History.

Initial concept.

Adding text messaging functionality to mobile devices began in the early 1980s. The first action plan of the CEPT Group GSM was approved in December 1982, requesting that "The services and facilities offered in the public switched telephone networks and public data networks... should be available in the mobile system." This plan included the exchange of text messages either directly between mobile stations, or transmitted via message handling systems in use at that time.  The SMS concept was developed in the Franco-German GSM cooperation in 1984 by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert. The GSM is optimized for telephony, since this was identified as its main application. The key idea for SMS was to use this telephone-optimized system, and to transport messages on the signalling paths needed to control the telephone traffic during periods when no signalling traffic existed. In this way, unused resources in the system could be used to transport messages at minimal cost. However, it was necessary to limit the length of the messages to 128 bytes (later improved to 160 seven-bit characters) so that the messages could fit into the existing signalling formats. Based on his personal observations and on analysis of the typical lengths of postcard and Telex messages, Hillebrand argued that 160 characters was sufficient for most brief communications.  SMS could be implemented in every mobile station by updating its software. Hence, a large base of SMS-capable terminals and networks existed when people began to use SMS. A new network element required was a specialized short message service centre, and enhancements were required to the radio capacity and network transport infrastructure to accommodate growing SMS traffic.

Early development.

The technical development of SMS was a multinational collaboration supporting the framework of standards bodies. Through these organizations the technology was made freely available to the whole world.  The first proposal which initiated the development of SMS was made by a contribution of Germany and France in the GSM group meeting in February 1985 in Oslo. This proposal was further elaborated in GSM subgroup WP1 Services (Chairman Martine Alvernhe, France Telecom) based on a contribution from Germany. There were also initial discussions in the subgroup WP3 network aspects chaired by Jan Audestad (Telenor). The result was approved by the main GSM group in a June 1985 document which was distributed to industry. The input documents on SMS had been prepared by Friedhelm Hillebrand of Deutsche Telekom, with contributions from Bernard Ghillebaert of France Télécom. The definition that Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert brought into GSM called for the provision of a message transmission service of alphanumeric messages to mobile users "with acknowledgement capabilities". The last three words transformed SMS into something much more useful than the electronic paging services used at the time that some in GSM might have had in mind.  SMS was considered in the main GSM group as a possible service for the new digital cellular system. In GSM document ""Services and Facilities to be provided in the GSM System,"" both mobile-originated and mobile-terminated short messages appear on the table of GSM teleservices.  The discussions on the GSM services were concluded in the recommendation GSM 02.03 ""TeleServices supported by a GSM PLMN."" Here a rudimentary description of the three services was given:  The material elaborated in GSM and its WP1 subgroup was handed over in Spring 1987 to a new GSM body called IDEG (the Implementation of Data and Telematic Services Experts Group), which had its kickoff in May 1987 under the chairmanship of Friedhelm Hillebrand (German Telecom). The technical standard known today was largely created by IDEG (later WP4) as the two recommendations GSM 03.40 (the two point-to-point services merged) and GSM 03.41 (cell broadcast).  WP4 created a Drafting Group Message Handling (DGMH), which was responsible for the specification of SMS. Finn Trosby of Telenor chaired the draft group through its first 3 years, in which the design of SMS was established. DGMH had five to eight participants, and Finn Trosby mentions as major contributors Kevin Holley, Eija Altonen, Didier Luizard and Alan Cox. The first action plan mentions for the first time the Technical Specification 03.40 "Technical Realisation of the Short Message Service". Responsible editor was Finn Trosby. The first and very rudimentary draft of the technical specification was completed in November 1987. However, drafts useful for the manufacturers followed at a later stage in the period. A comprehensive description of the work in this period is given in.  The work on the draft specification continued in the following few years, where Kevin Holley of Cellnet (now Telefónica O2 UK) played a leading role. Besides the completion of the main specification GSM 03.40, the detailed protocol specifications on the system interfaces also needed to be completed.

Support in other architectures.

The Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol included support for the transport of Short Messages through the Core Network from its inception. MAP Phase 2 expanded support for SMS by introducing a separate operation code for Mobile Terminated Short Message transport. Since Phase 2, there have been no changes to the Short Message operation packages in MAP, although other operation packages have been enhanced to support CAMEL SMS control.  From 3GPP Releases 99 and 4 onwards, CAMEL Phase 3 introduced the ability for the Intelligent Network (IN) to control aspects of the Mobile Originated Short Message Service, while CAMEL Phase 4, as part of 3GPP Release 5 and onwards, provides the IN with the ability to control the Mobile Terminated service. CAMEL allows the gsmSCP to block the submission (MO) or delivery (MT) of Short Messages, route messages to destinations other than that specified by the user, and perform real-time billing for the use of the service. Prior to standardized CAMEL control of the Short Message Service, IN control relied on switch vendor specific extensions to the Intelligent Network Application Part (INAP) of SS7.

Early implementations.

The first SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems) using a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 handset. The text of the message was "Merry Christmas."  The first commercial deployment of a short message service center (SMSC) was by Aldiscon part of Logica (now part of CGI) with Telia (now TeliaSonera) in Sweden in 1993, followed by Fleet Call (now Nextel) in the US, Telenor in Norway and BT Cellnet (now O2 UK) later in 1993. All first installations of SMS gateways were for network notifications sent to mobile phones, usually to inform of voice mail messages.  The first commercially sold SMS service was offered to consumers, as a person-to-person text messaging service by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa) in Finland in 1993. Most early GSM mobile phone handsets did not support the ability to send SMS text messages, and Nokia was the only handset manufacturer whose total GSM phone line in 1993 supported user-sending of SMS text messages. According to Matti Makkonen, an engineer at Nokia at the time, the Nokia 2010, which was released in January 1994, was the first mobile phone to support composing SMSes easily.  Initial growth was slow, with customers in 1995 sending on average only 0.4 messages per GSM customer per month. One factor in the slow takeup of SMS was that operators were slow to set up charging systems, especially for prepaid subscribers, and eliminate billing fraud which was possible by changing SMSC settings on individual handsets to use the SMSCs of other operators. Initially, networks in the UK only allowed customers to send messages to other users on the same network, limiting the usefulness of the service. This restriction was lifted in 1999.  Over time, this issue was eliminated by switch billing instead of billing at the SMSC and by new features within SMSCs to allow blocking of foreign mobile users sending messages through it. By the end of 2000, the average number of messages reached 35 per user per month, and on Christmas Day 2006, over 205 million messages were sent in the UK alone.

Text messaging outside GSM.

SMS was originally designed as part of GSM, but is now available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. However, not all text messaging systems use SMS, and some notable alternative implementations of the concept include J-Phone's "SkyMail" and NTT Docomo's "Short Mail", both in Japan. Email messaging from phones, as popularized by NTT Docomo's i-mode and the RIM BlackBerry, also typically uses standard mail protocols such as SMTP over TCP/IP.

SMS today.

, 6.1 trillion (6.1 × 10) SMS text messages were sent, which is an average of 193,000 SMS per second. SMS has become a large commercial industry, earning $114.6 billion globally in 2010. The global average price for an SMS message is US$0.11, while mobile networks charge each other interconnect fees of at least US$0.04 when connecting between different phone networks.  In 2015, the actual cost of sending an SMS in Australia was found to be $0.00016 per SMS.  In 2014, Caktus Group developed the world's first SMS-based voter registration system in Libya. So far, more than 1.5 million people have registered using that system, providing Libyan voters with unprecedented access to the democratic process.  While SMS is still a growing market, it is being increasingly challenged by Internet Protocol-based messaging services such as Apple's iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat (in China) and Line (in Japan), available on smart phones with data connections. It has been reported that over 97% of smart phone owners use alternative messaging services at least once a day. However, in the U.S. these Internet-based services have not caught on as much, and SMS continues to be highly popular there.

SMS Enablement.

SMS enablement allows individuals to send an SMS message to a business phone number (traditional landline) and receive a SMS in return. Providing customers with the ability to text to a phone number allows organizations to offer new services that deliver value. Examples include chat bots, and text enabled customer service and call centers.

Technical details.

GSM.

The "Short Message Service—Point to Point (SMS-PP)"—was originally defined in GSM recommendation 03.40, which is now maintained in 3GPP as TS 23.040. GSM 03.41 (now 3GPP TS 23.041) defines the "Short Message Service—Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB)", which allows messages (advertising, public information, etc.) to be broadcast to all mobile users in a specified geographical area.  Messages are sent to a short message service center (SMSC), which provides a "store and forward" mechanism. It attempts to send messages to the SMSC's recipients. If a recipient is not reachable, the SMSC queues the message for later retry. Some SMSCs also provide a "forward and forget" option where transmission is tried only once. Both mobile terminated (MT, for messages sent "to" a mobile handset) and mobile originating (MO, for those sent "from" the mobile handset) operations are supported. Message delivery is "best effort", so there are no guarantees that a message will actually be delivered to its recipient, but delay or complete loss of a message is uncommon, typically affecting less than 5 percent of messages. Some providers allow users to request delivery reports, either via the SMS settings of most modern phones, or by prefixing each message with *0# or *N#. However, the exact meaning of confirmations varies from reaching the network, to being queued for sending, to being sent, to receiving a confirmation of receipt from the target device, and users are often not informed of the specific type of success being reported.  SMS is a stateless communication protocol in which every SMS message is considered entirely independent of other messages. Enterprise applications using SMS as a communication channel for stateful dialogue (where an MO reply message is paired to a specific MT message) requires that session management be maintained external to the protocol.

Message size.

