Weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting and braiding or plaiting; the longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling. The method in which these threads are inter-woven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band which meets this definition of cloth can be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques without looms; the way the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is called the weave. The majority of woven products are created with one of three basic weaves: plain weave, satin weave, or twill. Woven cloth can be woven in decorative or artistic design. In general, weaving involves using a loom to interlace two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp which runs longitudinally and the weft that crosses it.
One warp thread is called. The warp threads are held taut and in parallel to each other in a loom. There are many types of looms. Weaving can be summarized as a repetition of these three actions called the primary motion of the loom. Shedding: where the warp threads are separated by raising or lowering heald frames to form a clear space where the pick can pass Picking: where the weft or pick is propelled across the loom by hand, an air-jet, a rapier or a shuttle. Beating-up or battening: where the weft is pushed up against the fell of the cloth by the reed; the warp is divided into two overlapping groups, or lines that run in two planes, one above another, so the shuttle can be passed between them in a straight motion. The upper group is lowered by the loom mechanism, the lower group is raised, allowing to pass the shuttle in the opposite direction in a straight motion. Repeating these actions form a fabric mesh but without beating-up, the final distance between the adjacent wefts would be irregular and far too large.
The secondary motion of the loom are the: Let off Motion: where the warp is let off the warp beam at a regulated speed to make the filling and of the required design Take up Motion: Takes up the woven fabric in a regulated manner so that the density of filling is maintainedThe tertiary motions of the loom are the stop motions: to stop the loom in the event of a thread break. The two main stop motions are the warp stop motion weft stop motionThe principal parts of a loom are the frame, the warp-beam or weavers beam, the cloth-roll, the heddles, their mounting, the reed; the warp-beam is a wooden or metal cylinder on the back of the loom. The threads of the warp extend in parallel order from the warp-beam to the front of the loom where they are attached to the cloth-roll; each thread or group of threads of the warp passes through an opening in a heddle. The warp threads are separated by the heddles into two or more groups, each controlled and automatically drawn up and down by the motion of the heddles.
In the case of small patterns the movement of the heddles is controlled by "cams" which move up the heddles by means of a frame called a harness. Where a complex design is required, the healds are raised by harness cords attached to a Jacquard machine; every time the harness moves up or down, an opening is made between the threads of warp, through which the pick is inserted. Traditionally the weft thread is inserted by a shuttle. On a conventional loom, the weft thread is carried on a pirn, in a shuttle that passes through the shed. A handloom weaver could propel the shuttle by throwing it from side to side with the aid of a picking stick; the "picking" on a power loom is done by hitting the shuttle from each side using an overpick or underpick mechanism controlled by cams 80–250 times a minute. When a pirn is depleted, it is ejected from the shuttle and replaced with the next pirn held in a battery attached to the loom. Multiple shuttle boxes allow more than one shuttle to be used; each can carry a different colour.
The rapier-type weaving machines do not have shuttles, they propel the weft by means of small grippers or rapiers that pick up the filling thread and carry it halfway across the loom where another rapier picks it up and pulls it the rest of the way. Some carry the filling yarns across the loom at rates in excess of 2,000 metres per minute. Manufacturers such as Picanol have reduced the mechanical adjustments to a minimum, control all the functions through a computer with a graphical user interface. Other types use compressed air to insert the pick, they are all fast and quiet. The warp is sized in a starch mixture for smoother running; the loom warped by passing the sized warp threads through two or more heddles attached to harnesses. The power weavers. Most looms used for industrial purposes have a machine that ties new warps threads to the waste of used warps threads, while still on the loom an operator rolls the old and new threads back on the warp beam; the harnesses are controlled by dobbies or a Jacquard head.
