Airfare Larnaca Riga

Riga

History

The modern founding of Riga is regarded by historians to have begun with the arrival in Latvia of German traders, mercenaries and religious crusaders in the second half of the 12th century, attracted by a sparsely populated region, potential new markets and by the missionary opportunities to convert the local population to Christianity. German merchants established an outpost for trading with the Balts near the Liv settlement at Riga in 1158. The Augustinian monk Meinhard built a monastery there ca. 1190.

Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig, Archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg in 1199. He landed in Riga in 1201 with 23 ships and more than 1500 armed crusaders, making Riga his bishopric. He established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword (later a branch of the Teutonic Knights) and granted Riga city rights in that same year. Albert was successful in converting the King of the Livs, Caupo of Turaida, to Christianity, although, as related in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia ("Henricus Lettus"), it took him three decades to gain full control of Livonia (German Livland). Riga as well as Livonia and Prussia came under the auspices of the Holy Roman (German) Empire. It was not until much later, at the time of Martin Luther, that Riga, Livonia and Prussia converted to Protestantism.

Riga served as a gateway to trade with the Baltic tribes and with Russia. In 1282 Riga became a member of the Hanseatic League (German Hanse, English Hansa). The Hansa developed out of an association of merchants into a loose trade and political union of North German and Baltic cities and towns. Due to its economic protectionist policies which favored its German members, the League was very successful, but its exclusionist policies produced competitors. Its last Diet convened in 1669, although its powers were already weakened by the end of the 14th century, when political alliances between Lithuania and Poland and between Sweden, Denmark and Norway limited its influence. Nevertheless, the Hansa was instrumental in giving Riga economic and political stability, thus providing the city with a strong foundation which endured the political conflagrations that were to come, down to modern times.

As the influence of the Hansa waned, Riga became the object of foreign military, political, religious and economic aspirations. Riga accepted the Reformation in 1522, ending the power of the archbishops. In 1524, a venerated statue of the Virgin Mary in the Cathedral was denounced as a witch, and given a trial by water in the Daugava or Dvina River. The statue floated, so it was denounced as a witch and burnt at Kubsberg. With the demise of the Teutonic Knights in 1561, Riga for twenty years had the status of a Free Imperial City, then in 1581, Riga came under the influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Attempts to reinstitute Roman Catholicism in Riga and southern Livonia failed as in 1621, Riga and the outlying fortress of Daugavgriva came under the rule of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who intervened in the Thirty Years' War not only for political and economic gain but also in favor of German Lutheran Protestantism. During the Russo-Swedish War, 1656-1658, Riga withstood a siege by Russians. Riga remained the largest city in Sweden until 1710 during a period in which the city retained a great deal of self-government autonomy. In that year, in the course of Great Northern War, Russia under Tsar Peter the Great invaded Riga. Sweden's northern dominance ended, and Russia's emergence as the strongest Northern power was formalized through the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Riga was annexed by Russia and became an industrialized port city of the Russian empire, where it remained until World War I. By 1900, Riga was the third largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg in terms of numbers of industrial workers.

During these many centuries of war and changes of power in the Baltic, the Baltic Germans in Riga, successors to Albert's merchants and crusaders, clung to their dominant position despite demographic changes. Riga even employed German as its official language of administration until the imposition of Russian language in 1891 as the official language in the Baltic provinces. All birth, marriage and death records were kept in German up to that year. Latvians began to supplant Germans as the largest ethnic group in the city in the mid-19th century, however, and by 1897 the population was 45% Latvian (up from 23.6% in 1867), 23.8% German (down from 42.9% in 1867), 16.1% Russian, 6% Jewish, 4.8% Polish, 2.3% Lithuanian, and 1.3% Estonian.[citation needed] The rise of a Latvian bourgeoisie made Riga a center of the Latvian National Awakening with the founding of the Riga Latvian Association in 1868 and the organization of the first national song festival in 1873. The nationalist movement of the Young Latvians was followed by the socialist New Current during the city's rapid industrialization, culminating in the 1905 Revolution led by the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party.

Latvia

History

The Treaty of Nystad ending the Great Northern War in 1721 gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate). The Latgale region remained part of Poland as Inflanty until 1772, when it was joined to Russia. The Duchy of Courland became a Russian province (the Courland Governorate) in 1795, bringing all of what is now Latvia into Imperial Russia.

The promises Peter the Great made to the Baltic German nobility at the fall of Riga in 1710, confirmed by the Treaty of Nystad and known as "the Capitulations," largely reversed the Swedish reforms. The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819. In practice, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the nobility because it dispossessed the peasants of their land without compensation. The social structure changed dramatically, with a class of independent farmers establishing itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, landless peasants numbering 591 000 in 1897, a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The Young Latvians (Latvian: Jaunlatviesi) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order. Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led January Uprising in 1863 and spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s. The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s. Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Revolution, which took on a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.

