Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the southeast, Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, it has a predominantly temperate-continental climate. With a total area of 238,397 square kilometres, Romania is the 12th largest country and the 7th most populous member state of the European Union, having 20 million inhabitants, its capital and largest city is Bucharest, other major urban areas include Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța, Brașov. The River Danube, Europe's second-longest river, rises in Germany's Black Forest and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romania's Danube Delta; the Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest, include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m. Modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.
The new state named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. Following World War I, when Romania fought on the side of the Allied powers, Bessarabia, Transylvania as well as parts of Banat, Crișana, Maramureș became part of the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war, under the occupation of the Red Army's forces, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards a market economy; the sovereign state of Romania is a developing country and ranks 52nd in the Human Development Index.
It has the world's 47th largest economy by nominal GDP and an annual economic growth rate of 7%, the highest in the EU at the time. Following rapid economic growth in the early 2000s, Romania has an economy predominantly based on services, is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy, featuring companies like Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom, it has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, part of NATO since 2004, part of the European Union since 2007. An overwhelming majority of the population identifies themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are native speakers of Romanian, a Romance language. Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning "citizen of Rome"; the first known use of the appellation was attested to in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania and Wallachia. The oldest known surviving document written in Romanian, a 1521 letter known as the "Letter of Neacșu from Câmpulung", is notable for including the first documented occurrence of the country's name: Wallachia is mentioned as Țeara Rumânească.
Two spelling forms: român and rumân were used interchangeably until sociolinguistic developments in the late 17th century led to semantic differentiation of the two forms: rumân came to mean "bondsman", while român retained the original ethnolinguistic meaning. After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a revolutionary leader of the early 19th century, used the term Rumânia to refer to the principality of Wallachia."The use of the name Romania to refer to the common homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been in use since 11 December 1861. In English, the name of the country was spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975. Romania is the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. A handful of other languages have switched to "o" like English, but most languages continue to prefer forms with u, e.g. French Roumanie and Swedish Rumänien, Spanish Rumania, Polish Rumunia, Russian Румыния, Japanese ルーマニア.
1859–1862: United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia 1862–1866: Romanian United Principalities or Romania 1866–1881: Romania or Principality of Romania 1881–1947: Kingdom of Romania or Romania 1947–1965: Romanian People's Republic or Romania 1965–December, 1989: Socialist Republic of Romania or Romania December, 1989–present: Romania Human remains found in Peștera cu Oase, radiocarbon dated as being from circa 40,000 years ago, represent the oldest known Homo sapiens in Europe. Neolithic techniques and agriculture spread after the arrival of a mixed group of people from Thessaly in the 6th millenium BC. Excavations near a salt spring at Lunca yielded the earliest evidence for salt exploitation in Europe; the first permanent settlements appeared in the Neolithic. Some of them developed into "proto-cities"; the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture—the best known archaeological culture of Old Europe—flourished in Muntenia, southeastern Transylvania and northeastern Moldavia in the 3rd m
Vit
The Vit Vid is a river in central northern Bulgaria with a length of 188 km. It is a tributary of Danube; the source of the Vit is in Stara Planina, below Vezhen Peak at an altitude of 2,030 m, it empties into the Danube close to Somovit. The river has a watershed area of 3,228 km², its main tributaries being Kamenska reka and Tuchenitsa. Towns on or close to the river include Teteven, Dolni Dabnik, Dolna Mitropoliya and Gulyantsi; the river's name comes from Thracian Utus, a word for "water". Vit Ice Piedmont in Antarctica is named after the river
Gulyantsi
Gulyantsi is a town in central northern Bulgaria, part of Pleven Province. It is the administrative centre of Gulyantsi municipality and lies in the central north of the province, near the town of Nikopol close to the Danube River; as of December 2009, the town has a population of 3,432 inhabitants. Gulyantsi lies 34 kilometres north of the provincial capital Pleven, 4 kilometres south of the Danube and 7-8 kilometres southwest of the mouth of the Iskar River at Gigen village, it was proclaimed a town on 4 September 1974. Gulyantsi municipality website
Cherven Bryag
Cherven bryag is a town in northern Bulgaria, a capital of the Cherven Bryag municipality, Pleven Province. It is situated on the right shore of the Zlatna Panega in river Iskar, 137 km north-east of Sofia, 53 km south-west of Pleven, 12 km north-west of Lukovit, 56 km east of Vratsa, 55 km south of Oryahovo; the name refers to the reddish clay in the vicinity of the river. As of December 2009, the town had a population of 13,856 inhabitants. Cherven Bryag is a medieval settlement mentioned in 1431 in Ottoman registers as Dobrolak. Under its present name Cherven Bryag was first recorded in the 16th century as part of the Ottoman region of Nikopol. On 26 June 1929, Prime Minister Andrey Lyapchev proclaimed station a town. Cherven Bryag is a railway station on the line Sofia-Gorna Oryahovitsa-Varna/Ruse, it first appeared as a railway station settlement in 1899 on the newly built Sofia-Varna railway line. Cherven Bryag was a starting point of a narrow-gauge railway line to Byala Slatina and Oryahovo, as well as of a normal railway line to Lukovit and Zlatna Panega.
