Overview: Gandvik, by a comfortable margin the planet's largest nation if rated according to contiguous land area, is also and perhaps accordingly one if its most heterogeneous in human terms. Five hundred years of largely uninterrupted, often murderous eastward expansion from a core of early principalities, bishoprics, and chivalric order-states clustered along the Baltic Sea's eastern littoral and its adjoining inland waterways to the far Pacific shore, joined in its later stages by a colonial foray into the East Indies, served to bring under direct or indirect Gandvian authority a diverse and disparate range of groups. When taken together, these constitute a national community which, however ineffectively and incompletely integrated, has proven surprisingly durable despite episodes of tension. An official nationalities policy once characterized by the frequently violent assertion of Lutheran, European Gandvik's cultural and political supremacy over a variety of dissident religious and non-European communities treated, for their own part, as decidedly subject elements, has over the course of the twentieth century's latter half shifted gradually, if nonetheless emphatically, toward a permissive and tolerant pluralism which tends to rest on extensive linguistic autonomy and local self-government. This apparent relinquishment of European Gandvik's former dominance has not, however, met with anything like universal popularity, and, indeed, counts powerful, vocal detractors in virtually every segment of Gandvian society. Nor has it proven entirely successful as an antidote to inter-communal strife, as numerous instances of rioting, disorder, and political crisis will readily attest. Whether Gandvik's ethnic-linguistic crazy-quilt, held together at times, it seems, by nothing stronger than an albeit dense bureaucratic mesh colored by various more or less sincere expressions of goodwill and an increasingly hollow insistence on a shared Uralic heritage, will prove equal to twenty-first-century challenges is, as yet, anyone's guess. Some commentators have even sought to explain a fundamentally conservative, deeply-rooted armed forces establishment's evidently wholehearted embrace of explicit socialism as an attempt to use that universalizing doctrine against the nation's problematic internal contradictions. Any such attempt, of course, runs up against stubborn obstacles in Tataria's perennial, ethnically- and religiously-tinted industrial strife, a flat refusal by many European Gandvians to endorse a program that repudiates their preeminence in government and society, and Depkazi leader Chingiz Khagan's militant, ascendant brand of Turkic nationalism. Gandvik's profoundly inefficient, confused, byzantine apparatus of government would scarcely be expected to strike an outside observer as an organization particularly well-suited to confront such challenges, and a distinct sense of foreboding would have to be acknowledged within the corridors of power themselves.
Demographic classifications can be drawn, in modern Gandvik, along a number of different and, sometimes, somewhat contradictory lines, depending upon whether linguistic, ethnic, or religious qualities are emphasized. A simple majority of Gandvians might be classed as White Europeans, while a varied collection of Turkic groups, most numerous of which is the community of Jaizar Tatars, makes up the second-largest share of the national population, followed by Joeson people. Just under two percent of Gandvians are East Indian immigrants or their descendants, at least in part, though accurate data for that particular group, subject as it is to a virtually-indecipherable and, more often than not, arbitrarily-applied code on residence and citizenship, is difficult to obtain. Official statistics, at least, claim that virtually every adult Gandvian can speak, read, and write the Fennic official language, though when primary spoken language is taken into consideration the picture becomes more complex. Approximately 80% of Gandvians are, according to available data, multilingual, of which nearly half, or 40% of the population as a whole, uses as their first language something other than official Gandvian. Speakers of Tungusic languages constitute a plurality of that sub-total, followed closely by Turkic- and German-speakers, the former chiefly to be found along the Jaizar and abutting regions, the latter along the Baltic coastline. A small if, politically, quite significant population of Shieldian speakers is to be found in the region between the middle Jaizar and the Ural mountains, and this is perhaps the only linguistic category in Gandvik which also corresponds closely with a religious affiliation. A comfortable majority, rather more than seventy percent, of all Gandvians belong at least nominally to the Lutheran state church, for which at least some credit must be assigned to policies of forced Christianization pursued off and on, and with greater or lesser stringency, between about 1500 and 1900, and just under twenty percent identify as practicing Muslims, the vast majority Hanafi Sunni. Centuries of official discrimination, veering at times into outright massacre, have left modern Gandvik with only minuscule remnants of what were once substantial Catholic and Jewish communities, and much the same can be said of Buddhism or the various interrelated animist faiths belonging to Siberia and the high Arctic. Forced conversion affected Muslims too, of course, though outright persecution was suspended in the mid-1800s as part of an effort, less than wholly successful, to undermine Shieldian rule in Gallaga and Central Asia. Movers, Calvinists, and adherents of other reformed Christian doctrines add up to a statistically small though uniquely cohesive and politically-active element on Gandvik's religious landscape, and while discrimination of any sort on religious grounds, abolished by 1914's since-suspended republican constitution, has never been restored, relations between that particular collection of churches and the official Gandvian state are far from warm.
