a reminder of the importance of building structures so they can survive a major earthquake. Many scientists believe that the Pacific Northwest is overdue for the same type of seismic event that struck the

 

Japanese coast (a subduction zone or "megathrust" earthquake) where sustained shaking of the ground can cause extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure. The recent Japanese earthquake was magnitude 9.0. The last megathrust earthquake in this region was the Cascadia earthquake in 1700, which had a magnitude 8.7 to 9.2.

 

In the event of a megathrust earthquake in Portland, it's possible that many of the existing Willamette River bridges would be un-usable for a period of time afterward. The fastest recent major bridge replacement in the U.S. took 13 months (following the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007). All of our existing Willamette River bridges were built before local seismic risks were well understood.

 

Both the Burnside and Marquam bridges have had seismic upgrades in recent decades, but no upgrade can match the built-in strength of a new bridge designed to today's modern seismic standards.

 

The good news is that the new Sellwood Bridge was designed to the latest seismic standards and construction engineering. Bridge engineers took into account all the potential seismic conditions in the region and at the Sellwood Bridge's specific site.

 

The new Sellwood Bridge was designed to address both 500 and 1,000-year recurrence period earthquakes. The seismic goal is for the new Sellwood Bridge to remain standing through an earthquake that is equal to the largest felt here in the last 1,000 years. The 500-year standard is for a smaller earthquake. In that case, the bridge would not only remain standing after the earthquake but would need only moderate repairs after the event.

 

A major earthquake in Portland is a scary scenario. We all depend on safe travel across the bridges in our region. Those that are built to modern seismic standards – such as the new Sellwood Bridge – offer the best hope for continued safe river crossings following a major earthquake.

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The old bridge's deficiencies were linked to the past:

 

The Sellwood Bridge was constructed in 1925 to replace the Spokane Street Ferry, which shuttled passengers across the Willamette River between Sellwood and West Portland. The bridge was designed by Gustav Lindenthal, a noted bridge engineer of the time, and--like the Ross Island and Burnside bridges--was built with funds from a $4.5 million local bond measure.

 

In response to public outcry at budget overruns on the Burnside Bridge, the Sellwood Bridge design was scaled back to minimize cost. With a construction cost of just $541,000, the scaled-down design resulted in a number of limitations. The bridge is extremely narrow: two lanes, no shoulders or median, and one 4-foot-wide sidewalk.

 

The Sellwood Bridge was the only four-span continuous truss highway bridge in Oregon and possibly in the nation. (A continuous truss requires fewer parts and is cheaper to construct than other bridge types.) It was also Portland’s first “fixed span” bridge across the Willamette (meaning it was high enough to avoid the need to “open” for river traffic). It was Portland’s first Willamette bridge without trolley tracks. Because it was not designed for the additional weight of streetcars, the structure itself was not as substantial as the city’s other river crossings.

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Geological challenges that affected the bridge structure:

 

In addition to these design limitations, the bridge also had topographical challenges. The west end of the bridge was constructed on fill material and was located in an area that is geologically unstable. The hillside above the bridge is slowly sliding toward the river, exerting pressure on the west end of the bridge. In fact, in the late 1950s, the hillside actually slid several feet toward the bridge. As a result, a section of the bridge had to be removed and foundations were reinforced. The west end interchange with Highway 43 was completely rebuilt in 1980. Since then, ground movement has caused the west end approach girders to crack. The bridge was also not designed to withstand a significant earthquake.

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Continued problems and short-term solutions:

 

Multnomah County continued to take steps to prolong the safe use of the bridge until a long-term solution could be found. In June 2004 after the discovery of the cracks in both the east and west concrete approaches, cracks were restrained with steel clamps and the weight limit for vehicles traveling across the bridge was reduced from 32 tons to 10 tons. This limit caused the diversion of 94 daily TriMet bus trips (a loaded bus weighs about 19 tons), which formerly crossed the bridge. A 2005 engineering study recommended short-term safety improvements for the bridge, which resulted in epoxy being injected into cracks in the girders and columns. The county also inspected the Sellwood Bridge every 3 months to monitor the cracks and slope to ensure the bridge was safe to use.

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Existing Bridge Deficiencies:

 

Buses and trucks are restricted from using the bridge

Narrow lanes

Narrow sidewalk

No shoulders

No bike facilities and poor connections to trail system

Bridge not designed to withstand earthquakes

Tight turns at west end

Unstable slope at west end

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The New Bridge and Interchange:

 

Steel Deck Arch

A detour bridge carried traffic until the new bridge opened in 2016.

The new Sellwood Bridge has a steel deck arch design, with three arches supporting the deck of the main river spans.

The new bridge is 1,976 feet long, including the main river spans and the east and west approaches. The three main river spans alone are 1,275 feet long.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why a Steel Deck Arch?

 

A steel deck arch design was recommended by the Community Advisory Committee and confirmed by the Board of County Commissioners. Benefits of the design that were noted include:

 

Arched form fits the natural setting

Appropriate to neighborhood scale

Open steel structure echoes character of the first bridge

Top-ranked bridge type in public on-line survey

Adds to city's unique bridge collection

Can be built within the established budget

Has high technical performance

Sustainable – components are made of recycled steel

Provides employment opportunities for local firms to build

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Locally Preferred Alternative:

 

The Locally Preferred Alternative, selected in 2009, determined that the new Sellwood Bridge would:

 

Be built in its current alignment and widened 15 feet to the south to allow for continuous traffic flow during construction

Be 64 feet at a cross-section of its narrowest point: two 12-foot travel lanes, two 12-foot shared use sidewalks, and two 6.5-foot bike lanes/emergency shoulders

Include a grade-separated and signalized interchange at the OR 43 (SW Macadam Avenue) intersection on the west end

Include a pedestrian-activated signal at the intersection of SE Tacoma Street and SE 6th Avenue on the east end

Be consistent with the Tacoma Main Street Plan

Restore bus and truck traffic; and accommodate possible future streetcar

Extensive public outreach occurred during the selection of the Locally Preferred Alternative to ensure that the public was involved in the process in a meaningful way.

