1.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
2.
Town
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A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
3.
Riga
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Riga is the capital and the largest city of Latvia. With 696,593 inhabitants, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states, the city lies on the Gulf of Riga, at the mouth of the Daugava. Rigas territory covers 307.17 square kilometres and lies one and ten metres above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201 and is a former Hanseatic League member, Rigas historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture during 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden, Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, and the 2006 IIHF Mens World Ice Hockey Championships. It is home to the European Unions office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, Riga is served by Riga International Airport, the largest airport in the Baltic states. Riga is a member of Eurocities, the Union of the Baltic Cities, another theory could be that Riga was named after Riege, the German name for the River Rīdzene, a tributary of the Daugava. The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of todays Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs and it was settled by the Livs, an ancient Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages, Rigas inhabitants occupied themselves mainly with fishing, animal husbandry, and trading, later developing crafts. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158, along with German traders also arrived the monk Meinhard of Segeberg to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, in 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Berthold was killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated, pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, the year 1201 also marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, open to nobles, in 1207, Albert started on fortification of the town. Emperor Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a fief and principality of the Holy Roman Empire, until then, it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and then return home
4.
Old-growth forest
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Old-growth features include diverse tree-related structures that provide diverse wildlife habitat that increases the biodiversity of the forested ecosystem. The concept of tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, greatly varying tree heights and diameters. Old-growth forests are valuable, and logging of these forests has been a point of contention between the logging industry and environmentalists. Old-growth forests tend to have trees and standing dead trees, multi-layered canopies with gaps that result from the deaths of individual trees. Depending on the forest, this may take anywhere from a century to several millennia, hardwood forests of the eastern United States can develop old-growth characteristics in one or two generations of trees, or 150–500 years. In British Columbia, Canada, old growth is defined as 120 to 140 years of age in the interior of the province where fire is a frequent and natural occurrence. In British Columbia’s coastal rainforests, old growth is defined as more than 250 years. In Australia, eucalypt trees rarely exceed 350 years of age due to frequent fire disturbance, Forest types have very different development patterns, natural disturbances and appearances. Levels of biodiversity may be higher or lower in old-growth forests compared to that in second-growth forests, depending on circumstances, environmental variables. Logging in old-growth forests is an issue in many parts of the world. Excessive logging reduces biodiversity, affecting not only the old-growth forest itself, a forest in old-growth stage has a mix of tree ages, due to a distinct regeneration pattern for this stage. New trees regenerate at different times from other, because each one of them has different spatial location relative to the main canopy. The mixed age of the forest is an important criterion in ensuring that the forest is a stable ecosystem in the long term. A climax stand that is uniformly aged becomes senescent and degrades within a relatively short time-period to result in a new cycle of forest succession, thus, uniformly aged stands are a less stable ecosystem. Forest canopy gaps are essential in creating and maintaining mixed-age stands, also, some herbaceous plants only become established in canopy openings, but persist beneath an understory. Openings are a result of death due to small impact disturbances such as wind, low-intensity fires. Because old-growth forest is structurally diverse it provides higher-diversity habitat than forests in other stages, thus, sometimes higher biological diversity can be sustained in old-growth forest, or at least a biodiversity that is different from other forest stages. The characteristic topography of much old-growth forest consists of pits and mounds, mounds are caused by decaying fallen trees, and pits by the roots pulled out of the ground when trees fall due to natural causes, including being pushed over by animals
5.
Devonian
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The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician. The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common. The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early, Middle and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
6.
Sandstone
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Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earths crust, like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, quartz-bearing sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure, usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, clays, grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages, first, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Typically, sedimentation occurs by the settling out from suspension. The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried. Colours will usually be tan or yellow, a predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe. The regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a building material or as a facing stone. These physical properties allow the grains to survive multiple recycling events. Quartz grains evolve from rock, which are felsic in origin. Feldspathic framework grains are commonly the second most abundant mineral in sandstones, Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, alkali feldspars and plagioclase feldspars. The different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope, below is a description of the different types of feldspar. Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8. Plagioclase feldspar is a group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8. Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone, commonly these minerals make up just a small percentage of the grains in a sandstone
7.
Cave
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A cave is a hollow place in the ground, specifically a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. Caves form naturally by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground, the word cave can also refer to much smaller openings such as sea caves, rock shelters, and grottos. A cavern is a type of cave, naturally formed in soluble rock with the ability to grow speleothems. Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves, visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving, potholing, or spelunking. The formation and development of caves is known as speleogenesis, which can occur over the course of millions of years, caves are formed by various geologic processes and can be variable sizes. These may involve a combination of processes, erosion from water, tectonic forces, microorganisms, pressure. Isotopic dating techniques can be applied to cave sediments, in order to determine the timescale when geologic events may have occurred to help form and it is estimated that the maximum depth of a cave cannot be more than 3,000 metres due to the pressure of overlying rocks. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the limit of karst forming processes. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution, solutional caves or karst caves are the most frequently occurring caves and such caves form in rock that is soluble. Most occur in limestone, but they can form in other rocks including chalk, dolomite, marble, salt. Rock is dissolved by acid in groundwater that seeps through bedding planes, faults, joints. Over geological epochs cracks expand to become caves and cave systems, the largest and most abundant solutional caves are located in limestone. Limestone dissolves under the action of rainwater and groundwater charged with H2CO3, the dissolution process produces a distinctive landform known as karst, characterized by sinkholes and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation and these include flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems, the portions of a solutional cave that are below the water table or the local level of the groundwater will be flooded. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico and nearby Carlsbad Cavern are now believed to be examples of type of solutional cave. They were formed by H2S gas rising from below, where reservoirs of oil give off sulfurous fumes and this gas mixes with ground water and forms H2SO4. The acid then dissolves the limestone from below, rather than from above, caves formed at the same time as the surrounding rock are called primary caves
8.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
9.