Gandvik itself, as a name, derives from an ancient term for the Gulf of Bothnia, used by Nibelung chroniclers during the Middle Ages to describe that region's inhabitants. A variety of Fennic-Uralic groups had spread throughout much of Northern and Northeastern Europe by approximately 300 BCE, and as of the first century ACE these had developed certain commonalities in language and religious practice. Prior to 1200 ACE, nearly all Gandvians adhered to a polytheistic faith that venerated a central pantheon of nature spirits, whose exact composition, size, relative importance, and methods of worship varied from place to place according to local conditions and preferences. Christianity, however, began to make inroads during the 1100s as a result of scattered missionary activity, with the first mass conversions taking place between 1100 and 1150 in modern-day Estland. Edwy's Northern Crusade, followed by a number of similar ventures conducted with or without Rome's sanction by a string of Nibelung and Shieldian noblemen, accelerated this process greatly, and within about a century most major Gandvian peoples had adopted the Christian religion. Christianity's doctrinal coherence and regimentation has been cited by many scholars as an important centralizing influence on what had previously been a loose, semi-confederated collection of independent principalities and duchies, though Gandvik's Baltic societies, apart from being quickest to Christianize, had also amassed considerable mercantile wealth, and leveraged this, along with their higher populations and control of major trade routes, to extend their authority over inland territories.
This history stands in stark contrast to narratives propounded by nationalist elements in modern Gandvik emphasizing the existence of a quintessentially Gandvian ethnic identity, as at its roots the modern Gandvian state can more properly be described as halfway a creation of German and Shieldian mercenaries, and halfway a self-conscious imitation of those same foreign customs by a patchwork of native leaders whose repudiation of their earlier identities was rarely less than total. Within a remarkably short time, any ready distinction between conqueror and conquered disappeared, and a new ruling aristocracy which grew out of this fusion took up the Crusading mantle with great ardor, if less than iron-clad Papal sanction, in a series of savage wars against the Uralic and Slavic peoples inhabiting the Jaizar's upper reaches. It is an uncomfortable fact that a cultural and linguistic identity which claims for itself ancient roots in prehistoric, certainly pre-Christian Europe is actually, for the most part, a creation of nineteenth-century romantic nationalists the likes of which assembled from decidedly patchy and selective anthropological and ethnographic researches something that purported to be a rediscovered, authentic Gandvian.
Early Gandvik's subjugation of those loosely-organized polytheistic peoples along its immediate Eastern frontier and around the head-waters of the Jaizar brought it, almost by default, into conflict with a Shieldian Grand Empire from which the Gandvian aristocracy, its origins notwithstanding, was growing steadily more distinct, and a string of well-established, if, often, mutually-antagonistic, Muslim-Turkic principalities along the middle and lower Jaizar, tributaries of the Depkazi Khaganate. This vicious three-sided struggle would largely shape the course of subsequent Gandvian history, and while Gandvik tended to fare poorly, sometimes disastrously so, against a Shieldian Grand Empire then at the height of its power, Depkazia and its Tatar allies, beset simultaneously by Gandvik and the Shield, suffered an incomparably worse fate. Where most of Islamic Central Asia fell at a steady rate under increasingly more direct Shieldian dominance, Gandvik, left to nibble around the edges of Shieldian conquests, absorbed ever larger numbers of Muslims as it pushed east in what many began to see as a race to the Pacific.