 

After the planning process was complete, including the necessary approvals from state and federal agencies, Multnomah County and its partners sought to reduce the project costs and shrink the overall footprint, particularly at the west end connection with Highway 43. Planners succeeded in trimming the project back and reducing environmental impacts while maintaining multimodal functionality, safety and traffic performance.

 

Refinements made to the Locally Preferred Alternative, approved by the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners in 2011, include:

 

Compressed interchange design that saves money and shifts project away from hillside

Reduction in size of the west end rock cut by 50% (40 feet high rather than 80 feet high)

Alignment revision to accommodate future streetcar at a safer location

Bicycle/pedestrian spiral ramps replaced with switchback ramps

Less impact to Riverview Cemetery

Recommended in 1856, controversy surrounded this light before construction had even began and completed in 1860. Decisions on the need for a light and its location were made without even consulting the Pilots Board, the controlling authority, about the efficiency of a light at that location.

The problem was that the light was could not be visible from the Northern approach to Jervis Bay, and would barely be visible from the southern approach. Furthermore, the original map and marking of the proposed lighthouse location were so inaccurate that later there were doubts as whether the light had been erected on the selected sight. On top of this inaccuracy the contractor seems to have built the light closer to the quarry he was obtaining the stone from! In fact when inspected by members of the Pilots board it was found to be two and a half miles north of the intended site.

A Select Committee was established by the New South Wales Government to investigate the errors in locating the lighthouse.

From 1864 to 1893 there were twenty three ships wrecked on the South Coast of NSW in the vicinity of Jervis Bay.

The light was eventually replaced in 1889 by a new lighthouse at Point Perpendicular, a much more suitable location for a lighthouse on this part of the coast. The lantern was removed and later used in the Crookhaven Heads Lighthouse built in 1904.

After the commissioning of the new light it was considered that the confusion of having two towers in close proximity to one another would be a hazard to mariner in daylight. As a result, the Cape St George Tower was unceremoniously used from 1917 to 1922 for target practice by the Australian Navy and destroyed.

Source: www.lighthouses.org.au/lights/NSW/Cape%20St%20George/Cape...

St. Paul, Minnesota

 

January 21, 2017

 

Over 90,000 people gathered in St. Paul and marched to the Minnesota capitol to protest Republican President Donald Trump. This protest was in solidarity with the national Women's March on Washington DC. The protesters spoke out against Trump's proposed policies and decried the rhetoric of the 2016 election for being insulting and threatening to women.

 

2017-01-21 This is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Give attribution to: Fibonacci Blue

This is one of two towers for the new luxurious condominiums know as The Infinity. The property is located in the Embarcadero area of San Francisco. The starting cost are in the mid $500,000 range with breathtaking views of the San Francisco Bay and the surrounding city. This Tower has 37 floors, while the adjacent tower has 42 floors.

 

To get a breathtaking view of the 42nd floor click on the link below:

 

www.the-infinity.com/views/fortytwo.aspx

Proposed environmental artwork for East Kilbride, Scotland - 1975

Sounds of the Earth, ringing the planet, come to the surface, and for just a few moments become concrete.

 

Full details at stanbonnar.net/1973-1977/

The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street. It contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses.

 

The first area in London known as Chinatown was located in the Limehouse area of the East End of London. At the start of the 20th century, the Chinese population of London was concentrated in that area, setting up businesses which catered to the Chinese sailors who frequented in Docklands. The area began to become known through exaggerated reports and tales of (the then-legal) opium dens and slum housing, rather than the Chinese restaurants and supermarkets in the current Chinatown. However, much of the area was damaged by aerial bombing during the Blitz in the Second World War, although a number of elderly Chinese still choose to live in this area. After the Second World War, however, the growing popularity of Chinese cuisine and an influx of immigrants from Hong Kong led to an increasing number of Chinese restaurants being opened elsewhere.

 

The present Chinatown, which is off Shaftesbury Avenue did not start to be established until the 1970s. Up until then, it was a regular Soho area, run-down, with Gerrard Street the main thoroughfare. It was dominated by the Post Office, facing Macclesfield Street, and other major establishments were The Tailor & Cutter House, at 43/44, now a Chinese supermarket and restaurant, the Boulougne Restaurant, near the Wardour Street end, and by Peter Mario's Restaurant at the other end. Other businesses included a master baker's, the Sari Centre, Lesgrain French Coffee House, Harrison Marks' Glamour Studio, an Indian restaurant and various brothels. Probably the first Chinese restaurants opened in Lisle Street, parallel to Gerrard St, and then spread gradually. The Tailor & Cutter did not close down until around 1974.

 

The area boasts over 80 restaurants showcasing some of London's finest and most authentic Asian cuisine.

 

In 2005, the property developer Rosewheel proposed a plan to redevelop the eastern part of Chinatown. The plan was opposed by many of the existing retailers in Chinatown, as they believe that the redevelopment will drive out the traditional Chinese retail stores from the area and change the ethnic characteristic of Chinatown.

 

The London Chinatown Community Centre (LCCC) has been housed in the Chinatown area since it was founded in 1980 by Dr Abraham Lue. The Centre claims to have received 40,000 people for help and assistance since its foundation. Located since 1998 on the 2nd floor of 28-29 Gerrard Street, the Centre relocated to 2 Leicester Court in 2012, above the Hippodrome Casino.

  

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_London

I had the pleasure of photographing some friends as they got engaged. it was an extremely emotional experience. Full post here: www.georgeweissthethird.com/tina-bob-phildelphia-proposal/

Je vous propose un peu de macro pour aujourd'hui avec cette photo de serpolet.