Transmission of short messages between the SMSC and the handset is done whenever using the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol. Messages are sent with the MAP MO- and MT-ForwardSM operations, whose payload length is limited by the constraints of the signaling protocol to precisely 140 bytes (140 bytes * 8 bits / byte = 1120 bits).  Short messages can be encoded using a variety of alphabets: the default GSM 7-bit alphabet, the 8-bit data alphabet, and the 16-bit UCS-2 alphabet. Depending on which alphabet the subscriber has configured in the handset, this leads to the maximum individual short message sizes of 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. GSM 7-bit alphabet support is mandatory for GSM handsets and network elements, but characters in languages such as Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Cyrillic alphabet languages (e.g., Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode). Routing data and other metadata is additional to the payload size.  Larger content (concatenated SMS, multipart or segmented SMS, or "long SMS") can be sent using multiple messages, in which case each message will start with a User Data Header (UDH) containing segmentation information. Since UDH is part of the payload, the number of available characters per segment is lower: 153 for 7-bit encoding, 134 for 8-bit encoding and 67 for 16-bit encoding. The receiving handset is then responsible for reassembling the message and presenting it to the user as one long message. While the standard theoretically permits up to 255 segments, 10 segments is the practical maximum with some carriers, and long messages are often billed as equivalent to multiple SMS messages. Some providers have offered length-oriented pricing schemes for messages, although that type of pricing structure is rapidly disappearing.

Gateway providers.

SMS gateway providers facilitate SMS traffic between businesses and mobile subscribers, including SMS for enterprises, content delivery, and entertainment services involving SMS, e.g. TV voting. Considering SMS messaging performance and cost, as well as the level of messaging services, SMS gateway providers can be classified as aggregators or SS7 providers.  The aggregator model is based on multiple agreements with mobile carriers to exchange two-way SMS traffic into and out of the operator's SMSC, also known as "local termination model". Aggregators lack direct access into the SS7 protocol, which is the protocol where the SMS messages are exchanged. SMS messages are delivered to the operator's SMSC, but not the subscriber's handset; the SMSC takes care of further handling of the message through the SS7 network.  Another type of SMS gateway provider is based on SS7 connectivity to route SMS messages, also known as "international termination model". The advantage of this model is the ability to route data directly through SS7, which gives the provider total control and visibility of the complete path during SMS routing. This means SMS messages can be sent directly to and from recipients without having to go through the SMSCs of other mobile operators. Therefore, it is possible to avoid delays and message losses, offering full delivery guarantees of messages and optimized routing. This model is particularly efficient when used in mission-critical messaging and SMS used in corporate communications. Moreover, these SMS gateway providers are providing branded SMS services with masking but after misuse of these gateways most countries's Governments have taken serious steps to block these gateways.

Interconnectivity with other networks.

Message Service Centers communicate with the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) or PSTN via Interworking and Gateway MSCs.  Subscriber-originated messages are transported from a handset to a service center, and may be destined for mobile users, subscribers on a fixed network, or Value-Added Service Providers (VASPs), also known as application-terminated. Subscriber-terminated messages are transported from the service center to the destination handset, and may originate from mobile users, from fixed network subscribers, or from other sources such as VASPs.  On some carriers nonsubscribers can send messages to a subscriber's phone using an Email-to-SMS gateway. Additionally, many carriers, including AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless, offer the ability to do this through their respective web sites.  For example, an AT&T subscriber whose phone number was 555-555-5555 would receive e-mails addressed to 5555555555@txt.att.net as text messages. Subscribers can easily reply to these SMS messages, and the SMS reply is sent back to the original email address. Sending email to SMS is free for the sender, but the recipient is subject to the standard delivery charges. Only the first 160 characters of an email message can be delivered to a phone, and only 160 characters can be sent from a phone. However, longer messages may be broken up into multiple texts, depending upon the telephone service provider.  Text-enabled fixed-line handsets are required to receive messages in text format. However, messages can be delivered to nonenabled phones using text-to-speech conversion.  Short messages can send binary content such as ringtones or logos, as well as Over-the-air programming (OTA) or configuration data. Such uses are a vendor-specific extension of the GSM specification and there are multiple competing standards, although Nokia's Smart Messaging is common. An alternative way for sending such binary content is EMS messaging, which is standardized and not dependent on vendors.  SMS is used for M2M (Machine to Machine) communication. For instance, there is an LED display machine controlled by SMS, and some vehicle tracking companies use SMS for their data transport or telemetry needs. SMS usage for these purposes is slowly being superseded by GPRS services owing to their lower overall cost. GPRS is offered by smaller telco players as a route of sending SMS text to reduce the cost of SMS texting internationally.

AT commands.

Many mobile and satellite transceiver units support the sending and receiving of SMS using an extended version of the Hayes command set. The extensions were standardised as part of the GSM Standards and extended as part of the 3GPP standards process.  The connection between the terminal equipment and the transceiver can be realized with a serial cable (e.g., USB), a Bluetooth link, an infrared link, etc. Common AT commands include AT+CMGS (send message), AT+CMSS (send message from storage), AT+CMGL (list messages) and AT+CMGR (read message).  However, not all modern devices support receiving of messages if the message storage (for instance the device's internal memory) is not accessible using AT commands.

Premium-rated short messages.

Short messages may be used normally to provide premium rate services to subscribers of a telephone network.  Mobile-terminated short messages can be used to deliver digital content such as news alerts, financial information, logos, and ring tones. The first premium-rate media content delivered via the SMS system was the world's first paid downloadable ringing tones, as commercially launched by Saunalahti (later Jippii Group, now part of Elisa Group), in 1998. Initially, only Nokia branded phones could handle them. By 2002 the ringtone business globally had exceeded $1 billion of service revenues, and nearly US$5 billion by 2008. Today, they are also used to pay smaller payments online—for example, for file-sharing services, in mobile application stores, or VIP section entrance. Outside the online world, one can buy a bus ticket or beverages from ATM, pay a parking ticket, order a store catalog or some goods (e.g., discount movie DVDs), make a donation to charity, and much more.  Premium-rated messages are also used in Donors Message Service to collect money for charities and foundations. DMS was first launched at April 1, 2004, and is very popular in the Czech Republic. For example, the Czech people sent over 1.5 million messages to help South Asia recover from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.  The Value-added service provider (VASP) providing the content submits the message to the mobile operator's SMSC(s) using an TCP/IP protocol such as the short message peer-to-peer protocol (SMPP) or the External Machine Interface (EMI). The SMSC delivers the text using the normal Mobile Terminated delivery procedure. The subscribers are charged extra for receiving this premium content; the revenue is typically divided between the mobile network operator and the VASP either through revenue share or a fixed transport fee. Submission to the SMSC is usually handled by a third party.  Mobile-originated short messages may also be used in a premium-rated manner for services such as televoting. In this case, the VASP providing the service obtains a short code from the telephone network operator, and subscribers send texts to that number. The payouts to the carriers vary by carrier; percentages paid are greatest on the lowest-priced premium SMS services. Most information providers should expect to pay about 45 percent of the cost of the premium SMS up front to the carrier. The submission of the text to the SMSC is identical to a standard MO Short Message submission, but once the text is at the SMSC, the Service Center (SC) identifies the Short Code as a premium service. The SC will then direct the content of the text message to the VASP, typically using an IP protocol such as SMPP or EMI. Subscribers are charged a premium for the sending of such messages, with the revenue typically shared between the network operator and the VASP. Short codes only work within one country, they are not international.  An alternative to inbound SMS is based on long numbers (international number format, such as "+44 762 480 5000"), which can be used in place of short codes for SMS reception in several applications, such as TV voting, product promotions and campaigns. Long numbers work internationally, allow businesses to use their own numbers, rather than short codes, which are usually shared across many brands. Additionally, long numbers are nonpremium inbound numbers.

Threaded SMS.

Threaded SMS is a visual styling orientation of SMS message history that arranges messages to and from a contact in chronological order on a single screen.  It was first invented by a developer working to implement the SMS client for the BlackBerry, who was looking to make use of the blank screen left below the message on a device with a larger screen capable of displaying far more than the usual 160 characters, and was inspired by threaded Reply conversations in email.  Visually, this style of representation provides a back-and-forth chat-like history for each individual contact. Hierarchical-threading at the conversation-level (as typical in blogs and on-line messaging boards) is not widely supported by SMS messaging clients. This limitation is due to the fact that there is no session identifier or subject-line passed back and forth between sent and received messages in the header data (as specified by SMS protocol) from which the client device can properly thread an incoming message to a specific dialogue, or even to a specific message within a dialogue.  Most smart phone text-messaging-clients are able to create some contextual threading of "group messages" which narrows the context of the thread around the common interests shared by group members. On the other hand, advanced enterprise messaging applications which push messages from a remote server often display a dynamically changing reply number (multiple numbers used by the same sender), which is used along with the sender's phone number to create session-tracking capabilities analogous to the functionality that cookies provide for web-browsing. As one pervasive example, this technique is used to extend the functionality of many Instant Messenger (IM) applications such that they are able to communicate over two-way dialogues with the much larger SMS user-base. In cases where multiple reply numbers are used by the enterprise server to maintain the dialogue, the visual conversation threading on the client may be separated into multiple threads.

Application-to-person (A2P) SMS.

While SMS reached its popularity as a person-to-person messaging, another type of SMS is growing fast: application-to-person (A2P) messaging. A2P is a type of SMS sent from a subscriber to an application or sent from an application to a subscriber. It is commonly used by businesses, such as banks, to send SMS messages from their systems to their customers.  In the US, carriers have traditionally preferred that A2P messages must be sent using a short code rather than a standard long code. However, recently multiple US carriers, including Verizon have announced plans to officially support A2P messages over long codes. In the United Kingdom A2P messages can be sent with a dynamic 11 character sender ID; however, short codes are used for OPTOUT commands. There are specialist companies such as MMG Mobile Marketing Group which provide these services to businesses and enterprises.