Population: 122,261,815 (best estimate)
Population Growth Rate: -0.01%
Age Structure: 0-14 years: 14.5%
15-64 years: 68.2%
64- years: 17.3%
Life Expectancy at Birth: Total Population: 73.05
Male: 67.4
Female: 78.7
Ethnic-Linguistic Groups: Gandvian (majority), Turkic, Shieldian, German, Udmurt, Komi, Nenets
Languages: Gandvian (official, Balto-Fennic) and related dialects, Omalian, Zyrian, Tatar, Shieldian, German (main second language), English, Other
Religions: Lutheranism (state religion) (85.5%), Islam (7.8%), Reformed Protestantism (3.35%), Moverism (1.4%), Other/Unrecorded (>2%)
Literacy: Total Population: 99% (official), 89.25% (best estimate)
Male: 92.8% (best estimate)
Female: 85.7% (best estimate)[/spoiler]
Religion
Pre-Christianity
Religious belief of a universal and systematically-organized character first developed in Gandvik along familiar polytheistic lines, and by 1000 ACE what began as an innumerable set of localized customs and rituals had coalesced around a central pantheon of nature deities, a sky god, an element held in common across many Uralic cultures, occupying its preeminent position. While local preferences still dictated exact modes and objects, and while there did not exist any single, entirely coherent doctrine, in their primary features animist and shamanist beliefs eventually acquired enough of a recognizable similarity and a mutually-intelligible set of tenets as to build throughout much of Scandinavia and northeastern Europe the foundations of what would later turn into a national culture. Pre-Christian Gandvian peoples shared their environment with a multitude of spirits, deities, ghosts, and mystical beings which in their dizzying variety watched over each facet of nature, and which could intercede in daily life for good or for ill. Worship revolved, generally, around the veneration of shrines and holy places believed to hold special significance for a particular spirit, at which offerings were made and ceremonies performed, usually presided-over by a Shaman, to ensure that metaphysical forces remained in balance and that the community would continue to enjoy the spirit world’s favor. Certain animals were also assigned sacred status, chief among them the bear and the elk, and attributed supernatural, miraculous powers.
Roman Catholicism
After 1100 ACE, however, traditional polytheism fell into a sharp and at times cataclysmically violent decline as Christianity in its Roman form, already dominant in continental Europe, spread inexorably north and east. Missionaries drawn from Nibelung dioceses first began to appear in Ingria and Savonia early in the 11th century, and, having prudently chosen to focus their proselytization efforts on the local nobility and merchant classes, soon succeeded in winning a number of important converts, of which the Grand Duke of Holmgard, baptized in 1181 and later canonized for his troubles, was probably their greatest conquest.
By 1200, Christian faith had already managed to root itself deeply within elite culture along the Baltic Sea’s northern and eastern shores, even if its overall following remained, at that stage, quite limited. Over the following century a combination of economic and political motivations, accompanied by guarantees of Papal legitimation for Crusades of murderous brutality against communities still clinging to their traditional beliefs, largely completed the process of Christianization in Holmgard, Ingria, Savonia, and Livonia, those territories which were shortly thereafter welded, by war, marriage, religion, and mercantile interest, into the first self-identifying Gandvian state.