 

I propose you a little of macro for today with this photo of wild thyme.

So here is the original idea that was drawn out for Dyer, Indiana interlocking as of August 15th, 1902. The Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville (Monon) would run north to south crossing the east to west Elgin, Joliet & Eastern and Michigan Central mainlines. Connections were to be from the CI&L to the EJ&E (S/E quadrant, which was actually approved and built), CI&L to the EJ&E (S/W quadrant) and CI&L to MC (S/W quadrant, which would have come off of the interchange to the J and cross the J to the MC). A total of 5 bridges over Plum Creek would have had to have been constructed.

Interlocking Machine was as follows:

 

14 levers for 14 semaphores

5 levers for 5 dwarf signals

5 levers for 9 derails

2 levers for 2 switches

26 Working Levers

4 spaces occupied by 11, 13, 16 & 19

30 Lever Frame Machine

The facing locks on 2 EJ&E switches to be handled by levers operating switches.

 

Proposed Plan of Tracks and Signals

Crossing of CI&L with EJ&E and MC Ry's

Taylor Signal Company

August 15th, 1902

Too late folks. The Public Hearing has come and gone.

Explore#498 on Dec 1, 2007 .

 

fashion-style-glam.blogspot.com.es/2017/02/i-propose.html

“Nietzsche also proposed a second kind of tourism, whereby we may learn how our societies and identities have been formed by the past and so acquire a sense of continuity and belonging.

 

The person practising this kind of tourism ‘looks beyond his own individual transitory existence and feels himself to be the spirit of his house, his race, his city’.

 

He can gaze at old buildings and feel ‘the happiness of knowing that he is not wholly accidental and arbitrary but grown out of a past as its heir, flower, and fruit, and that his existence is thus excused and indeed justified'.”

 

—The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

 

Palazzo del Provveditore, commonly known as the Venetian Palace, was a royal palace in Famagusta, originally built by the Lusignan Kings of Cyprus. It was later modified and used as the governor's official residence during the Venetian rule. The central sections of the palace have been completely destroyed, with only its grand facade and back courtyard walls being left.

 

Lusignan kings used Famagusta as their second place of residence, in addition to Nicosia. The exact year when the palace was first built remains uncertain, however, most resources have adopted the years 1300-1302, reported by Genoese official Lamberto di Sambuceto, who used the term "palace of the King of Cyprus" (Latin: domini regis Cipri) to refer to the building. The king responsible for its construction is also uncertain. Camille Enlart has proposed Henry II.

 

The Venetians greatly renovated the palace, along with the city's walls and other public spaces. The front facade and the back of the palace was completely changed. Architecturally, the Gothic features were replaced with Italian Renaissance architecture. This occurred in the 16th century, and the precise dates given by Selton and Hazard are 1552-1554.

 

Most sources hold that the central sections were destroyed during the Siege of Famagusta in 1571, despite Ottoman descriptions of the palace in 1571 making no mention of any destruction. Structures of the palace were used as military barracks, a prison and a site for military drills during the Ottoman rule, leading to the building losing its importance in the urban fabric. There is no indication of any restoration during this time. During the British rule, the building was used as a prison and police headquarters for some time. In mid-20th century, the remaining structures were evacuated, parts converted into the Namık Kemal Dungeon Museum and the courtyard used for display of military equipment. Some modern cannons, cannonballs and "pieces of a large granite column" are currently displayed in the courtyard.

 

The palace is a rare example of Renaissance architecture in Cyprus. The surviving parts are the front facade, with its three arches and a coat of arms on the middle arch, an "arm" attached to this to the southeast, a chapel and an L-shaped wall at the very back of the courtyard. The arch at the front was made from material from Salamis: both the columns and the stones originate from there.

 

Behind the facade are a number of arches that run parallel to it and are very plain in comparison. It has been proposed that these are remnants of the original Lusignan palace. In the "arm" attached are small rooms facing the courtyard that have been used as prisons or arsenals and shops accessible from the street in the ground floor, an Ottoman-era structure used by the Department of Antiquities and some structures built in mid-20th century. Cross vaults and walls thicker than a metre in some of the shops indicate elements that predate the Venetian rule in these structures.

 

There is evidence that the chapel has been modified over time. The chapel had been used as a museum up to 1974 and had been restored between 1930 and 1950. The L-shaped walls date to the Venetian era. Enlart has proposed that parts of this may have surrounded a great hall.

 

Not much is known about the destroyed parts of the palace. Work by the Department of Antiquities has shown the presence of cisterns. Engravings and the account of a 15th-century traveler indicate that the palace had two floors, even though the current entrance only has one floor. In an engraving dated to 1571, a balcony was shown in the front of the palace.

 

Famagusta is a city on the east coast of the de facto state Northern Cyprus. It is located east of Nicosia and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice), Famagusta was the island's most important port city and a gateway to trade with the ports of the Levant, from where the Silk Road merchants carried their goods to Western Europe. The old walled city and parts of the modern city are de facto part of Northern Cyprus as the capital of the Gazimağusa District.

 

The city was known as Arsinoe or Arsinoë (Greek: Ἀρσινόη, Arsinóē) in antiquity, after Ptolemy II of Egypt's sister and wife Arsinoe II.

 

By the 3rd century, the city appears as Ammochostos (Greek: Ἀμμόχωστος or Αμμόχωστος, Ammókhōstos, "Hidden in Sand") in the Stadiasmus Maris Magni.[5] This name is still used in modern Greek with the pronunciation [aˈmːoxostos], while it developed into Latin Fama Augusta, French Famagouste, Italian Famagosta, and English Famagusta during the medieval period. Its informal modern Turkish name Mağusa (Turkish pronunciation: [maˈusa]) came from the same source. Since 1974, it has formally been known to Turkey and Northern Cyprus as Gazimağusa ([ɡaːzimaˈusa]), from the addition of the title gazi, meaning "veteran" or "one who has faught in a holy war".