Opera
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Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below
10.
Castle
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A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. Usage of the term has varied over time and has applied to structures as diverse as hill forts. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built, they took on a great many forms with different features, although some, such as curtain walls. A European innovation, castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures served as centres of administration. Many castles were built from earth and timber, but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire, many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castles firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to a mixture of castle technology from the Crusades, such as concentric fortification, not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape, while castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into decline and were replaced by artillery forts with no role in civil administration, and country houses that were indefensible. From the 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of castles, part of a romantic revival of Gothic architecture. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning fortified place. The Old English castel, Old French castel or chastel, French château, Spanish castillo, Italian castello, the word castle was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this type of building, which was then new to England. In its simplest terms, the definition of a castle accepted amongst academics is a fortified residence. Feudalism was the link between a lord and his vassal where, in return for service and the expectation of loyalty. Castles served a range of purposes, the most important of which were military, administrative, as well as defensive structures, castles were also offensive tools which could be used as a base of operations in enemy territory
11.
Ruins
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Natural disaster, war and depopulation are the most common root causes, with many structures becoming progressively derelict over time due to long-term weathering and scavenging. Many ruins have become UNESCO World Heritage Sites in recent years, to identify, ancient cities were often highly militarized and fortified defensive settlements. In times of war they were the focus of armed conflict. Entire cities have also been ruined, and some occasionally lost completely, the ancient city of Pompeii was completely lost during a volcanic eruption in the 1st century AD, its uncovered ruins now preserved as a World Heritage Site. The city of Lisbon was totally destroyed in 1755 by an earthquake and tsunami. Apart from acts of war, some important historic buildings have fallen victim to deliberate acts of destruction as a consequence of social, political, marble was still being burned for agricultural lime in the Roman Camapgna into the nineteenth century. In Europe, many buildings suffered as a result of the politics of the day. In the 16th century, the English monarch Henry VIII set about confiscating the property of monastic institutions in a campaign which known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Many abbeys and monsateries fell into ruin when their assets, including lead roofs, were stripped, following World War II, a number of European historic buildings fell into ruin as a result of taxation policies, which required all structures with roofs to pay substantial property tax. The owners of buildings, like Fetteresso Castle and Slains Castle in Scotland, deliberately destroyed their roofs in protest at, and defiance of. Post-colonial Ireland has encouraged the ruin of grand Georgian houses, symbols of British imperialism, however, sometimes tower basements remain, because their removal can sometimes be expensive. One example of such a basement is the basement of the radio mast of Deutschlandsender Herzberg/Elster. The basements of large wooden towers such as Transmitter Ismaning may also be left behind, the contemplation of rust belt post-industrial ruins is in its infancy. The new sense of historicism that accompanied neoclassicism led some artists, in the period of Romanticism ruins were frequent object for painters, place of meetings of romantic poets, nationalist students etc. Joseph Michael Gandy completed for Sir John Soane in 1832 an atmospheric watercolor of the architects vast Bank of England rotunda as an overgrown ruin. Ruinenwert was popularized in the 20th century by Albert Speer while planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics, for example, the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle in England inspired Turner to create several paintings, in 1989 the ruined Dunnottar Castle in Scotland was used for filming of Hamlet
12.
Cherry
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A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe. The cherry fruits of commerce usually are obtained from a number of species such as cultivars of the sweet cherry. The name cherry also refers to the tree, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in ornamental cherry, cherry blossom. Wild cherry may refer to any of the species growing outside of cultivation. The subgenus is native to the regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Other cherry fruits are members of subgenus Padus, most eating cherries are derived from either Prunus avium, the sweet cherry, or from Prunus cerasus, the sour cherry. The indigenous range of the sweet cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia, and parts of northern Africa, and the fruit has been consumed throughout its range since prehistoric times. A cultivated cherry is recorded as having brought to Rome by Lucius Licinius Lucullus from northeastern Anatolia, also known as the Pontus region. Cherries were introduced into England at Teynham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, by order of Henry VIII, cherries arrived in North America early in the settlement of Brooklyn, New York when the region was under Dutch sovereignty. Trades people leased or purchased land to plant orchards and produce gardens, behind the house sold by Anthony Jansen from Salee to Barent Dirksen. Both species originate in Europe and western Asia, they do not cross-pollinate, some other species, although having edible fruit, are not grown extensively for consumption, except in northern regions where the two main species will not grow. Irrigation, spraying, labor, and their propensity to damage from rain, nonetheless, demand is high for the fruit. In commercial production, cherries are harvested by using a mechanized shaker, hand picking is also widely used to harvest the fruit to avoid damage to both fruit and trees. Common rootstocks include Mazzard, Mahaleb, Colt, and Gisela Series, sour cherries require no pollenizer, while few sweet varieties are self-fertile. Like most temperate-latitude trees, cherry seeds require exposure to cold to germinate, the pits are planted in the autumn and seedlings emerge in the spring. A cherry tree will take three to four years in the field to produce its first crop of fruit, and seven years to attain full maturity, because of the cold-weather requirement, none of the Prunus genus can grow in tropical climates. Cherries have a growing season and can grow in most temperate latitudes. Cherries blossom in April and the season for the cherry harvest is in the summer
Latvia
pronunciation (help·info); German: Segewold) is a town in the Vidzeme Region of Latvia, 53 kilometres (33 miles) from the capital city Riga.
Media related to Sigulda at Wikimedia Commons