As often occurred elsewhere in Europe, Roman Catholicism, in spite of its absolute status as solitary recognized and permissible form of religious expression, soon took on a distinctly local flavor, and a church whose expansion throughout western and central Gandvik undoubtedly owed a great deal to political and dynastic imperatives was, from its earliest days, manipulated openly by Gandvian rulers to decidedly secular ends. As crusading ardor diminished with the virtual elimination of competing belief systems, and as pre-Gandvian duchies and principalities became more deeply entangled in Shieldian affairs, relations with Rome, separated from its local agents by vast distances to begin with, grew contentious. Gandvik’s royal leadership routinely obstructed initiatives and ignored missives issued by a Papacy widely seen to favor Shieldian over Gandvian interests over a record of disharmony which was ultimately to include more than one bull of excommunication issued against a King of Gandvik. This official defiance tended, among its numerous other consequences, to create a relatively permissive environment for heterodox beliefs of wide and varied character, one result of which is frequently identified as Gandvik’s readiness to split from Roman obedience altogether during the 16th century, though true attitudes to doctrines regarded as heresy by Roman church officials tended to reverse themselves with often dangerous regularity.
State Church of Gandvik
Reformation doctrines as they are widely understood appeared in Gandvik quite soon after Martin Luther’s iconic Wittenberg protest, and found in a ruling establishment long disillusioned with successive hostile Papacies a receptive audience. Noblemen in Curonia, Estland, and Savonia, in regular contact with North German merchants, were among the first to adopt Lutheran teachings, and their influence at court, at a time when Gandvian monarchs, up to that point traditionally military-minded men who tended to be absent on campaign for years on end, proved decisive in the elevation, in 1558, of Lutheranism in its local embodiment to the status of state church. Queen Eleanora III, raised in an environment highly sympathetic to Lutheran doctrines, and educated by none other than Petrus Browallius, future archbishop of Turku and erstwhile student of Luther himself, proved an immensely enthusiastic champion of Protestantism and focused most of her formidable energies on ensuring its spread. That religious reformation provided a convenient rallying-point for popular emotion during Gandvik’s long, ultimately fruitless, involvement in the Shieldian Great Brothers War guaranteed it official favor even under several of Eleanora’s notoriously un-pious successors, and in spite of occasional violent Catholic reaction, rising to a level that ostensibly ignited a civil war between approximately 1665 and 1678, its preeminence was never seriously threatened.
It is often argued that Lutheranism’s most attractive character, where the greater share of Gandvian monarchs were concerned, was its ability to impose a degree of uniformity on a religious landscape that, as late as 1500, was in places Catholic, even Christian, in name only, and colored by a patchwork of heresies and de facto independent churches. Christian belief in Gandvik’s northern and eastern reaches brushed up against both surviving pockets of pre-Christian animism and a militant Islam, and where beliefs coexisted in regular contact their interaction often spawned yet additional lines of speculation, usually tending in the direction of syncretism. Whether or not they actually saw Lutheranism as an agent of Gandvian national identity, Gandvian rulers undoubtedly valued its regularizing character, and its status as solitary permissible mode of religious expression was over following centuries vigorously asserted.
Reformed Protestantism
Like many Lutheran churches, the Church of Gandvik retained a definite resemblance to the Catholic institutions that it supplanted, the new State Church reveling in ornament and iconography to a degree that Protestant visitors from elsewhere in Europe found nothing short of scandalous. A source of still more controversy was a continued predilection for corrupt administrative practices, sale of church offices and political manipulation of church appointments remaining widespread, much to the horror of religious intellectuals. Belief in the incompleteness of Gandvik’s reformation, by no means entirely unfounded if it were measured against standards set elsewhere in Europe, regularly found expression in dissent, and while never particularly widespread, Calvinism and Calvinist-inspired teachings did attract a significant number of adherents, many of them well-placed, during the difficult decades that followed defeat in the Great Brothers War. Indeed, Pietari I, usually given the honorific Suuri, or ‘the Great,’ for his military, bureaucratic, and architectural achievements, narrowly survived an attempt on his life by disgruntled Calvinist nobles, and Pietari’s resulting violent crackdown on religious nonconformance only partially succeeded.