 

In the early medieval period, the city was also known as New Justiniana (Greek: Νέα Ἰουστινιανία, Néa Ioustinianía) in appreciation for the patronage of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, whose wife Theodora was born there.

 

The old town of Famagusta has also been nicknamed "the City of 365 Churches" from the legend that, at its peak, it boasted a church for every day of the year.

 

The city was founded around 274 BC, after the serious damage to Salamis by an earthquake, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and named "Arsinoe" after his sister.[6] Arsinoe was described as a "fishing town" by Strabo in his Geographica in the first century BC. In essence, Famagusta was the successor of the most famous and most important ancient city of Cyprus, Salamis. According to Greek mythology, Salamis was founded after the end of the Trojan War by Teucros, the son of Telamon and brother of Aedes, from the Greek island of Salamis.

 

The city experienced great prosperity much later, during the time of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. To honor the city, from which his wife Theodora came, Justinian enriched it with many buildings, while the inhabitants named it New Justiniania to express their gratitude. In AD 647, when the neighboring cities were destroyed by Arab raiding, the inhabitants of these cities moved to Famagusta, as a result of which the city's population increased significantly and the city experienced another boom.

 

Later, when Jerusalem was occupied by the Arabs, the Christian population fled to Famagusta, as a result of which the city became an important Christian center, but also one of the most important commercial centers in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

The turning point for Famagusta was 1192 with the onset of Lusignan rule. It was during this period that Famagusta developed as a fully-fledged town. It increased in importance to the Eastern Mediterranean due to its natural harbour and the walls that protected its inner town. Its population began to increase. This development accelerated in the 13th century as the town became a centre of commerce for both the East and West. An influx of Christian refugees fleeing the downfall of Acre (1291) in Palestine transformed it from a tiny village into one of the richest cities in Christendom.

 

In 1372 the port was seized by Genoa and in 1489 by Venice. This commercial activity turned Famagusta into a place where merchants and ship owners led lives of luxury. By the mid-14th century, Famagusta was said to have the richest citizens in the world. The belief that people's wealth could be measured by the churches they built inspired these merchants to have churches built in varying styles. These churches, which still exist, were the reason Famagusta came to be known as "the district of churches". The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centred upon the Lusignan palace, the cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

 

In 1570–1571, Famagusta was the last stronghold in Venetian Cyprus to hold out against the Turks under Mustafa Pasha. It resisted a siege of thirteen months and a terrible bombardment, until at last the garrison surrendered. The Ottoman forces had lost 50,000 men, including Mustafa Pasha's son. Although the surrender terms had stipulated that the Venetian forces be allowed to return home, the Venetian commander, Marco Antonio Bragadin, was flayed alive, his lieutenant Tiepolo was hanged, and many other Christians were killed.

 

With the advent of the Ottoman rule, Latins lost their privileged status in Famagusta and were expelled from the city. Greek Cypriots natives were at first allowed to own and buy property in the city, but were banished from the walled city in 1573–74 and had to settle outside in the area that later developed into Varosha. Turkish families from Anatolia were resettled in the walled city but could not fill the buildings that previously hosted a population of 10,000. This caused a drastic decrease in the population of Famagusta. Merchants from Famagusta, who mostly consisted of Latins that had been expelled, resettled in Larnaca and as Larnaca flourished, Famagusta lost its importance as a trade centre. Over time, Varosha developed into a prosperous agricultural town thanks to its location away from the marshes, whilst the walled city remained dilapidated.

 

In the walled city, some buildings were repurposed to serve the interests of the Muslim population: the Cathedral of St. Nicholas was converted to a mosque (now known as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque), a bazaar was developed, public baths, fountains and a theological school were built to accommodate the inhabitants' needs. Dead end streets, an Ottoman urban characteristic, was imported to the city and a communal spirit developed in which a small number of two-storey houses inhabited by the small upper class co-existed with the widespread one-storey houses.

 

With the British takeover, Famagusta regained its significance as a port and an economic centre and its development was specifically targeted in British plans. As soon as the British took over the island, a Famagusta Development Act was passed that aimed at the reconstruction and redevelopment of the city's streets and dilapidated buildings as well as better hygiene. The port was developed and expanded between 1903 and 1906 and Cyprus Government Railway, with its terminus in Famagusta, started construction in 1904. Whilst Larnaca continued to be used as the main port of the island for some time, after Famagusta's use as a military base in World War I trade significantly shifted to Famagusta. The city outside the walls grew at an accelerated rate, with development being centred around Varosha. Varosha became the administrative centre as the British moved their headquarters and residences there and tourism grew significantly in the last years of the British rule. Pottery and production of citrus and potatoes also significantly grew in the city outside the walls, whilst agriculture within the walled city declined to non-existence.

 

New residential areas were built to accommodate the increasing population towards the end of the British rule,[11] and by 1960, Famagusta was a modern port city extending far beyond Varosha and the walled city.

 

The British period saw a significant demographic shift in the city. In 1881, Christians constituted 60% of the city's population while Muslims were at 40%. By 1960, the Turkish Cypriot population had dropped to 17.5% of the overall population, while the Greek Cypriot population had risen to 70%. The city was also the site for one of the British internment camps for nearly 50,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust trying to emigrate to Palestine.

 

From independence in 1960 to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus of 1974, Famagusta developed toward the south west of Varosha as a well-known entertainment and tourist centre. The contribution of Famagusta to the country's economic activity by 1974 far exceeded its proportional dimensions within the country. Whilst its population was only about 7% of the total of the country, Famagusta by 1974 accounted for over 10% of the total industrial employment and production of Cyprus, concentrating mainly on light industry compatible with its activity as a tourist resort and turning out high-quality products ranging from food, beverages and tobacco to clothing, footwear, plastics, light machinery and transport equipment. It contributed 19.3% of the business units and employed 21.3% of the total number of persons engaged in commerce on the island. It acted as the main tourist destination of Cyprus, hosting 31.5% of the hotels and 45% of Cyprus' total bed capacity. Varosha acted as the main touristic and business quarters.

