The Republic of Paraka
Vashaqamak: "The Capital of the Republic"
The city of Vashaqamak tells many stories ever since the first stone was laid by the Parakans. The tall buildings, the temperate climate and the incesant sounds of civilization, locomotives, factories and music. For if one was to summarize Vashaqamak in a couple words those would be the ones they would use.
The history of the city began when the first founders of the Republic, revolutionary general and first president of the Republic Kayutar realized that in order to build a new and strong nation that could stand against the Euranians on the same ground, the republic needed for a new capital that would show the values fo the new republic. A city of strength and of freedom. For that very reason, Kayutar gave those who had supported land in what would become the new city, as well, as his soldiers who became the first settlers of the city.
One could say that the city begins and ends with the central plaza, a very large plaza where many of the iconic government buildings are to be found, from the presidential palace to the ministry of finance and the ministry of defense, and at the very center of the plaza a tall statue of a man and a woman extending their arms to the sky, a clear symbol that the Parakans embraced their future with hope and freedom, for we are all the same under the sky.
The city follows a mix of Etelian and local style of buildings, for many in the first years of the Republic, the cities of Etelie were seen as a good example as to how a city was to be structured and made, with wide roads and wide sidewalks. Tall and wide buildings made with strong materials that served to give the buildings their own personality even if some of them weren't exactly all that practical. Nonetheles, one can not deny that the early choices for the construction of the republican capital have had a great influence on the contemporary arquitectural movements of Paraka.
The Ramaray river is also another geographical feature of the city, this navigable river ends up on the eastern coast of the Republic and has served the capital industrial growth well, allowing for the relatively cheap transport of goods to the sea. Another feature of the city,a lthough, less notable is the use of trams and a subway system within the city that help with the transport of people, between the many districts and from one side of the river to the other in a rather fast way.
Another thing to be said about the city regards its inhabitants, who have taken pride in living on the capital of the Republic ever since its inception (not to forget that the first settlers were soldiers), many of them living on the oldest of houses that have been well maintained and sometimes even become museums if the need arises. Many industrialists and successful bussinessmen have also taken residence within the center of the city, often buying entire blocks to house their newly built mansions that also work as their company's headquarters. Albeit some of them have start to move to more isolated places, where they can run their bussiness on a more peaceful manner.
The entrepenurial spirit of the modern Paraka seems to have also originated from the capital, where many companies that today are considered behemoths such as COMAY had their begginings on the capital were they competition was little everywhere and continues to be to today, for if a man wants to sell something he will have to take into account thousands of entrepeneurs who would sell the same cheaper and better. For that very same reason, there have been come cases were two companies hired tugs to sabotage other company and if often ended in a rather ugly brawl if both companies had done the same. In some rarer cases, government officials were hired to make "mistakes" that would rise the tax rate of a certain company or even make a company pay a fine it didn't had to.
Meanwhile, some workers dream of becoming like those men with their nice suits and wallets made out of exotic Serranthian leather, those men are the men that sometimes manage to beat their previous bosses in their own game and build from the ground up new companies that only expand and expand, in one of the most competitive markets in the world.
The government most of the time has to handle these large companies and make sure they are supervised to a certain extent and that they do follow the law, even if not sometimes that same law allows them to do certain things that some would think are wrong. In conclusion, in Vashaqamak one can find of everything, from the early hopeful past of the republic to the current rapid industrial advancement of the nation, that doesn't let a man take a breath if he doesn't want to lose on the grand game of bussiness that almost everyone is playing.
