BERGONIA
On this page, a map of Lefitoni
plus the history of the city.
pronounced "Leh-fi-TO-ni."
The
Functioning Capital City of the nation.
Officially Bergonia has two capital cities, the other being Ceiolai, of
course, but Congress, the President and the Executive Council are
headquartered here, and this is where the power resides.
Bergonia's
second largest
city,
with
a current
population (2000 census) of 7,231,000, almost exactly the same size as the
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose metro area.
Beautifully situated on the Lakes of Letlari, wide shallow lakes with marshy banks, alive with fish & aquatic fowl.
A modern city, well planned, with straight lines, open spaces and expressways, a proud expression of the Revolution.
Capital of the State of Letlari, whose population is 11.2 million, the fifth largest state.
For Bergonia it's Washington and Pittsburgh combined.
| Lefitoni is home to the Commonwealth government, headquarters for the nation's Congress, President and Executive Council, and also the ministries. Half the economic ministries are here, and half in Ceiolai. the League of States and the Supreme Court sit in Ceiolai. The ministries employ thousands of specialists and bureaucrats, as do the various public institutions headquartered in the capital. The military employs thousands in Fuloi (Newcity) across the lake from the main city. | The city is also a manufacturing center, and was one of the nation's first steel centers, and remains one of the largest manufacturers of materials. National policy requires that as old-style labor-intensive manufacturing processes ended, the old plants and the displaced workers are given all new available work for new industries. Lefitoni remains therefore a major industrial town, its industrial suburbs ringing the center. |
History
of the City:
Lefitoni did not exist by that name before colonial times, although there was a small pre-Columbian town named Pula there, situated on the southeast corner of Lake Aolico. The center of old Pula was centered about six miles from the center of the modern city of Lefitoni, and Pula is now the name of a lakefront neighborhood.
It began probably as the regional trade center for all the fishing villages on the shores of Aolico. Pula was fortified by the Ceiolaians in the time of the Second Ceiolaian Empire, and under their rule it became a trading center for all the people of the lakes. Pula was a place of beautiful white marble, from the nearby cliffs on the heights where the Ceiolaians built a fort and temple complex that survive to grace the modern city's skyline. Pula became a capital city of the medieval-era state of Letlari, right in the crossroads of the major wars of the medieval and Tanic eras. The warsdid much to retard the Pula's growth, and it remained a city of modest size until the coming of the Europeans.
No place in Bergonia suffered a death rate from the killing plagues as high as this region, and Pula became virtually depopulated. A force of English adventurers arrived there in 1507, looted what was left, and then put the whole town ablaze. Pula disappeared from the map.
In the early 1600s a new town grew out of a lakeside village named Lefitoni, becoming an important transit point for travelers, and then the British established a small garrison there in 1589. The city grew into a large industrial center in the 1800s, for a while a dirty, smoky place of brick and wooden tenements surrounding .
The Modern City:
Lefitoni's personality is quite the opposite of Ceiolai's, Bergonia's "other great city." Ceiolai elegantly exposes all the multiple strata of Bergonia's history in its twisting streets and labyrinthine puzzle of old, older and ancient buildings, while Lefitoni is a creation of the modern era, with straight lines and wide avenues, expansive plazas, heroic monuments and grand bridges. Ceiolai is a lakeside city, but it looks into itself, while in Letlari the multiple bodies of water alternately dividing and surrounding the city dominate the eye, assuring a light, open environment, and so the feel of the city is entirely unlike Ceiolai's.
Lefitoni is divided into four parts:
1 - Tasicoi, ("Three-sided place") the center of the city, so named because of water on three sides.
Certainly, like all Bergonian cities, Lefitoni has its Old Town, the oldest buildings from the first burst of city growth in the 1700s. Here narrow streets do twist and meander willy-nilly, connecting small plazas, typical of old Bergonian city centers, with no grid or plan whatsoever, for three square kilometers.
2 - Sacuoi ("East Hills"), including the rolling hills and broad hollows east of the center. Sacuoi also includes "steel city," one of the nation's largest concentration of steel production and processing.