Satellite phone networks.

All commercial satellite phone networks except ACeS and OptusSat support SMS. While early Iridium handsets only support incoming SMS, later models can also send messages. The price per message varies for different networks. Unlike some mobile phone networks, there is no extra charge for sending international SMS or to send one to a different satellite phone network. SMS can sometimes be sent from areas where the signal is too poor to make a voice call.  Satellite phone networks usually have web-based or email-based SMS portals where one can send free SMS to phones on that particular network.

Unreliability.

Unlike dedicated texting systems like the Simple Network Paging Protocol and Motorola's ReFLEX protocol, SMS message delivery is not guaranteed, and many implementations provide no mechanism through which a sender can determine whether an SMS message has been delivered in a timely manner. SMS messages are generally treated as lower-priority traffic than voice, and various studies have shown that around 1% to 5% of messages are lost entirely, even during normal operation conditions, and others may not be delivered until long after their relevance has passed. The use of SMS as an emergency notification service in particular has been questioned.

Vulnerabilities.

The Global Service for Mobile communications (GSM), with the greatest worldwide number of users, succumbs to several security vulnerabilities. In the GSM, only the airway traffic between the Mobile Station (MS) and the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) is optionally encrypted with a weak and broken stream cipher (A5/1 or A5/2). The authentication is unilateral and also vulnerable. There are also many other security vulnerabilities and shortcomings. Such vulnerabilities are inherent to SMS as one of the superior and well-tried services with a global availability in the GSM networks. SMS messaging has some extra security vulnerabilities due to its store-and-forward feature, and the problem of fake SMS that can be conducted via the Internet. When a user is roaming, SMS content passes through different networks, perhaps including the Internet, and is exposed to various vulnerabilities and attacks. Another concern arises when an adversary gets access to a phone and reads the previous unprotected messages.  In October 2005, researchers from Pennsylvania State University published an analysis of vulnerabilities in SMS-capable cellular networks. The researchers speculated that attackers might exploit the open functionality of these networks to disrupt them or cause them to fail, possibly on a nationwide scale.

SMS spoofing.

The GSM industry has identified a number of potential fraud attacks on mobile operators that can be delivered via abuse of SMS messaging services. The most serious threat is SMS Spoofing, which occurs when a fraudster manipulates address information in order to impersonate a user that has roamed onto a foreign network and is submitting messages to the home network. Frequently, these messages are addressed to destinations outside the home network—with the home SMSC essentially being "hijacked" to send messages into other networks.  The only sure way of detecting and blocking spoofed messages is to screen incoming mobile-originated messages to verify that the sender is a valid subscriber and that the message is coming from a valid and correct location. This can be implemented by adding an intelligent routing function to the network that can query originating subscriber details from the home location register (HLR) before the message is submitted for delivery. This kind of intelligent routing function is beyond the capabilities of legacy messaging infrastructure.

Limitation.

In an effort to limit telemarketers who had taken to bombarding users with hordes of unsolicited messages, India introduced new regulations in September 2011, including a cap of 3,000 SMS messages per subscriber per month, or an average of 100 per subscriber per day. Due to representations received from some of the service providers and consumers, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has raised this limit to 200 SMS messages per SIM per day in case of prepaid services, and up to 6,000 SMS messages per SIM per month in case of postpaid services with effect from 1 November 2011. However, it was ruled unconstitutional by the Delhi high court, but there are some limitations.

Flash SMS.

A Flash SMS is a type of SMS that appears directly on the main screen without user interaction and is not automatically stored in the inbox. It can be useful in emergencies, such as a fire alarm or cases of confidentiality, as in delivering one-time passwords.

Silent SMS.

In Germany in 2010 almost half a million "silent SMS" messages were sent by the federal police, customs and the secret service "Verfassungsschutz" (offices for protection of the constitution). These silent messages, also known as "silent TMS", "stealth SMS", "stealth ping" or "Short Message Type 0", are used to locate a person and thus to create a complete movement profile. They do not show up on a display, nor trigger any acoustical signal when received. Their primary purpose was to deliver special services of the network operator to any cell phone.

SMS (short message service) is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet, and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols to enable mobile devices to exchange short text messages. An intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines.

Služba krátkých textových zpráv (zkratka SMS z anglického "Short message service") je název pro službu dostupnou na většině digitálních mobilních telefonů. Zprávu lze posílat mezi mobilními telefony, jinými zařízeními, na pevné telefony nebo přes internet. Délka zprávy je omezena na 160 znaků. V Evropě se často jako SMS označuje i samotná krátká textová zpráva.


Etymology.

The word "arctic" comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός ("arktikos": "near the Bear, northern") and that from the word ἄρκτος ("arktos": "bear").

Midnight sun and polar night.

The Arctic Circle is the southernmost latitude in the Northern Hemisphere at which the centre of the sun can remain continuously above or below the horizon for twenty-four hours; as a result, at least once each year at any location within the Arctic Circle the sun is visible at local midnight, and at least once the centre is not visible at local noon.  Directly on the Arctic Circle these events occur, in principle, exactly once per year: at the June and December solstices, respectively. However, because of atmospheric refraction and mirages, and also because the sun appears as a disk and not a point, part of the midnight sun may be seen on the night of the northern summer solstice up to about 50 minutes (′) () south of the Arctic Circle; similarly, on the day of the northern winter solstice, part of the sun may be seen up to about 50′ north of the Arctic Circle. That is true at sea level; those limits increase with elevation above sea level, although in mountainous regions there is often no direct view of the true horizon.

Human habitation.

Only four million people live north of the Arctic Circle due to the climate; nonetheless, some areas have been settled for thousands of years by indigenous peoples, who today make up 10% of the region's population. The largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are situated in Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden: Murmansk (population 295,374), Norilsk (178,018), Tromsø (75,638), Vorkuta (58,133), and Kiruna (22,841). Rovaniemi (62,667) in Finland is the largest settlement in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle, lying south of the line.  In contrast, the largest North American community north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut (Greenland), has approximately 5,000 inhabitants. In the United States, Utqiagvik, Alaska is the largest settlement north of the Arctic Circle with about 4,000 inhabitants. The largest such community in Canada is Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, with 3,200 people living there.

Geography.

The Arctic Circle is roughly long. The area north of the Circle is about and covers roughly 4% of Earth's surface.  The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic Ocean, the Scandinavian Peninsula, North Asia, Northern America, and Greenland. The land within the Arctic Circle is divided among eight countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut), Denmark (Greenland), and Iceland (where it passes through the small offshore island of Grímsey).

Climate.

The climate inside the Arctic Circle is generally cold, but the coastal areas of Norway have a generally mild climate as a result of the Gulf Stream, which makes the ports of northern Norway and northwest Russia ice-free all year long. In the interior, summers can be quite warm, while winters are extremely cold. For example, summer temperatures in Norilsk, Russia will sometimes reach as high as, while the winter temperatures frequently fall below.

Sites along the Arctic Circle.

Starting at the prime meridian and heading eastwards, the Arctic Circle passes through:

The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. It marks the northernmost point at which the centre of the noon sun is just visible on the December solstice and the southernmost point at which the centre of the midnight sun is just visible on the June solstice. The region north of this circle is known as the Arctic, and the zone just to the south is called the Northern Temperate Zone.

Severní polární kruh je myšlená kružnice, která protíná všechna nejjižnější místa na severní polokouli, z nichž lze vidět po 24 hodin Slunce za letního slunovratu – tedy, kde Slunce za letního slunovratu nezapadne za obzor, a na nichž Slunce za zimního slunovratu nevyjde nad obzor.


Overview.

Within each pillar, a different balance was struck between the supranational and intergovernmental principles.  Supranationalism was strongest in the first pillar. Its function generally corresponded at first to the three European Communities (European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), European Economic Community (EEC) and Euratom) whose organisational structure had already been unified in 1965–67, through the Merger Treaty. Later, through the Treaty of Maastricht the word "Economic" was removed from the EEC, so it became simply the EC. Then with the Treaty of Amsterdam additional areas would be transferred from the third pillar to the first. In 2002, the ECSC (which had a lifetime of 50 years) ceased to exist because the treaty which established it, the Treaty of Paris, had expired.  In the CFSP and PJCCM pillars the powers of the European Parliament, the Commission and European Court of Justice with respect to the Council were significantly limited, without however being altogether eliminated. The balance struck in the first pillar was frequently referred to as the "community method", since it was that used by the European Community.

History.

1993: Origin.

The pillar structure had its historical origins in the negotiations leading up to the Maastricht Treaty. It was desired to add powers to the Community in the areas of foreign policy, security and defence policy, asylum and immigration policy, criminal co-operation, and judicial co-operation.  However, some member-states opposed the addition of these powers to the Community on the grounds that they were too sensitive to national sovereignty for the community method to be used, and that these matters were better handled intergovernmentally. To the extent that at that time the Community dealt with these matters at all, they were being handled intergovernmentally, principally in European Political Cooperation (EPC).  As a result, these additional matters were not included in the European Community; but were tacked on externally to the European Community in the form of two additional 'pillars'. The first additional pillar (Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP) dealt with foreign policy, security and defence issues, while the second additional pillar (JHA, Justice and Home Affairs), dealt with the remainder.

1999 and 2003: Amendments.