World War I devastated the country. Demands for self-determination were at first confined to autonomy, but full independence was proclaimed in Riga on November 18, 1918, by the People's Council of Latvia, Karlis Ulmanis becoming the head of the provisional government. The War of Independence that followed was a very chaotic period in Latvia's history. By the spring of 1919 there were actually three governments  »” Ulmanis' government; the Soviet Latvian government led by P?teris Stu?ka, whose forces, supported by the Red Army, occupied almost all of the country; and the Baltic German government of "Baltic Duchy" headed by Andrievs Niedra and supported by Baltische Landeswehr and German Freikorps unit Iron Division. Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at the Battle of C?sis in June 1919, and a massive attack by a German and Russian force under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Polish, Latvian, and German troops in early 1920.

A freely elected Constituent Assembly was convened on May 1, 1920 and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922. This was partly suspended by Ulmanis after his coup in 1934, but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then it has been amended and is the constitution still in use in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1930 that percentage had been reduced to 23.2%. The extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level already in 1923. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of economy, but it soon suffered the effects of the Great Depression. Though Latvia showed signs of economic recovery and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup on May 15, 1934, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940. Most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis' government and Nazi Germany after the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. On October 5, 1939, Latvia was forced to accept a "mutual assistance" pact with the Soviet Union, granting the Soviets the right to station 25,000 troops on Latvian territory. On June 16, 1940, Vyacheslav Molotov presented the Latvian representative in Moscow with an ultimatum accusing Latvia of violations of that pact, and on June 17 great numbers of Soviet forces occupied the country. Fraudulent elections for a "People's Saeima" were held, and a puppet government headed by Augusts Kirhensteins led Latvia into the USSR.[citation needed] The annexation was formalised on August 5, 1940.

The Soviets dealt harshly with their opponents  »” prior to the German invasion, in less than a year, at least 27,586 persons were arrested; most were deported, and about 945 persons were shot. While under German occupation, Latvia was administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by occupation authority actively participated in the Holocaust. More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 70,000 Latvian Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation. Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict, including in the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS, most of them conscripted by the occupying Nazi and Soviet authorities. Refusal to join the occupying army resulted in imprisonment, threats to relatives, or even death.

The Soviets reoccupied the country in 1944-1945, and further mass deportations followed as the country was forcibly collectivised and Sovietised; 42,975 persons were deported in 1949. Influx of labourers, administrators, military personnel and their dependents from Russia and other Soviet republics started, and by 1959 the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62%. During the Khrushchev Thaw, attempts by national communists led by Eduards Berklavs to gain a degree of autonomy for the republic and protect the rapidly deteriorating position of the Latvian language were suppressed. In 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the "Occupation of the Baltic States," in which it declared that the occupation was "not in accordance with law," and not the "will of the Soviet people". A national movement coalescing in the Popular Front of Latvia took advantage of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, opposed by the Interfront. On May 4, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR adopted the Declaration of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, subject to a transition period that came to an end with Latvian independence on August 21, 1991, after the failure of the August Putsch. The Saeima, Latvia's parliament, was again elected in 1993, and Russia completed its military withdrawal in 1994.

The major goals of Latvia in the 1990s, to join NATO and the European Union, were achieved in 2004. Language and citizenship laws have been opposed by many Russophones, although a majority have now become citizens. (Citizenship was not automatically extended to former Soviet citizens who settled during the Soviet occupation or to their subsequent offspring. Children born to non-nationals after the reestablishment of independence are automatically entitled to citizenship.) The government denationalised private property confiscated by the Soviet rule, returning it or compensating the owners for it, and privatised most state-owned industries, reintroducing the prewar currency. After a difficult transition to a liberal economy and its re-orientation toward Western Europe, though its economy has one of the highest growth rates.[citation needed]

Politics

The 100-seat unicameral Latvian parliament, the Saeima, is elected by direct popular vote every four years. The president is elected by the Saeima in a separate election, also held every four years. The president appoints a prime minister who, together with his cabinet, forms the executive branch of the government, which has to receive a confidence vote by the Saeima. This system also existed before the Second World War. Highest civil servants are sixteen Secretaries of state.

Larnaca

Tourism

Larnaca is one of the major seaside resorts in Cyprus. There are numerous beaches in and around Larnaca which extend for approx 25 km (16 mi). The main Phinikoudes and McKenzie beaches both have been awarded Blue Flags for environmental cleanliness.

The archaeological sites and its six museums are in the centre of the town. Summer sports and sea activities are readily available. The shops are well stocked and medical care is good. Since 2001 there is one main six-screen cinema on the edge of the town.

There is a wide variety of restaurants, tavernas, cafeterias and bars catering for varied tastes between 'traditional Irish pub' through international chains like McDonalds to local Cypriot fare. The Cyprus 'meze' is the food specialty of the town. Cultural life is rich and many events are organized by the town's municipality almost daily.

Within the wider Larnaca district there are 9,500 hotel beds, about 10% of the total all island tourist capacity. Along the Larnaca Bay there are luxurious beach hotels and also hotel apartments or holiday apartments within all price ranges. Prices are generally lower from the rest of the island. Its international airport lies a few kilometres from the centre of the town, but because the flight path is over the sea there is almost no audible noise from landing and departing aircraft.