Most of the Tasicoi (center) and Sacuoi (east) sections were built in the late 1800s, with orientation to the cardinal points. The first spurt of growth then produced block after block of wooden tenements, which in the 1910, 20s and 30s were replaced endless expanses of three, four and five story apartment buildings of whitewashed plaster, balconies and archways, built around courtyards, all arranged along straight tree-lined streets. The network of streets is punctuated with fine elegant plazas, places of light and openness. Each plaza fills up once or twice a week with stalls where merchants sell produce, fish, dry goods, arts & crafts, tools, and anything else legal to sell.
3 - Tretinica is a long penensula three-quarters of a mile south across Tiuranamo Lake from Tasicoi. After 1890 Tretinica was opened to urban development with the construction of bridges for auto and rail traffic. Tretinica became the place of many new institutional settings, including the zoo, hospitals, colleges and research institutions, and a massive prison. Tretinica was also the place where the nouveau rich after 1910.
4 - Canoi ("New City") lies two miles across the lakes from Threesides. Canoi ("New City"), on the west bank of the lakes, was opened up in 1940 with the construction of the various bridges and tunnels. New City, ambitiously annexed to Lefitoni, was supposed to be a showcase of socialist development. The first plan called for row after row of massive apartment buildings. This plan was fortunately shelved, and most of Canoi is developed with single-dwelling housing.
| Getting around: Lefitoni is one of Bergonia's more auto friendly cities, with expressways (planned in the 1940s) splicing across the middle of the city. But Lefitoni is also well-served with an extensive light rail network, with major rail lines penetrating the city's heart. One can easily get directly from the city's east end to the far west, a total distance of fourteen miles, in eighteen minutes by express rail. Lefitoni is an artificial construction in a way-- the -two mile-wide lake divides it into two halves, Fuloi (Newcity) on the west bank, and the two wards on the east, with Tretinica also isolated by water in the southeast. Fuloi is connected to the eastern bank by two bridges and one underwater tunnel, with a second underwater tunnel far to the south connecting Tretinica to the heavily industrialized Maicho Island. One bride is Mercury Bridge, a large, wide multi-level suspension bridge. The second newer bridge, the Floating Bridge, consists of five miles of stone arches that carry an 8-lane expressway, 8 rail lines, special lanes for emergency and maintenance vehicles, a major bikepath, and pedestrian passage. Lefitoni is, for the nation's auto traffic network and the railroads, a major transportation hub, with the navigable Serofi bringing boat traffic to its banks. Thus this city in modern times has become a major entrepot for warehousing and trade.
|
What
tourists
come to see:
Government Quarter The Capitol Building, home of Congress, located on the lake shore, is open to the people. The Capitol gardens, spread along the coast, include a very nice botanical garden, 66 acres, with sections representative of every region in Bergonia. Museums Lefitoni is home to the nation's largest (in terms of holdings) art gallery, the Commonwealth Gallery of Fine Art. Also the outstanding World Museum of Machinery and Technology, that starts with the first stone implements in the Dawn Times all the way to the Human Genome Project. The World Music Project --this permanent public trust puts on two world-class free concerts every month in either the National Theatre or East Market Square, usually televised. The Regatta In May of every year the city hosts a great regatta, taking advantage of the lakes. Aolico, the northern lake, the lake that the capitol looks out on, is reserved for the sailing boats and their competitions. Aolico becomes a sea of sails. Easaco, the southern lake, is the site of the powerboat races. These are the national championship of all powerboat racing competition, and they are televised. There are also scull & other rowing competitions. In the evenings the boats on both lakes tie up to floating platforms and docks, where fish & fries & beer and live music are served up. The Citadel On the marble point of Caranicei Ridge stand the fine white citadel built in the 500s by the imperial Ceiolaians, one of the best preserved Imperial-era structures in all the country. Some ruins of the associated temples also remain on the point. Citadel Park, over two miles long, surround the Citadel, lavishly planted as a botanical garden dedicated to reproducing all the plant-life in Bergonia. |
