Num-Poki
Num-Poki is Ubep's capital and largest city. The city contains exactly one million people. This tidy number is maintained by making small edits to the city limit each week, and, if necessary, relocating people living on the borders.
The city lies on both banks of the river Giak. The original village was founded on a hill overlooking the south bank; this had been a site of pagan worship, concentrated on an outcropping of rock in the present-day Old Town--the name of the city in fact means "[the shrine of] Num the Most Esteemed."
The bare hill and the Num Rock were surrounded by acres of the thin, scrubby forest characteristic of Eastern Ubep. A proper village with huts, as opposed to a temporary encampment, was founded sometime in the Dark Ages. A large open space was left in front of the Rock to make room for religious ceremonies and public announcements. As the population grew, and pastoralists from the countryside began to move into the river valley, the village expanded down the hillside to the river.
Intermittent Russian influence is present from the 15th century on; particularly notable is the medieval Russian-style north facade of the St. Nikolai Cathedral. The church had existed as a somewhat jumbled structure built in phases in previous centuries around the Num Rock; it was partially destroyed in a 1560 fire. Under the plan, the old sanctuary was buried under the new church, and the new facade was given grand Byzantine archways with three onion domes crowning the roof. The plaza in front was paved over to create the Cathedral Square; in following years buildings were constructed in the middle, splitting off a second square now known as the Hoien-Plaz, which remained as the main market square in the town.
The Num Rock may still be found in the crypt of the Cathedral.
The Russians were also responsible for the construction of the Num-Poki Kremlin, northeast of the town, on a short cliff overlooking the river. The central fort was begun in 1603 and the fearsome outer walls were completed by 1640. Later they strengthened their defenses with the New Castle on the Black Hill to the north of the city in 1703.
The hulking South Gate to the Kremlin, now looking down Central Boulevard, was known from this point as the Brooding Gate.
The following centuries saw the town expand in all directions and to the north side of the Giak. The arched Bagodur Bridge linking the two sides was built in 1744.
Foreign business interests from England and France led to a wholesale remodeling and further expansion of the city in the early 19th century. Several sweeping boulevards were constructed, and twenty square blocks were built on a grid pattern to accomodate the new homes of the wealthy.
At the confluence of several of these boulevards lay King's Square (today Revolution Square), flanked by the palace of the puppet king to the English (today extensively remodeled as the First Ubu People's Palace), several grand hotels (one, the famous Gorkozina, stands today) and the new City Hall.
Queen Victoria Street (today Hokz.un Boulevard) gracefully led past large mansions into the fields to the west of the city, Central Boulevard connected the King's square to the massive Kremlin gate to the North and to the South Station in the other direction (begun 1878; present building 1930); the first large commercial buildings were built along the southerly streets leading up to the station in an extention of the grid.
The unfinished South facade of the Cathedral was redone in a Neoclassical style. This face now overlooks Revolution Boulevard though is out of line with it.
The Stalinist years so Num-Poki's development as a port and the Industrial Canal was built linking the river directly to Lake Ga. Several of the avenues were extended into the slums on the eastern side of the city (imposing order on an endless jumble of streets) and several new bridges were built.
The walls around the Kremlin were demolished (though the Brooding Gate was left) and Central Boulevard was extended in a large ring around the building, leading to a bridge spanning the water on the other side.
Most of the West Side mansions were replaced with large apartment complexes, creating the present canyon-like feeling along the western part of Friedrich Engels Prospekt (today Hokz.un Boulevard; formerly Queen Victoria Street). Other complexes were built, dotting the city; today they tend to look less imposing due to the clutter of construction from later decades.