The raising and lowering
Lima bean
Phaseolus lunatus known as the lima bean, butter bean, sieva bean, or Madagascar bean, is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans. Phaseolus lunatus is found in Meso- and South America. Two gene pools of cultivated lima beans point to independent domestication events; the Mesoamerican lima bean is distributed in neotropical lowlands while the other is found in the western Andes. They were discovered in Peru; the Andes domestication took place around 2000 BC, produced a large-seeded variety, while the second, taking place in Mesoamerica around 800 AD, produced a small-seeded variety. By around 1300, cultivation had spread north of the Rio Grande, in the 1500s, the plant began to be cultivated in the Old World; the small-seeded type is found distributed from Mexico to Argentina below 1,600 m above sea level, while the large-seeded wild form is found distributed in the north of Peru, from 320 to 2,030 m above sea level. The Moche Culture cultivated lima beans and depicted them in their art. During the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, lima beans were exported to the rest of the Americas and Europe, since the boxes of such goods had their place of origin labeled "Lima, Peru", the beans got named as such.
Despite the origin of the name, when referring to the bean, the word "lima" is pronounced differently than the Peruvian capital. The term "butter bean" is used for a large and yellow/white variety of lima bean. In the United States Sieva-type beans are traditionally called butter beans otherwise known as the Dixie or Henderson type. In that area, lima beans and butter beans are seen as two distinct types of beans. In Spain, it is called garrofón, constitutes one of the main ingredients of the famous Valencian paella. In the United Kingdom and the United States, "butter beans" refers to either dried beans which can be purchased to rehydrate, or the canned variety which are ready to use. In culinary use there, lima beans and butter beans are distinct, the latter being large and yellow, the former small and green. In areas where both are considered to be lima beans, the green variety may be labelled as "baby" limas. Lima bean is a domesticated species of economic and cultural importance worldwide in Mexico.
The species has two varieties. The wild variety is silvester and the domesticated one is lunatus. In the U. S, it is a warm season crop, grown in Delaware and mid-Atlantic region for processing and in Midwest and California for dry beans. Baby lima beans are harvested about 10 -- 12 weeks later. In western New York State, baby lima bean production increased exponentially from 2011 to 2015. Cultivation: The main rainy season lasts from June to August and most of the above-ground parts die during dry season. Germination or budding occurs in July; the first inflorescence is in November. The production of flowers and fruits ends between February and April. Cultivars: Both bush and pole cultivars exist, the latter range from 1 to 5 metres in height; the bush cultivars mature earlier than the pole cultivars. The pods are up to 15 cm long; the mature seeds are oval to kidney-shaped. In most cultivars the seeds are quite flat, but in the "potato" cultivars, the shape approaches spherical. White seeds are common, but black, red and variously mottled seeds are known.
The immature seeds are uniformly green. Lima beans yield 2,900 to 5,000 kg of seed and 3,000 to 8,000 kg of biomass per hectare; the seeds of the cultivars listed below are white. Related or synonymous names are listed on the same line.'Henderson' /'Thorogreen', 65 days'Eastland', 68 days'Jackson Wonder', 68 days'Dixie Butterpea', 75 days'Fordhook 242', 75 days, 1945 AAS winner'Carolina' /'Sieva', 75 days'Christmas' /'Chestnut' /'Giant Speckled' /'Speckled Calico', 78 days'Big 6' /'Big Mama', 80 days'Willow Leaf', 80 days'King of the Garden', 85 days a. Phytophthora phaseoli is one example of a pathogen of the lima bean, it is an oomycete plant pathogen that causes downy mildew of lima bean during cool and humid weather conditions. To combat this pathogen, developing lima bean cultivars with resistance is a cost-efficient method, environmentally safe as compared to using pesticides.b. Didymella is a foliar disease found in baby lima beans first reported in New York State. Symptoms include small necrotic tan spots with red to reddish brown irregular margins that come together to cover the entire leaf.