Amendments by the treaty of Amsterdam and the treaty of Nice made the additional pillars increasingly supranational. Most important among these were the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar, effected by the Amsterdam treaty. Thus the third pillar was renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters, or PJCCM. The term "Justice and Home Affairs" was still used to cover both the third pillar and the transferred areas.

2009: Abolition.

In a speech before the Nice Conference, Joschka Fischer, then Foreign Minister of Germany, called for a simplification of the European Union. One of these core ideas was to abolish the pillar structure, and replace it with a merged legal personality for the Union. This idea was included in the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009. With a legal personality, "Union" is, for instance, able to be part of international treaties. The Treaty of Lisbon also states that "the Union shall replace and succeed the European Community," with the effect that, once the Treaty entered into force, the EU obtained the membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which had belonged to the European Communities pillar.  The abolition of the "3-pillar structure" was welcomed by practitioners and academics who had long considered the 'pillar metaphor" to be unrealistic, if not absurd. The idea that one pillar could be the Communities, while the other two were merely "policies" or "cooperation" was scarcely credible.  In the Lisbon Treaty the distribution of competences in various policy areas between Member States and the Union was reorganised into the following scheme:

Between 1993 and 2009, the European Union (EU) legally comprised three pillars. This structure was introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993, and was eventually abandoned on 1 December 2009 upon the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, when the EU obtained a consolidated legal personality.

Maastrichtská smlouva přetvořila předcházející Evropská společenství v Evropskou unii – EU. Současně s tím formálně rozdělila politiku EU v nové organizační a právní struktuře EU do tří hlavních oblastí jednotlivých tzv. politik EU (oblastí politické činnosti), které byly pojmenovány „pilíře“.


Early life.

Born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania, Alaric belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Tervingian Goths. Historian Douglas Boin does not make such an unequivocal assessment about Alaric's Gothic heritage and instead claims he came from either the Tervingi or the Greunthung tribes. When the Goths suffered setbacks against the Huns, they made a mass migration across the Danube, and fought a war with Rome. Alaric was probably a child during this period. To this end, Alaric's upbringing was shaped by living along the border of Roman territory in a region that the Romans viewed as a veritable "backwater" and if the Roman poet Ovid's first century writings while in exile are in any way telling, the area along the Danube and Black sea where Alaric was reared constituted a land of "barbarians" and was among "the most remote in the vast world."  Alaric's childhood in the Balkans, where the Goths had settled by way of an agreement with Theodosius, was spent in the company of veterans who had fought at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, during which they had annihilated much of the Eastern army and killed Emperor Valens. Imperial campaigns against the Visigoths were conducted until a treaty was reached in 382. This treaty was the first "foedus" on imperial Roman soil and required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes—among whom Alaric was raised—to supply troops for the Roman army in exchange for peace, the access to cultivatable land, and freedom from Roman legal strictures. Correspondingly, there was hardly a region along the Roman frontier during Alaric's day without Gothic slaves and servants of one form or another. For several subsequent decades, many Goths like Alaric were "called up into regular units of the eastern field army" while others served as auxiliaries in campaigns led by Theodosius against the western usurpers Magnus Maximus and Eugenius.

In Roman service and rise to Gothic leadership.

A new phase in the relationship between the Goths and the empire resulted from the treaty signed in 382, as more and more Goths attained aristocratic rank from their service in the imperial army. Alaric began his military career under the Gothic soldier Gainas, and later joined the Roman army. He first appeared as leader of a mixed band of Goths and allied peoples, who invaded Thrace in 391 but were stopped by the half-Vandal Roman General Stilicho. In 394, he led a Gothic force that helped Roman Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast at the Battle of Frigidus. Despite sacrificing around 10,000 of his men, Alaric received little recognition from the emperor. Refused the reward he expected that included a promotion to "magisterium" and command of regular Roman units, Alaric mutinied and began to march against Constantinople.  On 17 January 395, Theodosius died of an illness, leaving his two young sons Arcadius and Honorius in Stilicho's guardianship. Distinguishing himself among his people, Alaric, who had once dreamed of becoming a Roman general, a rank he acquired first from Constantinople but lost, then regained in Milan (later Ravenna) and lost a second time, became instead, king of the Visigoths in 395. According to historian Peter Heather, it is not entirely clear in the sources if Alaric rose to prominence at the time the Goths revolted following Theodosius's death, or if he had already risen within his tribe as early as the war against Eugenius. Whatever the circumstances, Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin who later turned his hand to history, recorded that the new king persuaded his people to "seek a kingdom by their own exertions rather than serve others in idleness."  Whether or not Alaric was a member of an ancient Germanic royal clan—claimed by Jordanes and debated by historians—is less important than his emergence as a leader, the first of his kind since Fritigern. Around the time Alaric became king and began asserting his authority, controversy and intrigue erupted between the Eastern and Western sides of the Roman Empire, as General Stilicho attempted to increase his position. Since Theodosius's death left the Empire divided between his two sons, one taking the eastern and the other the western portion of the Empire, Stilicho sought to exploit the situation. Historian Roger Collins points out that while the rivalries created by the two halves of the Empire vying for power worked to Alaric's advantage and that of his people, simply being called to authority by the Gothic people did not solve the practicalities of their needs for survival. Perhaps with these concerns in mind, Alaric took his Gothic army on what historian Edward James describes as a "pillaging campaign" that began first in the East.

In Greece.

Alaric's forces made their way down to Athens and along the Adriatic coast, where he sought to force a new peace upon the Romans. His march in 396 included passing through Thermopylae further into Greece, during which his troops plundered for the next year or so as far south as the mountainous Peloponnese peninsula. Only Stilicho's surprise attack with his western field army (having sailed from Italy) stemmed the plundering as he pushed Alaric's forces north into Epirus. Despite the successful efforts of Stilicho, the east Roman official Eutropius—to whom power had passed after the death of Rufinus—expressed outrage at this unsanctioned intervention and instead of recognizing Stilicho, conferred in 397 on Alaric the title, "magisterium militum", as he thought the Gothic king more malleable than the ambitious Roman general.  After having received this new rank, Alaric acquired ample gold and grain to grant to his followers and negotiations were underway for a more permanent settlement. Stilicho's supporters in Milan were outraged at this seeming betrayal; meanwhile, Eutropius was celebrated in 398 via a parade through Constantinople for having achieved victory over the "wolves of the North." Fought more or less to a standstill by Stilicho, the Gothic forces under Alaric were relatively quiet for the next couple of years.

Invading Italy.

According to historian Michael Kulikowski, sometime in the spring of 402 Alaric decided to invade Italy, but no sources from antiquity indicate to what purpose. Using Claudian as his source, historian Guy Halsall reports that Alaric's attack actually began in late 401, but since Stilicho was in "Raetia" "dealing with frontier issues" the two did not first confront one another in Italy until 402.  Two battles were fought. The first was at Pollentia on Easter Sunday, where Stilicho achieved an impressive victory, taking Alaric's wife and children prisoner, and more significantly, seizing much of the treasure that Alaric had amassed over the previous five years' worth of plundering. Pursuing the retreating forces of Alaric, Stilicho offered to return the prisoners but was refused. The second battle was at Verona, where Alaric was defeated for a second time. Stilicho once again offered Alaric a truce and allowed him to withdraw from Italy. Kulikowski explains this confounding, if not outright conciliatory behavior by stating, "given Stilicho's cold war with Constantinople, it would have been foolish to destroy as biddable and violent a potential weapon as Alaric might well prove to be". Halsall's observations are similar, as he contends that the Roman general's "decision to permit Alaric's withdrawal into "Pannonia" makes sense if we see Alaric's force entering Stilicho's service, and Stilicho's victory being less total than Claudian would have us believe". Perhaps more revealing is a report from Zosimus that indicates an agreement was concluded between Stilicho and Alaric in 405, which suggests Alaric being in "western service at that point", likely stemming from arrangements made back in 402. Between 404 and 405, Alaric remained in one of the four "Pannonian" provinces, from where he could "play East off against West while potentially threatening both".  Fate was not kind to the Empire, as "Alaric’s return to the north-west Balkans brought only temporary respite to Italy, for in 405 another substantial body of Goths and other barbarians, this time from outside the empire, crossed the middle Danube and advanced into northern Italy, where they plundered the countryside and besieged cities and towns" under their leader Radagaisus. Although the imperial government was struggling to muster enough troops to contain these barbarian invasions, Stilicho managed to stifle the threat posed by the tribes under Radagaisus, when the latter split his forces into three separate groups. Stilicho cornered Radagaisus near Florence and starved the invaders into submission. Meanwhile, Alaric—bestowed with codicils of "magister militum" by Stilicho and now supplied by the West—awaited for one side or the other to incite him to action as Stilicho faced further difficulties from more barbarians.

Second invasion of Italy.