 

In this period, the urbanisation of Famagusta slowed down and the development of the rural areas accelerated. Therefore, economic growth was shared between the city of Famagusta and the district, which had a balanced agricultural economy, with citrus, potatoes, tobacco and wheat as main products. Famagusta maintained good communications with this hinterland. The city's port remained the island's main seaport and in 1961, it was expanded to double its capacity in order to accommodate the growing volume of exports and imports. The port handled 42.7% of Cypriot exports, 48.6% of imports and 49% of passenger traffic.

 

There has not been an official census since 1960 but the population of the town in 1974 was estimated to be around 39,000 not counting about 12,000–15,000 persons commuting daily from the surrounding villages and suburbs to work in Famagusta. The number of people staying in the city would swell to about 90,000–100,000 during the peak summer tourist period, with the influx of tourists from numerous European countries, mainly Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The majority of the city population were Greek Cypriots (26,500), with 8,500 Turkish Cypriots and 4,000 people from other ethnic groups.

 

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 the Mesaoria plain was overrun by Turkish tanks and Famagusta was bombed by Turkish aircraft. It took two days for the Turkish Army to occupy the city, prior to which Famagusta's entire Greek Cypriot population had fled into surrounding fields. As a result of Turkish airstrikes dozens of civilians died, including tourists.

 

Unlike other parts of the Turkish-controlled areas of Cyprus, the Varosha suburb of Famagusta was fenced off by the Turkish army immediately after being captured and remained fenced off until October 2020, when the TRNC reopened some streets to visitors. Some Greek Cypriots who had fled Varosha have been allowed to view the town and journalists have been allowed in.

 

UN Security Council resolution 550 (1984) considers any attempts to settle any part of Famagusta by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of this area to the administration of the UN. The UN's Security Council resolution 789 (1992) also urges that with a view to the implementation of resolution 550 (1984), the area at present under the control of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus be extended to include Varosha.

 

Famagusta's historic city centre is surrounded by the fortifications of Famagusta, which have a roughly rectangular shape, built mainly by the Venetians in the 15th and 16th centuries, though some sections of the walls have been dated earlier times, as far as 1211.

 

Some important landmarks and visitor attractions in the old city are:

The Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque

The Othello Castle

Palazzo del Provveditore - the Venetian palace of the governor, built on the site of the former Lusignan royal palace

St. Francis' Church

Sinan Pasha Mosque

Church of St. George of the Greeks

Church of St. George of the Latins

Twin Churches

Nestorian Church (of St George the Exiler)

Namık Kemal Dungeon

Agios Ioannis Church

Venetian House

Akkule Masjid

Mustafa Pasha Mosque

Ganchvor monastery

 

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund listed Famagusta, a "maritime ancient city of crusader kings", among the 12 sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

 

Famagusta is an important commercial hub of Northern Cyprus. The main economic activities in the city are tourism, education, construction and industrial production. It has a 115-acre free port, which is the most important seaport of Northern Cyprus for travel and commerce. The port is an important source of income and employment for the city, though its volume of trade is restricted by the embargo against Northern Cyprus. Its historical sites, including the walled city, Salamis, the Othello Castle and the St Barnabas Church, as well as the sandy beaches surrounding it make it a tourist attraction; efforts are also underway to make the city more attractive for international congresses. The Eastern Mediterranean University is also an important employer and supplies significant income and activity, as well as opportunities for the construction sector. The university also raises a qualified workforce that stimulates the city's industry and makes communications industry viable. The city has two industrial zones: the Large Industrial Zone and the Little Industrial Zone. The city is also home to a fishing port, but inadequate infrastructure of the port restricts the growth of this sector. The industry in the city has traditionally been concentrated on processing agricultural products.

 

Historically, the port was the primary source of income and employment for the city, especially right after 1974. However, it gradually lost some of its importance to the economy as the share of its employees in the population of Famagusta diminished due to various reasons. However, it still is the primary port for commerce in Northern Cyprus, with more than half of ships that came to Northern Cyprus in 2013 coming to Famagusta. It is the second most popular seaport for passengers, after Kyrenia, with around 20,000 passengers using the port in 2013.

 

The mayor-in-exile of Famagusta is Simos Ioannou. Süleyman Uluçay heads the Turkish Cypriot municipal administration of Famagusta, which remains legal as a communal-based body under the constitutional system of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Since 1974, Greek Cypriots submitted a number of proposals within the context of bicommunal discussions for the return of Varosha to UN administration, allowing the return of its previous inhabitants, requesting also the opening of Famagusta harbour for use by both communities. Varosha would have been returned to Greek Cypriot control as part of the 2004 Annan Plan but the plan had been rejected by a majority(3/4) of Greek Cypriot voters.

 

The walled city of Famagusta contains many unique buildings. Famagusta has a walled city popular with tourists.

 

Every year, the International Famagusta Art and Culture Festival is organized in Famagusta. Concerts, dance shows and theater plays take place during the festival.

 

A growth in tourism and the city's university have fueled the development of Famagusta's vibrant nightlife. Nightlife in the city is especially active on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights and in the hotter months of the year, starting from April. Larger hotels in the city have casinos that cater to their customers. Salamis Road is an area of Famagusta with a heavy concentration of bars frequented by students and locals.

 

Famagusta's Othello Castle is the setting for Shakespeare's play Othello. The city was also the setting for Victoria Hislop's 2015 novel The Sunrise, and Michael Paraskos's 2016 novel In Search of Sixpence. The city is the birthplace of the eponymous hero of the Renaissance proto-novel Fortunatus.

