Bérasar

Bérasar is a major coastal city in northeastern Great Kirav, the capital and largest city of the Kiravian state of Fariva. One of the oldest Coscivian settlements in Ixnay, Bérasar is the economic, cultural, and transportation hub of the Far Northeastern region, and has an almost thousand-year-old history shaped principally by its status as a major port of the Kilikas Seaway. Along with Valēka, it was a leading Kiravian nexus of the intellectual, cultural, and technological movement known as the Northern or Kilikas Enlightenment, and is regarded as the "most Levantine city" in Kiravia due to its strong historic and demographic ties to Fiannria, Burgundie, and Faneria.

Contemporary Bérasar stands at the forefront of many knowledge-intensive fields, such as higher education, medical research, high-tech manufacturing, naval architecture, and investment banking, while still maintaining the robust shipping, fishing, brewing, and papermaking sectors that have been active in the city for centuries. It has a longstanding rivalry with its southern neighbour Valēka that extends from economic competition for dominance in certain industries to cuisine, music, and, most importantly, sports.

Geography and Climate
Kilikas Storm Belt, snow starts in late September, early October.

History
During the Colour Wars and the general social and political tumult of the XYZth century, Bérasar's high society was a stronghold of Occidentophile and Whiggamore-Freetrader sentiments, as well as the "national bourgeoisie", while strong support for populist movements and Kirosocialism simmered among the city's working-class population and sparked numerous demonstrations and (mostly short-lived and alcohol-fuelled) episodes of revolt.

On [October 14 2023], an exploded while docked at the ÁLO KiliGas LNG terminal in Bérasar Harbour, triggering a chain of explosions that destroyed the terminal and caused extensive strucutral damage and loss of life in surrounding areas of the city. Among the casualties were Provost Jakee Shanahan and the majority of the Board of Estimate - killed when half of the city hall collapsed, and the entire Kirav national soccer team, who were practicing 500 meters away at Pitchblende Park. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation. State, federal, civil, and international - from the Cape and Alstin organisations were involved in the containment and relief efforts.

Economy
SHIPPING

Historically: Ice trade.

Fishing: Actual fish. Lobsters. OYSTERS out the úasú.

Timber processing and papermarking.

High-tech knowledge- and capital-intensive shit. Finance. The Bérasar metropolitan area hosts the second-largest concentration of biomedical research and business activity in the Federacy, after the Primóra-Kartika Metropolitan Area.

Brewing

Society and Culture
Bérasar has a rich culture that is reflective of its geographic foundations and the cultural traditions set in place by its earliest settlers, as well as by centuries of dynamic urban evolution, migration, and international contact. It has strong commercial and demographic ties to Levantia, and is regarded as the most Levantine-influenced and Western-oriented Kiravian city.

Ethnic Makeup and Demographic History
Bérasar has been shaped by multiple waves of immigration from different parts of the Coscivian world, the wider Far Northeast, the Eastern Highlands, and Levantia. While less monumentally diverse than Valēka, Escarda, and Saar Silverda with their hundreds and hundreds of ethnic communities, Bérasar manifests a unique and characteristic blend of cultural influences from the various ethnic groups that have come to call it home.

>Foundational groups

>Lúnstem, Sea Coscivians, Keregūlem ans similar maritime groups

>Ĥeirans, Gaels, and Highlanders. Meridian Finns.

>South and Southwestern Coscivians + Svenskem and North Elutes

>New Coscivians

>Burgundines with their various layers of history

>Urceans, Fiannrians, and Fanerian

Religion
Bérasar is a predominantly Christian city. Just under half of the population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, with the next largest denominations being Insular Apostolic, Coscivian Orthodox, and Mercantile Protestant. Most of the non-Christian minority adheres to Ruricanism or Læstorianism (monotheistic religions of Coscivian origin) or are irreligious theists.

Catholic influence in Bérasar has always been very strong, owing to the city's close links with the Levantian mainland. Bérasar and its sattelite city of Epsilar are the only Kiravian cities of significant size outside of the Tryhstian Littoral where more Catholics belong to the Latin Rite than to the Coscivian Rite. The Archbishop of Bérasar is usually a Cardinal and has strong influence over the Kiravian Church as whole.

The city's Ĥeiran Coscivians, Féinem, and most of its Gaels belong to the Insular Apostolic Church. Coscivian Orthodoxy is the traditional faith among most of the Coscivian ethnic groups who immigrated to Bérasar from southern and southwestern Éorsa, as well as from the New Coscivian countries. Mercantile Protestantism arrived in the city with Burgundine merchants.

Language
The everyday language of Bérasar is Bāsahrona, a dialect of Kiravic Coscivian that forms the core of the Fariva Kiravic dialect spoken in the surrounding state. Written Kiravic usage in the Bérasar metropolitan area tends to follow the "Edskover Consensus", a group of conventions and style guides developed at Farivan universities and teaching colleges in the early decades following the Republican Revolution, and thus has noticeable differences from written Kiravic in other parts of the country that are more influenced by Valēkan or Southern conventions.

32% of Bérasar residents reported Kiravic as their only mother tongue, while an additional 26% report themselves as natively multilingual in Kiravic and one or more other languages. The most common native language after Kiravic is Gaelic (mostly Fiannrian-Kiravians, native Kiravian Gaels, and Féinem), followed by Kostiatem Coscivian, Lebhan, Cālatem Coscivian, and Latin. Most educated Coscivian residents of Bérasar are Kiravic-speaking, literate in High Coscivian, and conversational in either Lebhan, Levantine Latin, or both.

Use of Levantine languages in commercial and public service settings is very common in Bérasar. Most directional signage in core areas of the city is printed in both Kiravic and Latin, and most police officers have at least a rudimentary understanding of Latin and/or Lebhan. Many downtown restaurants have bi- or trilingual menus, and electoral ballots in the city are available in Gaelic, Latin, Lebhan, Canaesh, Rexan, and Pretannic. Beginning in 21208, emergency broadcasts in the Bérasar metro area will include information in Urcean English and Fanerian Gothic.

Sports
Bérasarites are known for their fanatical devotion to the city's sporting teams, and for their heated rivalry with Valēka-based teams. Fieldball (also known as "Kiravian-rules football" or "Kiravian gridiron") and hockey are the most popular sports in the city, represented at the professional level by the Bérasar Blues of the Federal Fieldball League and the Bérasar Longshoremen of the Seaboard Hockey League. Bérasar is sometimes considered the easternmost extension of the Hockey Belt running across Great Kirav's northern coast (though this is disputed by hockey fans from core Hockey Belt cities like Xūrosar and Xistódarin). Television viewership for fieldball games in the Bérasar media market is somewhat higher than viewership for hockey games, but hockey viewership has been known to edge out fieldball viewership in years that the Blues perform poorly.

The athletic rivalry between Bérasar and Valēka is deep-seated and bitter. In Valēka, which has two teams in both major professional leagues, and where affiliation with one of the two teams is a social and political fault line, residents from opposing fanbases will, as a rule, root for their intra-city rival over Bérasar. Similarly, Bérasar observes an unofficial holiday called Tæn Lakuśikorsk ("Day of Futility") whenever two Valēkan fieldball teams play one another, customarily "celebrated" by going to the pub, drinking a great deal, and making it a point to not watch the game.

Pitchblende Park in Bérasar is the home field of the Kiravian national football team.