Government
Overview
Gandvik is described by its ruling regime as a Principality, where supreme authority resides in the Prince's person, though real power rests with the so-called Chairman of the Council of State. An appointed Council of Deputies serves, ostensibly, to represent popular interests in state policy-making. There are very few institutional avenues by which independent actors can influence government decisions and opportunities for public participation in political life are extremely rare, but extensive patronage networks stemming from the Prince's cabinet and various state departments ensure that key officials are at least somewhat responsive to popular pressures, and they generally move to head-off potential sources of unrest through a mixture of financial incentives and outright repression. Soft measures, an official euphemism that refers to slander and disinformation, are also used widely, though officials must be careful that they do not make outrageous or obviously false claims against their target. The post of Chairman is theoretically determined by Princely appointment, but who exactly receives that appointment is usually decided by a process of infighting among powerful government officials that might take place over a period of several years. A given Chairman might designate his preferred successor, and those recommendations have been honored without exception by Gandvik's princely rulers, but currying favor and constituency-building can be long and dangerous processes. Chairmen are appointed for life, and although they are legally subject to dismissal by the Prince, the ruling Berdichyiv family is well aware of its dependent position and rarely interferes with internal politics. An interesting feature of government in Gandvik is its judiciary, which consists of both traditional legal professionals, supposed to interpret laws and offer rulings impartially, and a highly political Procuracy, intended to handle criminal investigations, prosecution of defendants, and judicial oversight functions as well.
Country Name: Conventional Long Form: Principality of Gandvik
Conventional Short Form: Gandvik
Abbreviation: GP (unofficial)
Local Country Name:
Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy
Capital: Riga (706,413)
Time Zone: UTC+1/2/3/4
Other Major Cities: Vitstenkyrka (Moscow), Ingermanburg, Paavali Tarsolainen (Arkhangelsk), Kullansarvi (Vladivostok), Menesk (Minsk), Oshel (Nizhny Novgorod), Voruta (Vilnius), Rääveli (Tallinn), Helsingfors (Helsinki), Molyhew (Mogliev), Vitbav (Vitebsk), Muurman, Miliniska (Smolensk), Alanko (Bryansk), Holmkarta (Novgorod), Pleskau (Pskov), Dinaburg (Daugavpils), Stora Slingrar (Velikiye Luki), Libava (Liepaja), Pirilinn (Kaluga), Hautakumpu (Yaroslavl), Laiskama (Vologda), Kotkalinna (Oryol), Olettamus (Tula), Brahe (Tolyatti), Tapana (Samara), Rautakestävyys (Ulyanovsk), Orjalinna (Orenburg), Tura (Ufa), Perem
Administrative Divisions: 18 Governates (Smaland, Rogaland, Trondelag, Bothnia, East Ruthenia, Estland, Curonia, Voronia, Nyensholm, Holmgard, Savonia, West Ruthenia, Polesia, Tataria, Keyserling Land, Nenetsia, Laponia)
Administrative Languages:
Independence: Gandvik emerged as a recognizable national entity during the 15th century ACE, and has remained so ever since in one form or another, discounting intermittent foreign occupations and annexations. Significant amounts of territory have been lost to, and regained from, the Shield and various Turkic and Nibelung states throughout history.
Public Holidays: New Year's Day, Epiphany (6 January), Good Friday (Moveable), Easter Sunday (Moveable), Easter Monday (Moveable), St. Valburg's Day (1 May), Ascension Day (Moveable), Pentecost (Moveable), Midsummer (Moveable), All Saints' Day (Moveable), National Day (6 December), Christmas (24/25 December), St. Stephen's Day (26 December)
Constitution: Articles of State signed by religious and military officials on 5 October 1927 replaced republican constitution of 1915.
Legal System: Civil Law: Judges rule on particular cases in accordance with official statutes and provisions set down in the national Civil Code and the Articles of State.