Today those lines are no more, out of service. The railway station is opposite the central area. Among the local landmarks, the St. Sophronius of Vratsa Church located in the central part of the town is notable. Margarita Lilowa, Austrian opera singer Daniel Pavlov, athlete Official website of Cherven Bryag municipality
Danubian Plain (Bulgaria)
The Danubian Plain constitutes the northern part of Bulgaria, situated north of the Balkan Mountains and south of the Danube. Its western border is the Timok River and to the east it borders the Black Sea; the plain has an area of 31,523 square kilometres. It is 20 to 120 kilometres wide; the Danubian Plain is contiguous with the Wallachian Plain, but the relief is hilly, featuring numerous plateaux and river valleys. The climate is markedly temperate continental with a weak Black Sea influence in the east. Precipitation is on average 450–650 mm a year. Important rivers include the Danube, the Iskar, the Yantra, the Osam, the Vit, the Rusenski Lom, the Ogosta and the Lom. Among the major cities of the region are Varna, Pleven, Shumen, Veliko Tarnovo, Vidin, Silistra, Razgrad and Lom. In the Danubian Plain there is a wide variety of minerals, such as: Lignite Fireproof clay Oil, Petroleum Manganese Copper ore Northern Bulgaria Wallachian Plain Collective. Balgarska entsiklopediya A-YA. Sofia: IK Trud
Vehicle registration plates of Bulgaria
Standard Bulgarian vehicle registration plates display black glyphs on a white background, together with – on the left-hand side of the plate – a blue vertical "EU strip" showing the flag of Europe and, below it, the country code for Bulgaria: BG. The characters displayed in the main field of the plate are: a one- or two-letter province code four numerals a final two-letter code, known as the "series"; the format is thus XX NNNN YY, where XX is the province code, NNNN is the serial number, YY is the series. Since 1992, only glyphs that are common to both the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabets have been used on Bulgarian plates. Only 12 letters are used. In Bulgarian order, these are: А, В, Е, К, М, Н, О, Р, С, Т, У, Х. All of these are used as part of the province codes. Only nine letters are used in the series; the three that are not used in the series, are Е, reserved for trailers and caravans, О and У. Number plates with a single letter in the series, i.e. "X NNNN Y", appear on mopeds and motorcycles, but can be seen on some older vehicles that have failed to undergo the obligatory re-registration.
The format "X AAAAAA" may be used in vanity plates, where "A" represents either letters or numbers chosen by the owner. The price of such a custom plate is a bit over €3,500, so these are rare. Not counting the "Е" series, reserved for trailers, nor the vanity plates with no series letters, there is a total of 810,000 possible combinations for each province; this total ran out in Sofia in late 2005, was replaced by "СА" in early 2006. Note that the number "0" is written while the letter "O" is egg-shaped. Black letters on a white background, in the format: X NN-NN. State vehicles retained the black on white format, while private vehicles were given black plates with white lettering; the format was X- NNNN. after reaching 9999 a letter was set in front of the 4 numbers X-Y-NNNN. In early 80's, after all the combinations with the letter "C" were exhausted in Sofia, a new format was introduced in the capital beginning with "A", namely AYY-NNNN. Plates with the combinations AAB-NNNN and ABC-NNNN were issued before the standard was changed once again in 1986.
A new issue of plates is introduced with the standard format of "X NNNN Y". Yellow for private plates, white for state-owned vehicles, with previous-style plates no longer valid; these new plates had reflective surfaces. "E" was designated as the series letter for trailers, "Ч" for private freight and private mass transport vehicles Since 1992, the letter license plate code used letters common to both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, irrespective of whether they have the same phonetic value or not: А, В, Е, К, М, Н, О, Р, С, Т, У, Х, the same as today. A similar system is used in Greece, Belarus and Herzegovina, Ukraine. Regions are as per ISO 3166-2:BG; the new 1992 issue of plates used a white background, in the format "X NNNN Y". All former yellow background plates became invalid. In 1993, The hyphens/stops between letter and number blocks were phased out and became invalid in 1993. During the mid-1990s, the "X NNNN Y" combinations began to run out in many provinces, so a second letter was added to the series.