Sometime in 406 and into 407, another assemblage of barbarians, consisting primarily of Vandals, Sueves and Alans, crossed the Rhine into Gaul while at the same time a rebellion—under a common soldier named Constantine—occurred in Britain and spread to Gaul. Burdened by so many enemies, Stilicho's position was strained. During this crisis in 407, Alaric again marched on Italy, taking a position in Noricum (modern Austria), where he demanded a sum of 4,000 pounds of gold lest he embark again on a full-scale invasion. At this point, Stilicho, whose earlier efforts to deal with the usurper Constantine had failed, convinced the Western Emperor Honorius and the Roman senate—who begrudgingly agreed—to pay the sum and unleash Alaric's forces on their new enemy. Despite how sensible Stilicho’s plan was in the grand scheme of things, since he had correctly evaluated the dangers, arguing for Alaric's intervention after having failed to contain the threat to Rome, fatally weakened his standing.  In 408, Western Emperor Honorius ordered the execution of Stilicho and his family, in response to rumors that the general had made a deal with Alaric. While Stilicho had been murdered, so too had his loyal supporters and many thousands of barbarian auxiliaries, along with their wives and children, those that remained alive or escaped joined Alaric at Noricum. Rome had made itself more vulnerable as a result and Alaric now once again made demands on Honorius for an unknown sum of gold and for the return of the civilian dependent hostages belonging to his new followers—if they remained alive.  When Alaric was rebuffed, he led his force of around 30,000 men—many newly enlisted and understandably motivated—on a march toward Rome to avenge their murdered families. Crossing the Julian Alps in September 408, Alaric stood before the walls of Rome (now with no capable general like Stilicho as a defender) and began a strict blockade. No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. When the ambassadors of the Senate, entreating for peace, tried to intimidate him with hints of what the despairing citizens might accomplish, he laughed and gave his celebrated answer: "The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!" After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper. Along came 40,000 freed Gothic slaves. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome. After having provisionally agreed to the terms offered by Alaric for lifting the blockade, Honorius recanted; historian A.D. Lee highlights that one of the points of contention for the emperor was Alaric's expectation of being named head of the Roman Army, a post Honorius was not prepared to grant to Alaric. When this title was not bestowed onto Alaric, he proceeded to not only "besiege Rome again in late 409, but also to proclaim a leading senator, Priscus Attalus, as a rival emperor, from whom Alaric then received the appointment" he desired. Meanwhile, Alaric's newly appointed "emperor" Attalus, who seems not to have known the limits of his power or understand his dependence on Alaric, failed to take the latter's advice and lost the grain supply in Africa to a pro-Honorian "comes Africae", Heraclian. Then, sometime in 409, Attalus—accompanied by Alaric—marched on Ravenna and after receiving unprecedented terms and concessions from the legitimate emperor Honorius, refused him and instead, demanded that Honorius be deposed and exiled. Fearing for his safety, Honorius made preparations to flee to Ravenna when a ship carrying 4,000 troops arrived from Constantinople, restoring his resolve. Now that it was clear Honorius no longer needed to negotatie, Alaric (regretting his choice of puppet emperor) deposed him, perhaps to re-open negotiations with Ravenna.

Sack of Rome.

Negotiations with Honorius might have succeeded had it not been for the influence of another Goth, Sarus, an Amali, and therefore hereditary enemy of Alaric and his house. Why Sarus, who had been in imperial service for years under Stilicho, intervened at this moment remains a mystery, but Alaric interpeted this attack as Ravenna-directed and as bad faith from Honorius. No longer would negotiations suffice for Alaric, as his patience had reached its end, which led him to march on Rome for a third and final time.  On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces began the sack of Rome, an assault that lasted three days. After hearing reports that Alaric had entered the city—possibly aided by Gothic slaves inside—there were reports that Emperor Honorius (safe in Ravenna) broke into "wailing and lamentation" but quickly calmed once "it was explained to him that it was the city of Rome that had met its end and not 'Roma'," his pet fowl. Writing from Bethlehem, St. Jerome (Letter 127.12, to "Principia") lamented: "A dreadful rumour reached us from the West. We heard that Rome was besieged, that the citizens were buying their safety with gold... The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay, it fell by famine before it fell to the sword." Nonetheless, Christian apologists also cited how Alaric ordered that anyone who took shelter in a Church was to be spared. When liturgical vessels were taken from the basilica of St. Peter and Alaric heard of this, he ordered them returned and had them ceremoniously restored in the church. If the account from Orosius can be seen as accurate, there was even a celebratory recognition of Christian unity by way of a procession through the streets where Romans and barbarians alike "raised a hymn to God in public"; historian Edward James concludes that such stories are likely more political rhetoric of the "noble" barbarians than a reflection of historical reality.  According to historian Patrick Geary, Roman booty was not the focus of Alaric's sack of Rome but that he had come for needed food supplies. Historian Stephen Mitchell asserts that Alaric's followers seemed incapable of feeding themselves and relied on provisions "supplied by the Roman authorities." Whatever Alaric's intentions were cannot be known entirely, but Kulikowski certainly sees the issue of available treasure in a different light, writing that "For three days, Alaric’s Goths sacked the city, stripping it of the wealth of centuries." The barbarian invaders were not gentle in their treatment of property as substantial damage was still evident into the sixth century. Certainly the Roman world was shaken by the fall of the Eternal City to barbarian invaders, but as Guy Halsall emphasizes, "Rome’s fall had less striking political effects. Alaric, unable to treat with Honorius, remained in the political cold." Kulikowski sees the situation similarly, commenting:  But for Alaric the sack of Rome was an admission of defeat, a catastrophic failure. Everything he had hoped for, had fought for over the course of a decade and a half, went up in flames with the capital of the ancient world. Imperial office, a legitimate place for himself and his followers inside the empire, these were now forever out of reach. He might seize what he wanted, as he had seized Rome, but he would never be given it by right. The sack of Rome solved nothing and when the looting was over Alaric’s men still had nowhere to live and fewer future prospects than ever before.  Still, the importance of Alaric cannot be "overestimated" according to Halsall, since he had desired and obtained a Roman command even though he was a barbarian; his real misfortune was being caught between the rivalry of the Eastern and Western empires and their court intrigue. According to historian Peter Brown, when one compares Alaric with other barbarians, "he was almost an Elder Statesman." Nonetheless, Alaric's respect for Roman institutions as a former servant to its highest office did not stay his hand in violently sacking the city that had for centuries exemplified Roman glory, leaving behind physical destruction and social disruption, while Alaric took clerics and even the emperor’s sister, Galla Placidia, with him when he left the city. More than the city of Rome itself was victim to the forces under Alaric, but the remainder of Italy, as Procopius ("Wars" 3.2.11–13) writing in the sixth-century later relates:  For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated.  Whether Alaric's forces wrought the level of destruction described by Procopius or not cannot be known, but evidence speaks to the subsequent population decrease, as the number of people on the food dole dropped from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419. Rome's fall to the barbarians was as much a psychological blow to the empire as anything else, since some Romans citizens saw the collapse resultant from the conversion to Christianity, while Christian apologists like Augustine (writing "City of God") responded in turn; some even saw Alaric—himself a Christian—as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome; meanwhile, Christians and pagans alike blamed the other religion for the city's fall.

Death and aftermath.

The Goths were not long in the city of Rome, as only three days after the sack, Alaric marched his men south to Campania, from where he intended to sail to Sicily—probably to obtain grain and other supplies—when a storm destroyed his fleet. During the early months of 411, while on his northward return journey through Italy, Alaric took ill and died at Consentia in Bruttium. His cause of death was likely fever, and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento in accordance with the pagan practices of the Visigothic people. The stream was temporarily turned aside from its course while the grave was dug, wherein the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were interred. When the work was finished, the river was turned back into its usual channel and the captives by whose hands the labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.  Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later. Following in the wake of Alaric's leadership, which Kulikowski claims, had given his people "a sense of community that survived his own death...Alaric’s Goths remained together inside the empire, going on to settle in Gaul. There, in the province of Aquitaine, they put down roots and created the first autonomous barbarian kingdom inside the frontiers of the Roman empire." Not long after Alaric's exploits in Rome and Athaulf's settlement in Aquitaine, there is a "rapid emergence of Germanic barbarian groups in the West" who begin controlling many western provinces. These barbarian peoples include: Vandals in Spain and Africa, Visigoths in Spain and Aquitaine, Burgundians along the upper Rhine and southern Gaul, and Franks on the lower Rhine and in northern and central Gaul.

Sources.

The chief authorities on the career of Alaric are: the historian Orosius and the poet Claudian, both contemporary, neither disinterested; Zosimus, a historian who lived probably about half a century after Alaric's death; and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation in 551, basing his work on Cassiodorus's "Gothic History". The legend of Alaric's burial in the Buzita River comes from Jordanes.

Alaric I (;, "ruler of all"; ; 370 (or 375)410 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths from 395–410. He ruled the tribe that came to occupy Moesia – territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans in the wake of the dramatic Battle of Adrianople.

Alarich I. (cca 370 – 410 Cosenza) byl v letech 395 – 410 vizigótským králem, germánského etnika sídlícího původně v severním Černomoří. Do historie se zapsal svým dobytím Říma v roce 410.


Route.

The BAM departs from the Trans-Siberian railway at Tayshet, then crosses the Angara River at Bratsk and the Lena River at Ust-Kut, proceeds past Severobaikalsk at the northern tip of Lake Baikal, past Tynda and Khani, crosses the Amur River at Komsomolsk-on-Amur and finally reaches the Pacific Ocean at Sovetskaya Gavan. There are 21 tunnels along the line, with a total length of. There are also more than 4,200 bridges, with a total length of over 400 km (about 260 miles).  Of the whole route, only the western Tayshet-Taksimo sector of is electrified. The route is largely single-track, although the reservation is wide enough for double-tracking for its full length, in the case of eventual duplication. The unusual thing about the railway is that it is electrified with a 27.5 kV, 50 Hz catenary minimum height at 6.5 metres above top of the rails to suit double-stacking under the overhead wires on the Russian gauge tracks, which requires rolling stock to be modified for service on the railway.  At Tynda the route is crossed by the Amur–Yakutsk Mainline, which runs north to Neryungri and Tommot, with an extension to Yakutsk opened in 2014, and now extension to Magadan under construction. The original section of the AYaM connecting the Trans-Siberian at Bamovskaya with the BAM at Tynda is also referred to as the "Little BAM".  During the winter the passenger trains go from Moscow past Tayshet and Tynda to Neryungri and Tommot and there are also a daily trains from Tynda to Komsomolsk-on-Amur and from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Sovetskaya Gavan on the Pacific Ocean via Vanino(""Vladivostok-Sovetskaya Gavan"" train No.351Э).Travel time from Tayshet to Tynda is 48 hours. Travel time from Tynda to Komsomolsk-on-Amur is 36 hours. Travel time from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Sovetskaya Gavan is 13 hours. there exists 10 tunnels in BAM railway and most of them are among longest tunnels in Russia and they consist 30 kilometres of the BAM railway including: In addition, The route crosses 11 full-flowing rivers(including the Lena, Amur, Zeya, Vitim, Olyokma, Selemdzha and Bureya). and in total, 2230 large and small bridges were built on it.