Suffrage: A Gandvian subject is considered legally and morally responsible at age 15, can be conscripted at age 18, and is eligible for compulsory military service until age 50. Candidates for parish and county-level political office are elected according to universal suffrage from a list of individuals approved by the provincial governor, and anyone over 20 and in good legal standing can participate.
Executive Branch: Chief of State: Adalbert Stefan Ludvig Bertil, Prince Adalbert II
Head of Government: Chancellor Antero Idman (acting)
Cabinet: 18-member Council of State, selected by Prince in consultation with Council Chairman
Elections:
Legislative Branch: dual-headed legislature, consisting of: Kuvernöörineuvostolla, or council of governors; Valtiopäivät, or diet
Political Parties: Political parties are expressly prohibited by the Articles of State. Several underground organizations exist, espousing a wide range of different programs, but these have, so far, been successfully repressed by state security forces and generally retain only limited, regional constituencies.
Judicial Branch: 5-member High Court appointed by Council of State for life terms, though subject to dismissal.
Flag Description: Green Nordic cross on yellow background with blue heraldic shield centered within cross
Economy
Overview
At its most recent valuation, Gandvik's gross domestic product stood at some 2.7 trillion English Pounds or just over 268 trillion Gandvian Marks, placing just ahead of Walmington and behind Rome for the position of fourth-largest world economy. Still in many respects backward-looking and insular, yet to embrace free-market thinking to any serious degree and marked by an often staggering level of corruption in business circles, Gandvik does not always seem like or act like a wealthy country, but is well-placed to benefit from its nearness to central Europe's hungry markets and a generous range of natural resources. Profitable fuel, mineral, and finished exports, bolstered by high tariff barriers and an artificially-devalued currency and paired with low unemployment and price controls on staple goods, have largely succeeded in maintaining a standard of living that, while not nearly so high as is encountered in nations like Rome, Nibelunc, Valendia, or Amerique, is historically unprecedented within Gandvik itself. Heavy industry, in particular metallurgy, automobile manufacturing, aerospace technology, and shipbuilding, remains as Gandvik's commercial backbone in spite of its declining importance relative to years past, and an increasing focus on domestic rather than export customers. Light industry, traditionally a neglected sector in an economy shaped to a large extent by central planning, has acquired an enhanced stature as of recent decades thanks to technological advances and typically low labor costs, and now accounts for a considerable share of national export earnings. The development of oil and natural gas deposits located both inland and offshore has also turned Gandvik into a major energy producer and a vital source of heating fuel for central Europe, while most pipelines and transport infrastructure connecting Europe with productive fields further east cross through Gandvian territory and generate further economic activity through their construction and upkeep. Significant reserves of coal, iron ore, titanium, nickel, platinum, uranium, zinc, rare earth elements, and numerous other minerals are mined for domestic industrial use and export as well, mainly in far northern and far eastern Gandvik. Much of Ruthenia and Tataria, covered by rolling steppe, is ideal for large-scale agriculture and both of those regions grow substantial cereal crops, mostly for domestic consumption.
Gandvik adheres to a hybrid economic model, one fundamentally statist in its emphasis on central control and government ownership but peripherally influenced by both capitalist and socialist elements. The Ministry of Trade and Industry, a mammoth technocratic entity headquartered in Ingermanburg, cooperates with the National Central Bank, the Kansallinen Keskuspankki or KKG, to manipulate and manage economic forces within Gandvik and negotiate trade agreements with other nations, and also plays a role in major infrastructure projects. Punitive tariffs are levied extensively in order to protect domestic industry from foreign competition, a measure intended both to guarantee maximum possible levels of employment and to safeguard a politically significant class of business owners and economic bureaucrats, though some tentative steps have recently been taken to liberalize Gandvik's trade regime in spite of staunch opposition from within and outside government. Corruption is an inescapable feature of economic activity in Gandvik, which, as in nearly all aspects of public affairs, is unofficially governed by a colossal web of patronage with its center on Riga Castle. At a major cost in terms of efficiency and accountability, this system provides a reasonable level of security for those who operate within its informal parameters, and failure to abide by set customs can spell disaster for any would-be businessman.