Lesions occur after around 3–4 weeks of planting and increase till there is considerable defoliation. Lesions are observed on the stems. Two pynidial fungi were found on leaves included Didymella sp, and Boeremia exigua var. exigua, pathogenic on baby lima bean and plays a role in the foliar disease complex. Other fungal diseases on lima beans with similar symptoms are B. exigua var. exigua, pod blight caused by Diaporthe phaseolorum, leaf spots caused by Phyllosticta sp. and Phoma subcircinata. The two-spotted spider mites or Tetranychus urticae lay eggs on lima bean leaves, it prefers lima bean plants as host food source over other plants such as cabbage plants. Spider mites pose the greatest threat to the lima bean plants as compa
London Marathon
The London Marathon is a long-distance running event held in London, United Kingdom, part of the World Marathon Majors. The event has been held in the spring of every year since. Since 2010, the race has been sponsored by Virgin Money; the most recent event was the 2018 London Marathon on 22 April 2018. The date of the next London Marathon is Sunday, 28 April 2019; the race was founded by the former Olympic champion and journalist Chris Brasher and athlete John Disley. It is organised by Hugh Brasher as Nick Bitel as Chief Executive. Set over a flat course around the River Thames, the race begins at three separate points around Blackheath and finishes in The Mall alongside St James's Park. Since the first marathon, the course has undergone few route changes. In 1982, the finishing post was moved from Constitution Hill to Westminster Bridge due to construction works, it remained there for twelve years before moving to its present location at The Mall. In addition to being one of the top six international marathons run over the distance of 26 mi 385 yd, the IAAF standard for the marathon established in 1921 and used for the 1908 London Olympics, the London Marathon is a large, celebratory sporting festival, third in England only to the Great North Run in Newcastle upon Tyne and Great Manchester Run in Manchester in terms of the number of participants.
The event has raised over £450 million for charity since 1981, holds the Guinness world record as the largest annual fund raising event in the world, with the 2009 participants raising over £47.2 million for charity. In 2007, 78% of all runners raised money. In 2011 the official charity of the London Marathon was Oxfam. In 2014, the official charity was Anthony Nolan, in 2015, it was Cancer Research UK; the London Marathon was not the first long-distance running event held in the city, which has a long history of marathon events. The Polytechnic Marathon was first held in 1909; the current London Marathon was founded in 1981 by former Olympic champion and journalist Chris Brasher and athlete John Disley. Shortly after completing the New York City Marathon in November 1979 Brasher wrote an article for The Observer newspaper which began: To believe this story you must believe that the human race be one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible. Last Sunday, in one of the most trouble-stricken cities in the world, 11,532 men and women from 40 countries in the world, assisted by over a million black and yellow people, laughed and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen.
Inspired by the people of New York coming together for this occasion, he asked "whether London could stage such a festival?" The following year Brasher and Disley made trips to America to study the organisation and finance of big city marathons. Brasher signed a contract with Gillette for £50,000, established charitable status and outlined six main aims in the hope to mirror the scenes he witnessed in New York and establish the United Kingdom on the map as a country capable of arranging major events; the London Marathon was born. The first London Marathon was held on more than 20,000 applied to run. 6,747 were accepted and 6,255 crossed the finish line on Constitution Hill. The Marathon's popularity has grown since then; as at 2009, 746,635 people have completed the race since its inception. In 2010, 36,549 people crossed the line, the biggest field since the race began; the first wheelchair marathon race was held in 1983 and the event was credited with reducing the stigma surrounding disabled athletes.
In 2013 the IPC Athletics Marathon World Cup was held within the London Marathon featuring athletes of both genders in the T42–T46 and T11–T13 categories. In August 2013 it was announced that the event would be staged in London until 2017 and feature athletes in the T11-T12, T13, T42-T44, T43, T45-46, T51-52 and the T53-54 class. For many years the London and Polytechnic Marathons competed with each other until, in 1996, the latter folded in due to the popularity of the former. Following the Boston Marathon bombings, organisers of the 2013 London Marathon undertook a review of their security arrangements, despite no specific threats against the event. A 30-second silence was held before the start of the marathon to show respect and support to those affected by the tragedy; the race is organised by Hugh Brasher, son of Chris, as Race Director and Nick Bitel as Chief Executive. David Bedford and Bitel had overseen a period of great change for the race, including amendments to the course in 2005 which saw the cobbled section by the Tower of London replaced with a flat stretch along the Highway.