History.

Early plans and start of construction.

The route of the present-day BAM first came under consideration in the 1880s as an option for the eastern section of the planned Trans-Siberian railway.  In the 1930s labor-camp inmates, in particular from the Bamlag camp of the Gulag system, built the section from Tayshet to Bratsk. In a confusing transfer of names, the label "BAM" applied from 1933 to 1935 to the project to double-track the Trans-Siberian east of Lake Baikal, constructing largely using forced labor.  1945 saw the finalisation of plans for upgrading the BAM for diesel or electric instead of steam traction, and for the heavier axle-loads of eight-axle oil tankers to carry new-found oil from Western Siberia. The upgrading required 25 years and 3,000 surveyors and designers, although much of the redesign work (particularly as regards the central section) took place between 1967 and 1974.

Construction project of the century.

In March 1974, Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev proposed that the BAM would be one of the two major projects in the Tenth Five Year Plan (1976–80). He famously stated that "BAM will be constructed with clean hands only!" and firmly rejected the suggestion to again use prison labor. A few weeks later he challenged the Young Communist League (Komsomol) to join in "the construction project of the century". 17th Komsomol congress (held in April 1974) announced BAM a Komsomol shock construction project, created the central Komsomol headquarters of BAM construction, and appointed Dmitry Filippov the chief of the headquarters.  By the end of 1974 perhaps 50,000 young people of the 156,000 young people who applied had moved to the BAM service area. In 1975 and 1976 28 new settlements were inaugurated, and 70 new bridges including the Amur and Lena bridges were erected. And while of track was laid, the tracklaying rate would have needed to nearly triple to meet the 1983 deadline.  In September 1984, a "golden spike" was hammered into place, connecting the eastern and western sections of the BAM. The Western media was not invited to attend this historic event as Soviet officials did not want any comments about the line's operational status. In reality, only one third of the BAM's track was fully operational for civilians, due to military reasons.  The BAM was again declared complete in 1991. By then, the total cost to build the line was US$14 billion.

Crisis.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, the BAM-project attracted increasing criticism for bad planning. Infrastructure and basic services like running water were often not in place when workers arrived. At least 60 boomtowns developed around the route, but nowadays a lot of these places are deserted ghost towns and unemployment in the area is high. The building of the BAM has also been criticised for its complete lack of environmental protection.  When the Soviet Union was dissolved, numerous mining and industrial projects in the region were cancelled, and the BAM was greatly underutilized until the late 1990s, running at a large operational deficit.  In 1996, the BAM as a single operational body was dissolved, with the western section from Tayshet to Khani becoming the East Siberian Railway, the rest transferred to the management of the Far Eastern Railway.

Current situation and future prospects.

A major improvement was the opening of the Severomuysky Tunnel on December 5, 2003. It is up to 1.5 kilometres (nearly 1 mile) deep. Construction took 27 years to complete. Prior to this, the corresponding route segment was long, with heavy slopes necessitating the use of auxiliary bank engine locomotives.  With the resources boom of recent years and improving economic conditions in Russia, use of the line is increasing. Plans exist for the development of mining areas such as "Udokanskoye" and "Chineyskoye" near Novaya Chara, as well as one of Eurasia's largest coal deposits at Elginskoye (Elga) in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). In connection with this, a number of branch lines have been built or are under construction.  In January 2012 the Russian mining company Mechel completed the construction of the 320-kilometre-long branch line to Elginskoye, branching from the BAM station Ulak, west of the Zeya River crossing in northwestern Amur Oblast. The branch line connects the Elginskoye coal mine to the Russian railroad network.  It is also intended that the BAM should become an alternative route for container transport between Europe and the Pacific, although the single-track nature of most of the route and the lack of suitable connections at the eastern end currently stand in the way. Currently under discussion is the construction of a bridge or tunnel under the Strait of Tartary to Sakhalin Island, with the possibility of the further construction of a bridge or tunnel from Sakhalin to Japan. A tunnel from the mainland to Sakhalin was previously begun under Joseph Stalin, but was abandoned after his death. A second attempt in 2003 was also postponed during construction. Current economic conditions make the short-term completion of the tunnel doubtful, although Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced in November 2008 his support for a revival of this project.  The BAM now also attracts the interest of Western railway enthusiasts, with some tourist activity on the line.  Also, the BAM itself extension from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Magadan (Okhotsk coastal route), full length electrification, full length track doubling, and double-stacking under the overhead wires on the Russian gauge tracks (with well cars to make 6.15m height) are proposed. The future BAM passenger rolling stocks which include:

Along the BAM.

Tayshet to Lake Baikal 1064 km: 0: Tayshet: about 300 km east of Krasnoyarsk, Trans-Siberian Railway, M53 highway to Irkutsk. 129: Sosnovye Rodniki: timber port. Chuna River 142: Chuna. 269: Vikhorevka: railway administration. 282: Anzebi: 20 km spur line to Bratsk town. About 330: Bratsk Dam: Railway runs across the top of the dam. 463: Vidim. 546: Sredneilimskaya on the Ust-Ilimsk reservoir. 554: Zheleznogorsk-Ilimsky: mining town. 575: Khrebetovaya: branch line north to Ust-Ilimsk (see branches below); enter Lena basin. Kuta River. 715: Ust-Kut: port on the Lena River where goods are loaded onto boats for transport north. End of the line until 1974. 736: Lena Vostochnaya: east of the Lena, start of the BAM proper from 1974. Line tends east southeast. 786: Zvyozdnaya: first new town built on the BAM. 890: Kirenga: 12 km east is the larger town of Magistralnyy. Kirenga River and bridge. 931: Ul'kan: on the Ulkan branch of the Kirenga. 1005: Delbichenda: last stop before the 6.7 km Baikal Mountain Tunnel (between 1979 and 1984 there was a 15 km bypass over the mountain). 1014: Daben. 1064: Lake Baikal.  Lake Baikal to Tynda 1300 km: 1064: Severobaykalsk. Four small tunnels along the lake. 1104: Nizhneangarsk; leave Lake Baikal, northeast up the valley of the Upper Angara River. 1257: Novy Uoyan: there is talk of building a railroad south from here to the Trans-Siberian. Enter Severomuysk Mountains. Much permafrost from here to Tynda. 1385–1400: Severomuysky Tunnel: 15.7 km long, very difficult construction. Exit mountain. Scenic section with mountains to north and south. Much fog. 1484: Taksimo: end of electrified section. Muya River. 1548: Shivery: leave Buryat Republic. Vitim River. 1577: Kuanda: official 'completion' of the BAM was celebrated here in September 1984. Valley into mountains. 1664: Kodar: Kodar mountains, 1.9 km tunnel. 1734: Novaya Chara. 1879: Khani: the only BAM town in the Sakha Republic. Northernmost point on the line. Line turns south-southeast along the Olyokma River. Enter Amur basin. 2364: Tynda.  Tynda to Komsomolsk 1473 km: 2364: Tynda: Branch railway and highway north to Yakutsk, little BAM south to the Trans-Siberian. 2704: Bridge over Zeya Reservoir. Line heads southeast. 3205: Bureya River bridge. 3315: Novy Urgal: Branch south to Trans-Siberian. 3403: east to Dusse-Alin Tunnel. Northeast up the Amgun River. 3633: Postyshevo: east. 3697: Evoron Lake. southeast to 3837: Komsomolsk-on-Amur.  Komsomolsk to Sovetskaya Gavan 486 km. This section was completed by prisoners during World War II, except for the 19 km section east of Komsomolsk which was completed in 1974. Komsomolsk. 1734m Amur River Bridge. 0: Pivan (new numbering system). 51: Selikhin: Branch. 95–340: Sikhote Alin Mountains. 403: Mongokhto 441: Vanino: port, train ferry to Sakhalin Island, practical end of passenger service. 467: Sovetskaya Gavan: naval base.  In April 2008 the state-owned Bamtonnelstroy corporation started work on the new 3.91 km single-track Kuznetsovsky Tunnel to bypass an older tunnel built in 1943–1945. It was opened in December 2012. The old tunnel had difficult gradients; building the new tunnel relieved a bottleneck on the BAM. The 59.8 bn roubles (about $1.93 bn) project included 20 km of new track. In 2010, Yakunin had said, the stretch between Komsomolsk and Sovetskaya Gavan was the weakest link on the BAM, which, he said, could be carrying 100 million tons of freight a year in 2050.

The BAM road.

Running approximately alongside the railway track is the BAM road, a railway service track. It is said to be in a very poor state, with collapsed bridges, dangerous river crossings, severe potholes and "unrelenting energy-sapping bogs". The road is passable only by the most extreme off-road vehicles and adventure motorcycles. In 2009, a group of three experienced motorcycle riders took a whole month to travel from Komsomolsk (in the east) to Lake Baikal.

