Barbellon

Barbellon
City
Seafront of Barbellon
Flag Coat of Arms
Nickname:  Biela hviezda Yazera (White star of the lake)
Country	Drevstran
Region	Medenzag
Government
• Body	City Assembly
• Mayor	Kristva Jozrf
Population
• Rank	3rd
• Density	4,227/km2 (10,950/sq mi)
• Urban	821,554
• Metro	1,020,851

Barbellon, sometime also spelled as Barbellos or Barbel, is a Drevstranese portuary city located on Lake Kulpanitsa and is the administrative capital of the Ötvar Department. Its population was of around 820,000 people in 2018, making it the third most populous city in Drevstran.

Barbellon was founded sometime during the early Tervingian Era under the name of Agar as a Gothic colony just a dozen of kilometers north of the lake-port of Dravast. Quickly, Agar grew and outshined Dravast who began to dwindle until it was quasi-abandoned by the late Tervingian Era. Barbellon, like the rest of the region, was victim of the chaos that reigned during the late-Tervingian Era. After a serie of Warlords dominated the city in the absence of a strong central government, the Emendatic Abbot of the city became its sole ruler, alongside a religious and a laic councils as advisory institutions. The city was renamed to Barbellon, and allied with four other cities to form the Alban Pentapolis of which it was the unofficial leader.

The Pentapolis would survive both the fall of Tervingia and the Lushyod Invasion but in 1150, it became a willing Protectorate of the Kingdom of Getmaria. When the latter was conquered by the Lushyodorstag in 1297, the Pentapolis also became a Lush vassal and was consolidated into the Duchy of Nagytöva. Despite its siding with Ostrozava during the Emendatic Wars and the Barbellon Vespers massacres, the city's religious freedom and the political powers of its abbot were officially recognized and safeguarded by the Treaty of Barbellos signed between its citizens and the Lushyod King in 1323.

Barbellon was at the center of the Eastern Renaissance in its role as the economic and religious contact point between the Lushyodorstag and Ostrozava.

During the Drevstranese Civil War, Barbellon's Metrohegumen Vazhilly II refused to side with the royalists of the Golden Columns and instead placed his city under the protection of Sullivan Taoh, pre-war prefect of the city who became de-facto one of the conflict' many warlords. Other famous figures who emerged from the civil war include the Abbot-Captain Joshua Mgravaï whose nephew became the post-war mayor of Barbellon. Koloman Lenved, founder of the Rytieriroz, also joined the city's defense during the war. The Bisected Knights thus remain a fringe but popular movement within Barbellon and its region, dominating the local far-right.

Barbellon always remained Drevstran main tradehub on Lake Kulpanitsa with a strong service and retail sector and a large agroalimentary and textile industry refining the goods from the rest of the Medenzag. It is also an education and research center with a strong academic tradition. Tourism is a major industry in Barbellon, with its many museum, historical monuments, and spiritually-significant sites for Emendatic Nazarians. A multicultural city since time immemorial, Barbellon remain home to important diaspora and communities from around Kulpanitsa. This notably include a strong Valdavian community which fled Ostrozava in the wake of its Revolution.