 

Famagusta was home to many Greek Cypriot sport teams that left the city because of the Turkish invasion and still bear their original names. Most notable football clubs originally from the city are Anorthosis Famagusta FC and Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, both of the Cypriot First Division, which are now based in Larnaca. Usually Anorthosis Famagusta fans are politically right wing where Nea Salamis fans are left wing.

 

Famagusta is represented by Mağusa Türk Gücü in the Turkish Cypriot First Division. Dr. Fazıl Küçük Stadium is the largest football stadium in Famagusta. Many Turkish Cypriot sport teams that left Southern Cyprus because of the Cypriot intercommunal violence are based in Famagusta.

 

Famagusta is represented by DAÜ Sports Club and Magem Sports Club in North Cyprus First Volleyball Division. Gazimağusa Türk Maarif Koleji represents Famagusta in the North Cyprus High School Volleyball League.

 

Famagusta has a modern volleyball stadium called the Mağusa Arena.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean University was founded in the city in 1979. The Istanbul Technical University founded a campus in the city in 2010.

 

The Cyprus College of Art was founded in Famagusta by the Cypriot artist Stass Paraskos in 1969, before moving to Paphos in 1972 after protests from local hoteliers that the presence of art students in the city was putting off holidaymakers.

 

Famagusta has three general hospitals. Gazimağusa Devlet Hastahanesi, a state hospital, is the biggest hospital in city. Gazimağusa Tıp Merkezi and Gazimağusa Yaşam Hastahanesi are private hospitals.

 

Personalities

Saint Barnabas, born and died in Salamis, Famagusta

Chris Achilleos, illustrator of the book versions on the BBC children's series Doctor Who

Beran Bertuğ, former Governor of Famagusta, first Cypriot woman to hold this position

Marios Constantinou, former international Cypriot football midfielder and current manager.

Eleftheria Eleftheriou, Cypriot singer.

Derviş Eroğlu, former President of Northern Cyprus

Alexis Galanos, 7th President of the House of Representatives and Famagusta mayor-in-exile (2006-2019) (Republic of Cyprus)

Xanthos Hadjisoteriou, Cypriot painter

Oz Karahan, political activist, President of the Union of Cypriots

Oktay Kayalp, former Turkish Cypriot Famagusta mayor (Northern Cyprus)

Harry Luke British diplomat

Angelos Misos, former international footballer

Costas Montis was an influential and prolific Greek Cypriot poet, novelist, and playwright born in Famagusta.

Hal Ozsan, actor (Dawson's Creek, Kyle XY)

Dimitris Papadakis, a Greek Cypriot politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament.

Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, Persian religious leader, lived and died in exile in Famagusta

Touker Suleyman (born Türker Süleyman), British Turkish Cypriot fashion retail entrepreneur, investor and reality television personality.

Alexia Vassiliou, singer, left here as a refugee when the town was invaded.

George Vasiliou, former President of Cyprus

Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry

Derviş Zaim, film director

 

Famagusta is twinned with:

İzmir, Turkey (since 1974)

Corfu, Greece (since 1994)

Patras, Greece (since 1994)

Antalya, Turkey (since 1997)

Salamina (city), Greece (since 1998)

Struga, North Macedonia

Athens, Greece (since 2005)

Mersin, Turkey

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

From the Report to the Housing and Town Planning Committee of the Dundee Town Council on Preparation for Work after the Termination of the War and Proposed Housing Schemes.

 

Note: The eventual layout was somewhat different, rather than being in right angles the blocks were arranged in 5 streets on curves.

 

Date: 1917

 

• LARGE on black

Be yourself:

Be Yourself is one of the most important things to be kept in mind. The girl should accept you for what you are. You should keep it simple and sweet while asking her out and pop the question accordingly.

How to Propose your Girlfriend perfectly on this Propose day

 

Bend down on your ...

#Valentines #ValentinesDay #HappyValentine #ValentinesDay #ValentinesDayImages #ValentinesDayPics #ValentinesDayIdea #ValentinesDayWhatsAPP #RoseDay #HappyRoseDay

 

www.valentinesdaylover.com/1587-2/

As Brickworld Chicago gets closer and new track options are becoming available, I've been looking at remedying some of the track issues I have with my Fareham layout.

 

The four issues which I think I have a shot at addressing prior to the layout's next public show are as follows:

1) Extending the yard for greater capacity with the addition of a new 30"x30" drop in module.

2) Adding a lead switch to the right yard approach for two double ended sidings.

3) Replace the station lead switch into Platform 1 - This switch is part of the Down main line and is subject to a large amount of traffic. By making a custom switch with better geometry and a smooth return curve, trains can pass through this switch with smoother running characteristics.

4) With the yard extension comes a corresponding drop in 30x30" module at the station approach. This solves two problems: it extends the bay platform capacity and allows a smoother return curve to the lead switch into the main line. The switch will simply be a stub version of an existing TLG switch but with a smooth return curve.

 

I worked out combinations of using the ME track to achieve smooth return curves on track separated by 24 studs, i.e. the separation of track between the station platforms. I'm not sure if ME will have the metal track in time for me to make layout modifications for Brickworld. Indeed, I'm not even sure I will have time to implement this plan! :/ In any case, I will at least try to rebuild the lead switch into platform as a custom switch experiment. I can also scratch build the corresponding return curve in the absence of ME track if necessary.

  

The Man in Black.

 

Johnny Cash was a Grammy Award-Winning American country singer-song writer who was known for his deep, distinguishing voice, the boom-chick-a-boom or ‘freight train” sound of his Tennessee Three backing band. Cash’s dark clothing and sometimes darker demeanor earned him the nickname “The Man in Black”. He was known to begin his concerts with the introduction “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”

 

Cash’s signature songs included “I walk the line,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Cry, cry, cry,” “A boy named Sue,” “Cocaine Blues”. Much of cash’s music echoed themes of grief, hard living, moral tribulation and redemption. Although Cash cultivated a romantic outlaw image, (“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”) he never served a prison sentence. Despite landing in jail for misdemeanors, each stay lasted only a single night and yet when playing a prison concert, the men felt as if Cash was apart of them. His most famous run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested by a narcotics squad in El Paso, Texas. It was prescription narcotics that the singer had hidden inside his guitar case for which he received a suspended sentence.