Honors.

Main belt asteroid 2031 BAM, discovered in 1969 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh, is named in honor of the builders of the BAM.

The Baikal–Amur Mainline (,,, ) is a broad gauge railway line in Russia. Traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the long BAM runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Bajkalsko-amurská magistrála (, zkráceně BAM), je označení pro soustavu železničních tratí v Rusku, na východní Sibiři a Dálném východě. Se svými 4287 km patří mezi nejdelší trati světa. Hlavní stavební práce proběhly v 70. a 80. letech 20. století s cíli jednak strategickými (druhá železniční trať na východ, dále od čínských hranic), jednak hospodářskými (velká ložiska cenných surovin). Ty se však zatím nepodařilo využít. V 21. století se o ní opět uvažuje jednak jako s nástrojem rozvoje regionu, jednak má převzít část nákladní dopravy z přetížené Transsibiřské magistrály. Na překážku je však provizorní charakter dosud postavených jednokolejných částí.


Geography.

The city of Agen lies in the southwestern department of Lot-et-Garonne in the Aquitaine region. The city centre lies on the east bank of the Garonne river close to the Canal de Garonne, approximately halfway between Bordeaux () and Toulouse ().

Climate.

Agen features an oceanic climate (Cfb), in the Köppen climate classification. Winters are mild and feature cool to cold temperatures while summers are mild and warm. Rainfall is spread equally throughout the year; however, most sunshine hours are from March–September.

Toponymy.

From Occitan "Agen" (1197), itself from Latin "Aginnum" (3rd century "Itinéraire d'Antonin"), from a Celtic root "agin-" meaning "rock or height".

Economy.

The town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average. Major employers include the pharmaceutical factory UPSA.

Sights.

The old centre of town contains a number of medieval buildings.  The twelfth century Agen Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Caprasius, is one of the few large churches in France with a double nave, a regional trait also found in the in nearby Toulouse.  The Saint Hilaire church, dedicated to the theme of the Holy Trinity which the Saint in question did a lot to defend, is notable for its unusual statues in front of the Church – Moses on the right, and St Peter on the left.  The Fine Arts museum, Musée des Beaux Arts contains artefacts, furniture and sculptures from prehistoric times onwards. The art gallery contains several hundred works, including several by Goya, and others by Bonnard and Seurat. The collection also contains a large number of works by artists who lived locally. The museum is made up of twenty or so rooms.  The Canal des Deux Mers, which joins the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, crosses the river Garonne at Agen via the town's famous canal bridge.

Entertainment.

The municipal theatre "Théâtre Ducourneau" presents theatre, and occasionally classical concerts. The smaller "Théâtre du jour" has a resident theatre company presenting a variety of recent or older plays (Shakespeare, Beckett, as well as lesser known playwrights).  There are two cinemas, one a commercial multiscreened affair, the other an arts cinema run by a voluntary organization. The latter organizes film festivals every year.

Sport.

Rugby is extremely popular in the town, and the local team, SU Agen, is enthusiastically supported. The town also serves as the base for the Team Lot-et-Garonne cycling team.

Transport.

The Gare d'Agen connects Agen with Toulouse and Bordeaux as well as Périgueux. It is around an hour from Toulouse and around an hour from Bordeaux. The TGV train to Paris takes three hours and thirteen minutes with a stop in Bordeaux.  Agen is connected, by the A62 autoroute, to both Toulouse and Bordeaux.  The Agen Airport is serviced by Airlinair service to Paris Orly 6 days a week. It is also used for business and leisure flying.  Agen stands on the "voie verte" cycle path between the Mediterranean and close to Bordeaux.

Diocese.

Agen is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese that comprises the Département of Lot and Garonne. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bordeaux.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Agen is twinned with:

Miscellaneous.

Agen is the "capital of the prune", a local product consumed as a sweet, either stuffed with prune purée or in pastries, or as a dessert, e.g., prunes soaked in Armagnac, a type of brandy. On the last weekend of August, a prune festival comprises rock concerts, circus performances and prune tastings.

Jewish presence.

The first Jews settled in the town in the twelfth century AD. They were expelled from the town in 1306. A number of Jews returned to the town in 1315, and a "Rue des Juifs" is documented ever since this period. In 1968, about 600 Jews lived in the town, though most of them had emigrated from North Africa. A Jewish synagogue still exists in the town.

The commune of Agen (, ) is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux.

Agen [] je město v Nové Akvitánii na jihu Francie, ležící na řece Garonně asi 130 kilometrů od Bordeaux. Je sídlem departementu Lot-et-Garonne. Počet obyvatel je přibližně 34 000.


Geography.

The total area of the city, including suburbs and the river, is.  The Yenisei River flows from west to east through the city. Due to the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric dam upstream, the Yenisei never freezes in winter and never exceeds in summer through the city. Near the city center, its elevation is above sea level. There are several islands in the river, the largest of which are Tatyshev and Otdyha Isles, used mainly for recreation.  To the south and west, Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by forested mountains averaging in height above river level. The most prominent of them are Nikolayevskaya Sopka (notable for its ski jumping tracks), Karaulnaya Gora, and Chornaya Sopka, the latter being an extinct volcano. The gigantic rock cliffs of the Stolby Nature Reserve rise from the mountains of the southern bank of the Yenisei, the western hills form the Gremyachaya Griva crest extending westwards up to the Sobakina River, the north is generally plain, except for the Drokinskaya Sopka hill, with forests to the northwest and agricultural fields to the north and east.  The major rivers in and near Krasnoyarsk are the Yenisei, Mana, Bazaikha, and Kacha Rivers, the latter flowing throughout the historical center of the city. Due to the nature of the terrain, a few natural lakes exist in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk.  The forests close to the city are mostly pine and birch; further afield, aspen becomes dominant in many areas. The moss-covered fir and Siberian pine replaces other wood in the mountains westward of the Karaulnaya River, in about to the west from the city, the forests to the south are mostly pine, fir and aspen.

History.

The city was founded on August 19, 1628 as a Russian border fort when a group of service class people from Yeniseysk led by Andrey Dubenskoy arrived at the confluence of the Kacha and Yenisei Rivers and constructed fortifications intended to protect the frontier from attacks of native peoples who lived along the Yenisei and its tributaries. Along with Kansk to the east, it represented the southern limit of Russian expansion in the Yenisei basin during the seventeenth century. In the letter to Tsar Michael I the Cossacks reported:  The fort was named Krasny Yar () after the Yarin (a dialect of Khakas) name of the place it was built, "Kyzyl Char" ('red steep-riverbank'), which was translated as Krasny Yar (using the old meaning of "krasny"). The settlement was granted town status in 1690. An intensive growth of Krasnoyarsk began with the arrival of the Siberian Route (the road "M53" nowadays) in 1735 to 1741 which connected the nearby towns of Achinsk and Kansk with Krasnoyarsk and with the rest of Russia.  In 1749, a meteorite with a mass of about was found south of Krasnoyarsk. It was excavated by Peter Simon Pallas in 1772 and transported to Krasnoyarsk and subsequently to Saint Petersburg. The Krasnoyarsk meteorite is important because it was the first pallasite ever studied and the first meteorite ever etched.  In 1822 Krasnoyarsk became the administrative center of Yeniseysk Governorate. In the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk was the center of the Siberian Cossack movement. By the end of the 19th century, Krasnoyarsk had several manufacturing facilities and railroad workshops and an engine-house. Growth continued with the discovery of gold and the arrival of a railroad in 1895.  In the Russian Empire, Krasnoyarsk was one of the places to which political exiles were banished. For example, eight Decembrists were deported from St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk after the failure of the revolt. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, during the periods of centralized planning (Five Year Plans) numerous large plants and factories were constructed in Krasnoyarsk: Sibtyazhmash, the dock yard, the paper factory, the hydroelectric power station (now the fifth largest in the world and the second in Russia), and the river port.  In 1934, Krasnoyarsk Krai, was formed, with Krasnoyarsk as its administrative center.  During Stalinist times, Krasnoyarsk was a major center of the gulag system. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or "Krasnoyarsky ITL" (1938-c.1960) with the two units located in Kansk and Reshyoty. In the city of Krasnoyarsk itself, the Yeniseylag or "Yeniseysky ITL" labor camp was prominent as well during World War II (c. 1940–41).  During World War II, dozens of factories were evacuated from Ukraine and Western Russia to Krasnoyarsk and nearby towns, stimulating the industrial growth of the city. After the war additional large plants were constructed: the aluminum plant, the metallurgic plant, the plant of base metals and many others.  In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union began constructing a phased array radar station at Abalakova, near Krasnoyarsk, which violated the ABM Treaty. Beginning in 1983, the United States demanded its removal, until the Soviet Union admitted the radar station was a violation in 1989. Equipment was slowly removed from the site and by 1992 it was officially declared to be dismantled, though the equipment from the site was likely relocated to a new site near Komsomolsk-na-Amure. Krasnoyarsk was also a home to Krasnoyarsk Northeast air base, which was turned into living blocks after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and beginning of privatization, many large plants and factories, such as the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, became owned by alleged criminal authorities and oligarchs, while others were declared bankrupt. The economic transition resulted in a dramatic rise in unemployment and numerous strikes.  The best known financial scandal of the second half of the 1990s happened when ownership of the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant by a known Krasnoyarsk businessman Anatoliy Bykov had been canceled after he was accused of murdering his partner, Vilor Struganov. The accusation eventually turned out to be false. The Krasnoyarsk plant's ownership problems continue through the early 21st century since nearly all of them are owned either by monopolistic financial groups or by oligarchs.  Since the election of Pyotr Pimashkov as the mayor of Krasnoyarsk in 1996, the appearance of the city gradually improved: the old historical buildings were restored, the asphalt walkways were replaced with paving-stone, and numerous squares and recreation areas with fountains were either restored or constructed from scratch. Now the majority of the city keeps only a few traces of its former, drab, post-collapse look.