Between 2000-2008, the left-hand blue band Bulgaria flag was phased in becoming a legal requirement on 1 July 2006. These plates were all in the "X NNNN YY" format, but the shape of the letters was changed to the current standard – namely, the letters were made more "square" and heavier-set than previously; these plates all began with the series "AA", thereby repeating some combinations that had existed before, albeit without the EU strip. On 1 January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union, the standardised Europlate was introduced soon after. In use are three other types of plates in format of nnn X nnn: Т plate for the transit of an unregistered vehicle through Bulgaria Н plate for a new vehicle, not yet registered М plate for a new vehicle, started 2017 after the Н series has been exhausted В plate for car dealers These three types use a white background with black text and a red vertical strip on the right side; the expiry date is inscribed on the red strip. Since 2006, all military vehicles' plates are subject to change with the new ones: the letters "BA" and 6 digits — the form is "BA NNN NNN".
The same form is adopted for the new license plates of the Civil Protection Service of Bulgaria, beginning with "CP" followed by 5 digits — "CP NN NNN". On the left side of both kinds of plates there is a blue EU-standard vertical strip. Cars belonging to foreigners and imported into Bulgaria for a limited period of time are light blue with white characters, starting with "ХХ", followed by four digits and two small digits denoting the expiry year. From 2019 "XH" is used after "XX". Diplomatic and consular car number plates are similar to ordinary ones, but are recognizably different in their color: white symbols on a red background. Plates starting with "C" indicate diplomatic status, "CC" indicate consular status, while "CT" is used for cars belonging to other staff of diplomatic representations. Additionally, the first two digits of the numeric group represent the country of the diplomatic or consular mission to
Nikopol, Bulgaria
Nikopol is a town in northern Bulgaria, the administrative center of Nikopol municipality, part of Pleven Province, on the right bank of the Danube river, 4 kilometres downstream from the mouth of the Osam river. It spreads up a narrow valley; as of December 2009, the town has a population of 3,892 inhabitants. In Roman times, it was a village in the province of Moesia, first mentioned in 169. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the town turned out to be located at the northern border of the Byzantine Empire. In 1059, it was named Nicopolis, Greek for "City of Victory". During most of the Middle Ages, it was part of the Bulgarian Empire from its foundation in 681. After the fall of Tarnovo in 1393, the last Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman defended what remained of the Empire from the fortress of Nikopol, where he was captured after the town was conquered by the Ottomans in 1395. Nikopol is therefore sometimes considered the capital of Bulgaria during these two years, it was the site of the Battle of Nicopolis, the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages, in 1396.
At the fortress of Nicopolis, the united armies of Christian Europe headed by Hungarian king Sigismund and various French knights were defeated by the Ottomans under Bayezid I and his Serbian vassal Stefan Lazarević. Under Ottoman rule, Nikopol developed into an important military and administrative centre as a sanjak, with a strong fortress and a flourishing economic and political life, until it went into decline during the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the centre of a district, but it was overtaken by Pleven as the regional centre of that part of the Bulgarian lands. Nikopol was captured by the Russians in the Battle of Nikopol in 1877. Nikopol has a population of 3,892 as of December 2009, it provides services to the local villages. Nikopol was flooded by the Danube during the 2006 European floods, is working on new town infrastructure to manage fluctuations in the Danube River; the completion of a car ferry in 2010 has linked the town to Turnu Măgurele across the Danube in Romania, spurring local development, including the opening of new restaurants and the town’s first hotel.
Nikopol serves as a port for tourist boats where visitors stop and have the opportunity to take a bus into the nearby city of Pleven, or spend the afternoon in Nikopol. The fifth-largest nature park in Bulgaria, Persina Natural Park, lies in Nikopol. Persina Natural Park is the only Bulgarian natural park on the Danube River, contains marshlands, over 200 species of birds, 475 species of plants, 1,100 species of animals. Based on the importance and uniqueness, Persina Natural Park has been declared a Ramsar site. Tourist attractions in Nikopol include the ruins of the medieval fortress, the richly decorated 13th- or 14th-century Church of Saints Peter and Paul, the rock-hewn Church of Saint Stephen, the Bulgarian National Revival Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God from 1840, the Elia water fountain with an immured Ancient Roman gravestone featuring an epitaph, the Vasil Levski museum house. Nikopol is twinned with: Halásztelek, Hungary Shakhty, Russia Zimnicea, Romania Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria, the last emperor of the Second Bulgarian Empire, beheaded at Nikopol in 1395 Jean de Vienne, French general and knight, died at Nikopol Jean de Carrouges, French knight, died at Nikopol Eve Frank, born at Nikopol, successor of her father, the Jewish claimed Messiah Jacob Frank.
Joseph Karo, lived in Nikopol from 1523-1536 Nikopol Point on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Nikopol. Https://web.archive.org/web/20051220013159/http://get.info.bg/visit/Dir.asp?d=0-13-PLEVEN-Nikopol http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/N/NikopB1ul.asp http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4917820.stm#map http://www.pleven.pro/weather/town.php?id=nikopol
Pleven Province