Labor relations in Gandvik are governed by a corporatist arrangement, in which workers' and employers' associations, centrally organized and managed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, represent their collective interests in a routinized process of wage and regulatory negotiations. One of Gandvian fascism's most lasting political legacies, corporatism was initially seen by state authorities as a means to tame and co-opt radical elements on both sides of the ideological spectrum and to build popular support behind a ruling establishment whose outlook, at a time of great social upheaval, was fundamentally rooted in conservatism and traditionalism. Today, confederated labor and business groups function largely as channels for patronage and graft, though their large membership, extensive resources, and broad reach make them formidable political actors in their own right and they tend to exert a great deal of informal influence on economic policy.
Nominal GDP (Purchasing Power Parity): 3,07 billion pounds
GDP Per Capita (PPP): 25,104 pounds
GDP Composition by Sector:
Labor Force: (est.)
By Occupation:
Unemployment Rate: Official: 1.5%; Unofficial Estimate: 5-6% national, 25-27% among 18-25 yr. olds
Agriculture/Aquaculture Products: potatoes, vegetables, grain, sugar beets, livestock, dairy products, eggs, poultry, fish
Principal Industries: oil extraction, mining, metallurgy, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, food processing, fishing, forestry, brewing and distilling
Electricity Production by Source:
Export Commodities: crude oil, natural gas, steel, aluminum, fertilizer, transportation equipment, ships, aircraft, machine tools, construction equipment, mining equipment
Import Commodities: electronic equipment, high-quality textiles, foodstuffs, optical equipment, chemical products
Major Trade Partners: Valendia, Amerique, Depkazia, The Commonwealth of Socialist Republics
Currency: Mark (MK)
Exchange Rates: Marks per Walmingtonian Pound: 98.3
Transport and Communications
Overview
As one of Europe's largest nations in terms of land area, Gandvik relies upon an extensive network of transportation and communications infrastructure for both its economic vitality and political cohesion. Road, rail, and air routes link major population centers with one another in a far-reaching national grid, while canals and inland waterways enable barge traffic between the Baltic Sea, White Sea, and Roskus (Volga) River. Prior to 1900 Gandvik rated as one of Europe's less-developed nations, late to industrialize and difficult to traverse quickly, but a growing manufacturing base, coupled with an expanding population and rising GDP, sparked an exponential increase in road-building and rail-laying after about 1880, which, after tapering-off before 1939, picked up again after 1945 with the construction of a national highway system. Telecommunications have also evolved from Morse code telegraphy into a modern public switched telephone network, with recent developments focusing on greater digitization and use of fiber-optic cables for improved transmission speeds and capacities. Cell phones are still something of a rarity in Gandvik, as government tariffs ensure that they are priced above the means of most working-class people, and much the same can be said for private computers, but cell towers have sprung up near many large cities nonetheless. Lack of agreement on protocols, coupled with a desire to limit the Principality's exposure to foreign ideas and information, means that few Gandvians have access to the internet in anything approaching a modern form, though Telnet remains in widespread use among academic, and to a lesser extent private, circles.