Administrative and municipal status.

Krasnoyarsk is the administrative center of the krai. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with one rural locality (the village of Peschanka) incorporated as the "krai city of Krasnoyarsk"an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the krai city of Krasnoyarsk is incorporated as "Krasnoyarsk Urban Okrug".

City divisions.

For administrative purposes, Krasnoyarsk is divided into seven city districts:

Coat of arms.

The first version of the Krasnoyarsk coat of arms was approved on March 12, 1804. A revised coat of arms, approved on November 23, 1851, had the golden figure of a lion placed on a red shield with a spade in the right fore paw and a sickle in the left fore paw, both made of the same metal. Since November 28, 2004 has the five-tower status crown of a federal subject administrative center.

Climate.

Krasnoyarsk experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfb" borders on "Dfc"). Its climate in July and January is very similar to that of Fort McMurray and Winnipeg in Canada, the latter of which is a good deal further south geographically. Compared to Thompson, Manitoba, or Labrador City at similar latitudes, Krasnoyarsk's winters are relatively mild. Compared to European cities on a similar latitude, Krasnoyarsk has much warmer summers, but much colder and longer winters (for example, Aalborg, Denmark). The summer is also on average warmer than similar inland latitudes of Scandinavia, owing to Siberia's greater continentality. Krasnoyarsk has high differentials between summer and winter temperatures.

Demographics.

The population count by year: Population count by districts (2010 Census):  The population of Krasnoyarsk includes a number of peoples, the most numerous are Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Germans, and Belarusians. Lately the number of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other Central Asian and Caucasian peoples has grown extensively because of the vast, often illegal immigration in search for work.  Another populous immigrant group is the Chinese who, unlike other foreign workers, are employed in much more lucrative areas and often form business partnerships with local companies. Many Chinese trade at the bazaars, and a special large Chinese bazaar named "Sodruzhestvo" (Russian for "fellowship"), and the "Chinese Trading Town" (known in Russian as Китайский торговый город) or colloquially "Kitai-gorod" on Strelka.

Architecture.

There are a number of historical buildings in Krasnoyarsk, the oldest of them being the Intercession Cathedral (, 1785 to 1795, restored in 1977 to 1978). Other locally significant samples of Russian Orthodox architecture are the Annunciation Cathedral (, 1802–12), the Holy Trinity Cathedral (, 1802–12), John the Baptist Church (, 1899, former episcopal residence), and the new Michael the Archangel Church (, 1998 to 2003).  On the top of the Karaulnaya Hill, originally a pagan shrine, later occupied by the Krasnoyarsk fort watchtower, the Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel (1804, rebuilt 1854–55) still stands. The chapel, displayed on the 10-ruble note, is one of the iconic images of the city. The chapel was abandoned and fell into disrepair during the Soviet era and only when Perestroyka came was it regained by the Yenisei bishopric. Another unofficial symbol of Krasnoyarsk is the incomplete 24-story tower located at Strelka. Construction of the tower had been started just before Perestroyka and then frozen due to the administrative crisis. The outline of the tower is clearly seen from many places in the city.  A bridge near Krasnoyarsk carries the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Yenisei. This structure, one of the longest at the time, was constructed between 1893 and 1896 to an award-winning design by Lavr Proskuryakov. When approved for the inscription on the World Heritage List in 2003, the bridge was described by the UNESCO as "an early representation of a typical parabolic polygonal truss bridge in Russia" which became "a testing ground for the application of engineering theories and the development of new innovative solutions, which had numerous successors" ().  Among other notable buildings are the mansions of the merchant Nikolay Gadalov (beginning of the 20th century), the Roman Catholic Transfiguration Chapel (, 1911, also known as the Krasnoyarsk Organ Hall), the Krasnoyarsk Krai Museum stylized as an Ancient Egyptian temple, the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center and the triumphal arch at the Spit (2003), the flanked with two towers known as the "Donkey Ears".  There are a number of two-story wooden houses in the city built mostly in the middle of the 20th century as temporary habitations. Many urbanized villages located inside the city keep the remnants of the traditional Russian village architecture: wooden houses with backyards, many somewhat dilapidated now but still inhabited.

Culture.

There are a number of local holidays celebrated annually in Krasnoyarsk. The most significant holiday is the Day of the City celebrated in June, usually with a carnival. Other holidays and cultural events are the Mana Festival (. The celebrations take place on the outside of town, on the bank of river Mana) usually held on the last weekend in June with the traditional bard contest, the International Museum Biennale traditionally held in the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center, the avant-garde "Museum Night" festival dedicated to the International Museum Day (May 18), the Jazz on Yenisey festival, the Stolbist Day held many times a year celebrating the traditions of mountain climbing in the Stolby national reserve, and the Bikers' Rally.  Krasnoyarsk has a number of local television companies and the highly developed telecommunications, many districts of the city have LAN-based broadband Internet access.  The city is also home to the Krasnoyarsk Children's Choir, a world-renowned choir that tours in many countries as The Little Eagles of Siberia.

Education and science.

Next to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk is a prominent scientific and educational center of Siberia, with over 30 higher education facilities, many of which are the branches of the Russian Academy of Science, and about 200 high schools. The most notable higher education institutes are:  Like Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk has a special city district called Akademgorodok ("Academic Town"), where several scientific research institutes are located. Krasnoyarsk's Institute of Biophysics is known for a 1973–1985 experiment on ecological isolation of human beings (the "Bios Experiment"). Sukachev Institute of Forest, founded in 1944 at Moscow and relocated to Krasnoyarsk in 1959. There are several museums in Krasnoyarsk. One is the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum, containing historical items and exhibits of the region, including ancient history, native Siberians, and woolly rhinos.  The Krasnoyarsk zoo is also a major attraction for residents and tourists.

Transportation.

Metro.

An underground system (three lines) has been in planning and construction phases in Krasnoyarsk for decades. The first three stations have not been opened yet, but several construction sites around the city are visible. The date of the opening is uncertain, as works on the system have been stopped since 2010.

Railway.

Krasnoyarsk lies on the Yenisei River and historically has been an important junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Krasnoyarsk-Passazhirsky (, lit. Krasnoyarsk-Passenger) is the main railway station of Krasnoyarsk. Long-range trains of the Trans-Siberian Railway stop at this station. There are some stations served by Elektrichka and there is Krasnoyarsk-East goods station 26.3 km east of Krasnoyarsk-Passazhirsky.

Airports.

Krasnoyarsk was served by two airports: Yemelyanovo Airport is the main airport that handles both medium and long haul domestic plus international flights, and is located northwest of the city. The secondary Cheremshanka Airport used to handle short haul flights. Cheremshanka has lost its eminent role as the main base airport for an extensive network of local air services (MVL) in Krasnoyarsk Region formerly served by the local Aeroflot Krasnoyarsk Directorate. In December 2011 a fire broke out at the Cheremshanka airport which destroyed the terminal building and the air traffic control tower.

Tourism.

The most popular place of attraction for tourists visiting Krasnoyarsk is the huge national nature reserve Stolby ("pillars"), which covers an area of with numerous giant granite rocks formations up to 100 meters high, many of very extraordinary shapes. Stolby is also a major rock climbing location. Many local climbers intentionally do not use any belaying equipment and call their extreme sport "stolbizm", known elsewhere as solo climbing.  Other popular showplaces include the Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station dam, the Karaulnaya Gora hill with the Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel, museums, theaters, etc.

Sports.

Krasnoyarsk is a center of Siberian sports. Areas, where Krasnoyarsk excels compared to other Russian cities, include rugby union, bandy, and freestyle wrestling.  Yenisey was the Soviet bandy champions every year in the 1980s as well as in 1991. The first Russian title came in 2001. In 2014 they became champions of the Bandy Super League and had the highest average attendance, 5 747. In 2015 the league title was won again as well as in 2016. At the 2019 Winter Universiade, bandy will feature as a demonstration sport for the first time and tournaments for both men and women will be held. An indoor stadium will be built for the occasion. It is planned to be ready for use by the end of 2018. The complexity of the construction is considered unique.  The city is considered a stronghold of rugby union in Russia, to the extent that the Rugby Union of Russia was headquartered locally for many years. Two Krasnoyarsk clubs, Krasny Yar and Enisey-STM, participate in the national Professional Rugby League, and European Rugby Challenge Cup, the second-tier pan-European club competition. Matches take precedence in the local media, and the city derby match can attract crowds of about 3000–5000. Many players of the Russian national rugby team hail from the area. Some of Russia's international rugby matches are played at the Central Stadium.  Former Carolina Hurricanes left winger Alexander Semin is from Krasnoyarsk.  Host of the international wrestling tournament the Ivan Yarygin.

Sport events.

The 2019 Winter Universiade was hosted by Krasnoyarsk in 2019.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Krasnoyarsk is twinned with:

Krasnoyarsk ( ; ) is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third-largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and Omsk, with a population of 1,035,528 as of the 2010 Census. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of aluminium.

Krasnojarsk () je město v Rusku, na jihu jeho sibiřské části. Leží na řece Jenisej a na Transsibiřské magistrále. Je správním střediskem Krasnojarského kraje. Žije zde obyvatel.