Dan Tunstall Pedoe was the medical director of the London Marathon for 25 years between the first one in 1981 until 2005. In 2003, Pedoe was shadowed by Sanjay Sharma from St George's Hospital who took over the role in its entirety in 2006. Medical cover is provided by 150 doctors. Assisting were more than 1,500 volunteers of St. John Ambulance, who organise over 50 first aid posts along the route, three field hospitals at the finish. St John Ambulance provide a number of healthcare professions for the event, including nurses, ambulances with crews.. The BBC covers the event; the theme music associated with this coverage, with the event itself, is called Main Titles to The Trap, composed by Ron Goodwin for the film The Trap. There are three separate groups of starters: Elite Women and Elite Men followe
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, its half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of Continental Europe. In terms of moral sensibilities and political reforms, this period began with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodist, the Evangelical wing of the established Church of England. Britain's relations with the other Great Powers were driven by the colonial antagonism of the Great Game with Russia, climaxing during the Crimean War. Britain embarked on global imperial expansion in Asia and Africa, which made the British Empire the largest empire in history. National self-confidence peaked. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period and an increasing turn towards romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, arts.
Domestically, the political agenda was liberal, with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform, industrial reform, the widening of the franchise. There were unprecedented demographic changes: the population of England and Wales doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotland's population rose from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Ireland's population decreased from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901 due to emigration and the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrated from Great Britain to the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia; the two main political parties during the era remained the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Lord Salisbury; the unsolved problems relating to Irish Home Rule played a great part in politics in the Victorian era in view of Gladstone's determination to achieve a political settlement in Ireland.
In the strictest sense, the Victorian era covers the duration of Victoria's reign as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, from her accession on 20 June 1837—after the death of her uncle, William IV—until her death on 22 January 1901, after which she was succeeded by her eldest son, Edward VII. Her reign lasted for seven months, a longer period than any of her predecessors; the term'Victorian' was in contemporaneous usage to describe the era. The era has been understood in a more extensive sense as a period that possessed sensibilities and characteristics distinct from the periods adjacent to it, in which case it is sometimes dated to begin before Victoria's accession—typically from the passage of or agitation for the Reform Act 1832, which introduced a wide-ranging change to the electoral system of England and Wales. Definitions that purport a distinct sensibility or politics to the era have created scepticism about the worth of the label "Victorian", though there have been defences of it.
Michael Sadleir was insistent that "in truth the Victorian period is three periods, not one". He distinguished early Victorianism – the and politically unsettled period from 1837 to 1850 – and late Victorianism, with its new waves of aestheticism and imperialism, from the Victorian heyday: mid-Victorianism, 1851 to 1879, he saw the latter period as characterised by a distinctive mixture of prosperity, domestic prudery, complacency – what G. M. Trevelyan called the "mid-Victorian decades of quiet politics and roaring prosperity". In 1832, after much political agitation, the Reform Act was passed on the third attempt; the Act abolished many borough seats and created others in their place, as well as expanding the franchise in England and Wales. Minor reforms followed in 1835 and 1836. On 20 June 1837, Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom on the death of her uncle, William IV, her government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne, but within two years he had resigned, the Tory politician Sir Robert Peel attempted to form a new ministry.
In the same year, a seizure of British opium exports to China prompted the First Opium War against the Qing dynasty, British imperial India initiated the First Anglo-Afghan War—one of the first major conflicts of the Great Game between Britain and Russia. In 1840, Queen Victoria married her German cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, it proved a happy marriage, whose children were much sought after by royal families across Europe. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi established British sovereignty over New Zealand; the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 ended the First Opium War and gave Britain control over Hong Kong Island. However, a disastrous retreat from Kabul in the same year led to the annihilation of a British army column in Afghanistan. In 1845, the Great Famine began to cause mass starvation and death in Ireland, sparking large-scale emigration. Peel was replaced by the Whig ministry of Lord John Russell. In 1853, Britain fought alongside France in the Crimean War against Russia.
The goal was to ensure that Russia could not benefit from the declining status
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, it employs over 20,950 staff in total. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time and fixed-contract staff are included; the BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, charged to all British households and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up; the fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has funded the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, online services in Arabic and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture, it is known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both. Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920, it was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast; the company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform and entertain"; the financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.
