Cetatea Albă

The city of Cetatea Albă is the capital city of the United Confederation of Kizenia and Kuzaki. The name, meaning "White Fortress" in the Kizenian language, was named after the Kuzaki Fortress constructed on the site in approximately 800 CE, along this strategic point on the banks of the Tilarnia River, originally to defend a river crossing point.

History
The Heisui Valley, comprising the lands now occupied by the Cetatea Albă metropolitan area, were forest and swamplands in antiquity. Tools dating back to 10,000 BCE indicate temporary settlement of the area by primitive proto-Kizenians in hunter-gatherer societies used the area to gather firewood and to hunt for food.

The earliest known permenant settlement in Cetatea Albă, the village of Heisui ("Calm Water", in Kuzaki), is first recorded in a tax census of the Kuzaki Confederation, in approximately 675 CE. As the village is not mentioned in the earlier records, it is now believed the village was formed in approximately 660 as a frontier logging camp, to supply building materials downriver to the bustling Kuzaki capital. By 800 CE approximately, the Tilarnia River formed the border between two Kuzaki Fiefs, and the ruler of the Western bank ordered a fortress constructed at Heisui, to protect his lands and enforce his taxation at the river crossings of the forest. The tall masonry structure was built with local limestone, giving it an off-white appearance, and its height gave it visibility up and down river for several kilometers.

By the 12th century CE, the Heisui forests were nearly exhausted, and the tall off-white tower dominated the skyline in the Heisui Valley, giving it the nickname by which it is now officially known, at least to the Kizenian serfs who worked the now-farmland in the area. The city of Heisui remained relatively small, until Endralonian colonization.

The Battles of Heisui (1756, 1759 and 1764) pitted the three powers of the era against one-another. In 1756, a Kizenian raiding force from Tiania took the village from the Kuzaki, using Endralonian weaponry. The Kizenians held the Cetatea Albă until 1759, when the Kuzaki army, in retreat from the Endralonians, expelled the Kizenians. In 1764, Endralonian riverboats finally broke the power of the Great Tower, which was never constructed with cannons in mind. With the Tower gone, Heisui lost its strategic importance.

Under Endralonian rule, the city was known first as Tilarnia City, then as New Endralonia (2430 act), before becoming Cetatea Albă officially, although the name had been used informally, and as the city's motto, for most of its existence. It became the capital of Tilarnia Province in 1837, and the national capital (after it was finally moved from Fluviului) in 2789.

Economics
In New Endralon, Cetatea Albă was one of the three "Great Cities," along with Fluviului/Nova Marxstadt/Trantor and Solbogot/Marxingburg. While Solbogot was the heart of the nation's breadbasket, and Fluviului was the center of government and culture, Cetatea Albă became the industrial core. The natural resources of the Heisui Valley, from the ancient forests, to the great river and the nearby coal and petroleum fields, made the area ideal for the great factories of New Endralon. The first great Bridges across the river allowed the city to spill over into Kuzaki, in the suburbs now known as Alruba (a corruption of "Albă" in Kuzakigo), where 35% of the metro population now resides. As the city's importance grew, and the Communist era faded, the city became a major commerce center as well.

As National Capital
In 2789, the national capital was moved from the former New Endralonian colonial center at Fluviului to the more centrally-located Cetatea Albă. The move was complicated by the Civil War that started after Anais Kuzaki's assassination, and the beginnings of the Jade era. Jade insisted that her Great Capital city reflect Jade's own greatness; which essentially meant "cute" was the law. Large swathes of the city were demolished at her whim. While this has had the ultimate effect of beautifying the city today, and creating space for the governmental infrastructure, including the various Palaces built for her reign, it also had the effect of destroying much of the city's previous millennium of history.

The National Parliament is located on the West Bank of the River Tilarnia, in the Obsidian Palace. The Residence of the Head of State is on a nearby hill, the former Jade's Palace (Palat Drăguţ, or "cute palace"), now known as the Marble Palace. The Supreme Court is located on the opposite bank, in Kuzaki, as are many of the various Ministries. St. Harold's Island, which lies between the three main structures in the center of the Tilarnia River, has hosted various Great Statues - a statue to Jade measuring 130 feet tall was demolished, in favor of one honoring Ai (measuring 135 feet in height), and now hosts the literal White Tower (80 feet tall), a replica of the original Fortress which is believed to have been located 1 km upstream from the new Tower.