  

In the early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family which included Mother Maybelle’s daughters, Anita, June and Helen. (Cash and June fell in love and eventually married and recorded music together). Around this time, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. He downed uppers to stay awake for demanding concert tours. His frenetic creativity was still delivering hits even though his drug dependency was worsening. His rendition of “Ring of fire” was a mega hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts and entering the Top on the pop charts. The song was written by June Carter and although it was written to express her deep but forbidden love for Cash, it spoke more for Cash’s own anguished love for June, both being married to other people in the early years.

 

Cash quit using drugs in 1968, after a spiritual epiphany in the Nickajack Cave. June, Maybelle and Eck Carter moved into Cash’s mansion for a month to help the lost singer defeat his addition. Cash proposed onstage to June Carter at a concert at the London Gardens in London, Ontario in 1968.

 

From his early days as a pioneer of rockabilly in the 1950s, to his decades as an ambassador of county music, to his making country music appealing during the 1970S, “Age of Aquarius,” to his resurgence in 1990s as a living legend---an alternative country icon, Cash left a large body of richly textured work. In His almost fifty year career, he sold over 90 million albums. In an industry saturated with faux cowboys and clichés, he was the real deal singing about rural life and moral redemption, about pain and loose, about love found and savored. When it came to Cash, you felt the music listening to it, knowing that the man who sang it had genuinely felt it. That made all the difference in the world. He was an Icon. He was the Man in Black. He was Johnny Cash.

 

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Visit this location at ~The Whorephange - Ballz Deep After Dark ~A Rest Haven for Hoes in Second Life

Proposed poster for Foster the People, Cults, and Reptar at The Fillmore.

 

13" x 19" 3-color

 

All the bands on this bill had this super "airy" sound. That, and I was trying to find a good visual twist for the Foster the People lyric "Pumped Up Kicks" without dealing with the actual macabre narrative in the song. Definitely some of the more intense illustration work I've done recently.

 

Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation first proposed Gulf View Square in 1974. At the time, its anchor stores were slated to be Sears, Maas Brothers, Belk-Lindsey, and Robinson's of Florida. The mall opened in March 1980 with Belk-Lindsey and Montgomery Ward as its anchor stores. Maas Brothers opened in August 1981, with Sears following in July 1982.

 

J. C. Penney opened on the fifth anchor slot, which was originally planned for Burdines, in 1990. Burdines ultimately entered the mall by taking the Maas Brothers store a year later.

 

Dillard's bought the Belk-Lindsey store in 1992. A food court was added in 1998. In 2001, Dillard's relocated from the former Belk to the former Montgomery Ward. As a result, the former Dillard's store was demolished in 2002 for Linens 'n Things and Best Buy. Linens 'n Things closed in 2008 and TJ Maxx opened in 2010 Burdines became Burdines-Macy's in 2003 and Macy's in 2005. Old Navy, which opened in 2000, closed in 2009.

 

A new management team began managing the mall in 2011, and announced plans to bring new stores. On January 15, 2014, JCPenney announced that they would be closing as part of a plan to close 33 stores nationwide. JCPenney ended its 24-year run as anchor on August 2, 2014. On January 8, 2015, Macy's announced that its store would be closing as part of a plan to close 14 stores nationwide. The store closed in May 2015.

 

Washington Prime Group sold Gulf View Square Mall to Namdar Realty Group in February 2017 for $15 million.

 

On December 28, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 80 stores nationwide. The store closed March 2019.

In his less than infinite wisdom, trump has nominated a former executive of World Wrestling Entertainment as Secretary of Education. Expect Hulk Hogan and his colleagues in a classroom near you if the choice is approved. If the nomination wasn't true, the news would be humorous.

 

Photoleap A.I. generator was used to create this image.

Ben Nevis and Glen Coe is a national scenic area (NSA) covering part of the Highlands of Scotland surrounding Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, in which certain forms of development are restricted. It is one of 40 such areas in Scotland, which are defined so as to identify areas of exceptional scenery and to ensure its protection from inappropriate development. The Ben Nevis and Glen Coe NSA covers 903 km2 (349 sq mi) of land, lying within the Highland, Argyll and Bute and Perth and Kinross council areas. A further 19 km2 (7.3 sq mi) of the NSA are marine, covering the sea loch of Loch Leven.

 

National scenic areas are primarily designated due to the scenic qualities of an area, however NSAs may well have other special qualities, for example related to culture, history, archaeology, geology or wildlife. Areas with such qualities may be protected via other national and international designations that overlap with the NSA designation. Glen Coe is designated as a national nature reserve, and there are several Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas within the NSA. Although the national scenic area designation provides a degree of additional protection via the planning process, there are no bodies equivalent to a national park authority, and whilst local authorities can produce a management strategy for each one, only the three national scenic areas within Dumfries and Galloway have current management strategies .

 

The idea that areas of wild or remote character such as Ben Nevis and Glen Coe should be designated to protect the scenic qualities of their landscapes grew in popularity throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1931 a commission headed by Christopher Addison first proposed the creation of a national park in Scotland. Following the Second World War a committee chaired by Sir Douglas Ramsay to consider the issue proposed that five areas should receive a level of protection: Glen Coe-Ben Nevis-Black Mount was one of the areas listed. The area thus became one of five designated "national park direction areas", in which planning decisions taken by local authorities could be reviewed by central government under certain circumstances.