The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired; the BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis; the crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently; the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives in a manner of its own choosing; the resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment
Brașov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the administrative centre of Brașov County. According to the latest Romanian census, Brașov has a population of 253,200 making it the 7th most populous city in Romania; the metropolitan area is home to 382,896 residents. Brașov is located in the central part of the country, about 166 kilometres north of Bucharest and 380 kilometres from the Black Sea, it is part of the historical region of Transylvania. The city is notable for being the regional capital of the Transylvanian Saxons of the Burzenland administrative area in the past, a large commercial hub on the trade roads between East and West, it is the birthplace of the national anthem of Romania. According to Balázs Orbán, the name Corona - a Latin word meaning "crown" - is first mentioned in the Catalogus Ninivensis in 1235 AD, stating a monastic quarter existed in the territory of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania. Pál Binder supposing it is a reference to the St. Catherine's Monastery. Others suggest the name derives from the old coat of arms of the city, as it is symbolized by the German name Kronstadt meaning "Crown City".
The two names of the city and Corona, were used in the Middle Ages, along with the Medieval Latin Brassovia. According to Dragoș Moldovanu, the name of Brașov came from the name of local river named Bârsa, adopted by Slavs and transformed in Barsa and in Barsov and in Brasov According to Pál Binder, the current Romanian and the Hungarian name Brassó are derived from the Turkic word barasu, meaning "white water" with a Slavic suffix -ov. Other linguists proposed various etymologies including an Old Slavic anthroponym Brasa; the first attested mention of this name is Terra Saxonum de Barasu in a 1252 document issued by Béla IV of Hungary. According to some historians, Corona was name of the city-fortess while Brassó was referreing to the county, while others consider both names may refer to the city and the county as well. Another historical name used for Brașov is Stephanopolis, lit. "Stephenstown". From 1950 to 1960, during part of the Communist period in Romania, the city was called Orașul Stalin, lit.
"Stalin City", after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Brașov has a humid continental climate; the oldest traces of human activity and settlements in Brașov date back to the Neolithic age. Archaeologists working from the last half of the 19th century discovered continuous traces of human settlements in areas situated in Brașov: Valea Cetății, Pietrele lui Solomon, Șprenghi, Tâmpa, Dealul Melcilor, Noua; the first three locations show traces of Dacian citadels. The last two locations had their names applied to Bronze Age cultures -- Noua. German colonists known as the Transylvanian Saxons played a decisive role in Brașov's development; these Germans were brought by Hungarian kings to develop towns, build mines, cultivate the land of Transylvania at different stages between 1141 and 1300. The settlers came from the Rhineland and the Moselle region, with others from Thuringia, Bavaria and France. In 1211, by order of King Andrew II of Hungary, the Teutonic Knights fortified the Burzenland to defend the border of the Kingdom of Hungary.
On the site of the village of Brașov, the Teutonic Knights built Kronstadt – the city of the crown. Although the crusaders were evicted by 1225, the colonists they brought in remained, along with local population, as did three distinct settlements they founded on the site of Brașov: Corona, around the Black Church. Germans living in Brașov were involved in trade and crafts; the location of the city at the intersection of trade routes linking the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe, together with certain tax exemptions, allowed Saxon merchants to obtain considerable wealth and exert a strong political influence. They contributed a great deal to the architectural flavor of the city. Fortifications around the city were erected and continually expanded, with several towers maintained by different craftsmen's guilds, according to medieval custom. Part of the fortification ensemble was restored using UNESCO funds, other projects are ongoing. At least two entrances to the city, Poarta Ecaterinei and Poarta Șchei, are still in existence.
The city center is marked by the mayor's former office building and the surrounding square, which includes one of the oldest buildings in Brașov, the Hirscher Haus. Nearby is the "Black Church", which some claim to be the largest Gothic style church in Southeastern Europe. In 1689, a great fire destroyed the walled city entirely, its rebuilding lasted several decades. Besides the German population living in the walled city and in the northern suburbs, Brașov had a significant Romanian and Bulgarian population, some Hungarian population; the cultural and religious importance of the Romanian church and school in Șchei is underlined by the generous donations received from more than thirty hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as that from Elizabeth of Russia. In the 17th and 19th centuries, t