Cyprus

History

As of today, there are 1,534 Greek Cypriots and 502 Turkish Cypriots missing with the events of the summer of 1974 dominating the politics on the island and the Greco-Turkish relations. Around 100,000 settlers is believed to be living in the north from all around Turkey in violation of the Geneva Convention and various UN resolutions. In 1983 Turkish Cypriots proclaimed independence unilaterally with only Turkey recognizing them. As of today the north is under an embargo as a measure against the illegal partition of the island.

Ever since north and south live separate paths. The south is a constitutional democracy which has reached great levels of prosperity, with a booming economy and good infrastructures, part of the United nations, European Union and several others organizations by whom it's recognized as the sole legitimate government of the whole island. The north is overdependent in help from Turkey with a stagnated economy and under a international embargo which doesn't allow it to be accepted in any big international organization. In 2004 the Annan Plan for Cyprus was put to vote but whilst it was accepted by the north, it was rejected by the Greek-Cypriots as it meant in their eyes, endorsing a confederal state with a weak central government and considerable local autonomy.

In July 2006 the island served as a safe haven for people fleeing Lebanon because of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In March 2007, Greek Cypriot authorities demolished a wall that for decades stood at the boundary between the Greek Cypriot controlled side and the UN buffer zone. The wall had cut across Ledra Street in the heart of Nicosia and was seen as a strong symbol of the island's 32-year division. On April 3rd, 2008, Ledra Street was reopened in the presence of Greek and Turkish Cypriot officials.

Geography

The third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily and Sardinia), Cyprus is situated in the eastern Mediterranean, just south of the Anatolian peninsula (or Asia Minor) of the Asian mainland; thus, it is often included in the Middle East (see also Western Asia and Near East). Turkey is 75 kilometres (47 mi) north; other neighbouring countries include Syria and Lebanon to the east, Israel to the southeast, Egypt to the south, and Greece to the westnorthwest.

However, historically, politically and culturally Cyprus is closely aligned with Europe - the Greek Cypriots with Greece and the Turkish Cypriots with Turkey. Historically, Cyprus has been at the crossroads between Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa, with lengthy periods of mainly Greek and intermittent Anatolian, Levantine, and British influences. Though these influences may cause some to consider Cyprus as a transcontinental island, such a term is properly applied only to nations whose boundaries straddle more than one continent e.g. Turkey, Russia and Egypt.

The central plain, the Mesaoria, is bordered by the Kyrenia and Pentadactylos mountains to the north and the Troödos mountain range to the south and west. There are also scattered, but significant, plains along the southern coast. The island's highest point is at the summit of Mount Olympus 1,952 metres (6,404 ft), in the heart of the Troödos range.

The major cities in Cyprus are the capital Nicosia (Lefkosia in Greek, Lefko?a in Turkish), Limassol (Lemesos in Greek), Larnaca, Paphos, Famagusta (Gazima?usa or Ma?usa in Turkish, Ammochostos in Greek), and Kyrenia (Girne in Turkish, Kerynia in Greek).

The climate is temperate and Mediterranean with dry summers and variably rainy winters. Summer temperatures range from warm at higher elevations in the Troödos mountains to hot in the lowlands. Winter temperatures are mild at lower elevations, where snow rarely occurs, but are significantly colder in the mountains with sufficient snow for seasonal ski facilities. Dust storms are frequent throughout the year.

Government

Cyprus is a Presidential republic. The head of state and the government is the President, who is elected by the universal surface for a five-year term. Executive power is exercised by the government. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the House of Representatives. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

The 1960 Constitution provided for a presidential system of government with independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as a complex system of checks and balances, including a weighted power-sharing ratio designed to protect the interests of the Turkish Cypriots. The executive, was headed by a Greek Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice president elected by their respective communities for five-year terms and each possessing a right of veto over certain types of legislation and executive decisions. Legislate power rested on the House of Representatives, also elected on the basis of separate voters' rolls. Since 1964, following clashes between the two communities, the Turkish Cypriot seats in the House remain vacant.

After the 1974 invasion of the island by Turkey, Turkish Cypriots established their own separatist institutions - although not recognized by the south or any other country in the world except Turkey - in the north with a popularly elected President and a Prime Minister responsible to the National Assembly exercising joint executive powers. In 1985, the TRNC adopted a constitution and held its first elections.

As of today the House of Representatives has 59 members elected for a five year term, 56 members by proportional representation and 3 observer members representing the Maronite, Latin and Armenian minorities. 24 seats are allocated to the Turkish community but remain empty since 1964. Since the 1974 events the party system is dominated by the communist AKEL, liberal-conservative Democratic Rally the conservative Democratic Party and the social-democratic EDEK.

On 17 February 2008, Dimitris Christofias of the AKEL was elected President of Cyprus, thus marking his party's first electoral victory without being part of a wider coalition, making Cyprus one of only two countries in the world to have a democratically elected communist government (the other being Moldova), and is the only European Union member state currently under communist leadership. Christofias took over government from Tassos Papadopoulos of Democratic Party, who had been in office since February 2003.