 

A 1974 report by the Countryside Commission for Scotland (CCS) entitled A Park System for Scotland recommended that the Glen Coe-Ben Nevis-Black Mount area should be designated as one of four proposed "Special Parks", considering the area of national importance due to its natural beauty and amenity value, however this recommendation was not acted on. Following a further review of landscape protection in 1978, it was suggested that additional areas, alongside the existing direction areas should receive protection, and in 1981 the direction areas were thus replaced by the 40 national scenic areas, which were based on the 1978 recommendations, and included the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe area.

 

A further report into protection of the landscape of Scotland was published by the CCS in 1990. Entitled The Mountain Areas of Scotland - Conservation and Management, it recommended that four areas were under such pressure that they ought to be designated as national parks, each with an independent planning board, in order to retain their heritage value. The four areas identified were similar to those proposed by the Ramsay Committee, and included Glen Coe-Ben Nevis-Black Mount. The government did not however choose to establish national parks and so the status of the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe area was not altered. Following the passage of the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, national parks were established in the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and The Trossachs, two of the areas identified by the Ramsay committee, however the status of the other three Ramsay areas, including Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, was again not altered. In 2013 the Scottish Campaign for National Parks proposed seven areas deemed suitable for national park status, one of which was the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe area.

 

Although named after Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, the national scenic area covers a much wider area of land, as detailed below. Much of the northern part of the NSA lies within the Lochaber region.

 

Glen Nevis (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Nibheis) lies in the north of the national scenic area, and runs south from Fort William. It is bordered to the south by the Mamore range, and to the north by the highest mountains in the British Isles: Ben Nevis (Scotland's highest mountain), Càrn Mor Dearg, Aonach Mòr, and Aonach Beag. It is home to the second highest waterfall in Scotland, Steall Falls. Below the waterfall is a steeply walled and impressive gorge.

 

The Mamores form an east–west ridge approximately fifteen kilometres in length lying between Glen Nevis to the north and Loch Leven to the south. Ten of the ranges are classified as Munros. The hills can be accessed from both Glen Nevis and the former aluminium smelting town of Kinlochleven.

 

Glen Coe (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Comhann) is a glen of volcanic origins, in the heart of the national scenic area. A review of the national scenic areas by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2010 made reference to the "soaring, dramatic splendour of Glen Coe", and "the suddenness of the transition between high mountain pass and the lightly wooded strath" in the lower glen. It also described the journey through the glen on the main A82 road as "one of the classic Highland journeys". The main settlement is the village of Glencoe located at the foot of the glen. The glen is regarded as the home of Scottish mountaineering and is popular with hillwalkers and climbers.

 

Glen Etive (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Èite) lies to the south of Glen Coe. The River Etive (Scottish Gaelic: Abhainn Èite) rises on the peaks surrounding Rannoch Moor, with several tributary streams coming together at the Kings House Hotel. From the Kings House, the Etive flows for about 18 km, reaching the sea loch, Loch Etive. The river and its tributaries are popular with whitewater kayakers and at high water levels it is a test piece of the area and a classic run. Glen Etive has been used as the backdrop to many movies, among them Braveheart and Skyfall.

 

The Black Mount is situated between Glen Orchy and Glen Coe, to the east of Glen Etive, forming the southernmost part of the national scenic area. Its four Munros are Stob Ghabhar, Stob a' Choire Odhair, Creise and Meall a' Bhuiridh. The hills of Ben Inverveigh and Meall Tairbh are located between Black Mount and the Bridge of Orchy. The Black Mount Deer Forest includes moorland, the mountain, as well as several rivers, burns, lochs, and tarns.

 

Much of the western part of Rannoch Moor (Scottish Gaelic: Mòinteach Raineach/Raithneach), an expanse of around 50 square miles (130 km2) of boggy moorland to the west of Loch Rannoch in Scotland, is included in the national scenic area. The A82 road crosses western Rannoch Moor on its way to Glen Coe and Fort William, as does the West Highland Line, which reaches Fort William via Glen Spean rather than Glen Coe. When the line was built across the moor, its builders had to float the tracks on a mattress of tree roots, brushwood and thousands of tons of earth and ashes. Corrour railway station, the UK's highest, and one of its most remote being 10 miles (16 km) from the nearest public road, is located on this section of the line at 1,339 feet (408 m). The line takes gentle curves totalling 23 miles (37 km) across the moorland.

 

A number of other conservation designation are defined within or overlapping with the NSA: Glen Coe is designated as a both national nature reserve (NNR), and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) due to wide variety of montane habitats found within the glen. Glen Coe, along with most of the southwestern portion of the NSA including Glen Etive and the Black Mount, forms part of the Glen Etive and Glen Fyne Special Protection Area (SPA), which is protected due to its breeding population of golden eagles.

 

Rannoch Moor is also designated as an SAC, and is particularly famous as being the sole British location for the Rannoch-rush, named after the moor. It also has populations of otters and freshwater pearl mussels. The River Tay rises on the moor within the NSA, and is designated as a separate SAC for its entire length. The Ben Nevis massif is also an SAC, as are the woodlands at North Ballachulish in the westernmost part of the NSA. The final SAC within the NSA protects the woods on the western side of Loch Etive, in the southwestern extremity of the area.

 

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

 

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim  The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

 

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

 

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

 

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

 

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

 

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

 

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West.  Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way.  The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes. 

 

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities.  Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land.  In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

 

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

 

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected.  This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms.  Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

 

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

 

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

 

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

 

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

 

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

 

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

 

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

 

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

 

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

 

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

 

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

 

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

 

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

 

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

 

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

 

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

 

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

Cover of a 1954 Architectural report for Baltimore Maryland, showing conceptual drawings from the 50s of proposed highways intertwining the neighborhoods of Baltimore.

 

The sunken roadway to the right may be the current alignment of MLK Blvd. 170 (Highway to Nowhere) coming from the left.

They were cutting trees in the woods behind my house and one of the lumber Jack's came over and proposed!