The Ministry of Transport, which occupies a sprawling complex on the banks of the Daugava in central Riga, is responsible for implementing state policy regarding roads, railways, waterways and air routes. Day-to-day operations, maintenance, and physical implementation falls to four nationwide sub-agencies; the Gandvian Maritime Service or Merenkulkulaitos, the Rail Administration or Ratahallintokeskus, the Road Administration or Tiehallinto, and the Aviation Administration or Ilmailulaitos. Those four organizations regulate transport in Gandvik by issuing vehicular permits and ensuring that routes meet minimum standards in terms of safety and efficiency. They are civilian agencies, and their employees would not be considered combatants in wartime, but each does possess an important national defense function in its responsibility for keeping-open lines of communication. The Merenkulkulaitos, usually abbreviated MKL, operates a large share of Gandvik's all-important icebreaker fleet, essential for clearing shipping routes through the Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Nyensholm in winter months, and for protecting shipping in the White and Barents Seas from drifting ice. A total of seventeen hulls are currently in service, the largest of which is Pohjantähti, a nuclear-powered behemoth of 23,000 tons displacement famous for its numerous trips into the high Arctic. Gandvian railways are mainly used by Valtion Rautatiet, a state-owned rail transport monopoly that operates both passenger and cargo routes, the latter often stretching far into sub-Polar regions. VR also maintains a fleet of semi-trailer trucks for road haulage, but a greater degree of private competition is permitted in this arena. Domestic and international ferry services link many Baltic destinations, Gandvia Lauttalinjoja accounting for most of Gandvik's market share with its fleet of ten ships.
Other important Gandvian transport companies include national shipping conglomerate VKV, and flag air-carrier Gandvia Aero.
Communications
Telephones: Main Lines in Use: 1.78 million
Mobile Cellular: 44,605
Radio Broadcast Stations: AM 18, FM 31
Television Broadcast Stations: 11
Internet Country Code: .gv
Transportation
Airports:
Airports With Paved Runways:
Airports With Unpaved Runways:
Waterways:
Merchant Marine: Total: 85 ships (1,000 GRT or over) 768,121 GRT
By Type: bulk carrier 5, large container 3, tanker 4, chemical tanker 4, coastal cargo 47, ferry 8, cable layer 2, dredger 3, icebreaker 7
Ports and Terminals: Windau, Libava, Riga, Reval, Ingermanburg, Murman, Petsamo
Railways: Total:
Broad Gauge: (1676mm "Indian Gauge")
Standard Gauge: (1435mm)
Narrow Gauge: (1000mm)
Roadways: Total:
Paved:
Unpaved:
Drives on The: Left
Geography
Location
Northeastern Europe and Eurasia, between the Atlantic Ocean and West Siberian Plain.
Land Area
Total:
Contiguous: (including coastal islands)
Land Boundaries (in order of length)
The Gull Flag Republic, Depkazia, The Republic of Editraequan, The Walmingtonian Empire, (?)
Maritime Claims
12nm territorial waters, 12nm contiguous zone to hypothetical mean line when applicable, 200nm exclusive economic zone
Climate Zones
In order of decreasing latitude: Tundra, Subarctic, Humid Continental
Terrain
Most of Gandvik resides within the vast North European Plain, a landscape of gently-rolling hills and lowlands that rises to an average elevation of between 100 and 200 meters above sea level, and is cut by several large international rivers and hundreds of smaller water-courses. Forest cover thickens considerably with increasing latitude, before giving way to Tundra north of the Arctic Circle. The Scandinavian and Ural mountains, both relatively low-lying ranges if quite steep in certain locations, define Western and Eastern Gandvik respectively, while Savonia and Karelia, regions frequently associated with early Gandvian culture, contain thousands of small lakes and marshes.
Major Rivers
Atal (Volga), Tanais (Don), Nevajoki (Neva), Vienanjoki (Dvina), Aparajoki (Dnieper), Väinäjoki (Daugava)
Major Lakes
Note: Europe's nine largest natural, fresh-water lakes are located within Gandvian territory.
Ladoga, Ääninen (Onega), Venneri (Vanern), Saimaa, Peipsijärvi (Peipus), Vetteri (Vattern), Valgetjärvi (Beloye), Uikujärvi (Vygozero), Malaren, Päijänne
Elevation Extremes
Natural Resources
oil shale, peat, dolomite, limestone, amber, hydropower, timber, clay
Natural Hazards
Low-lying terrain vulnerable to occasional flooding, winters can become extremely cold in some areas, wildfires possible during particularly dry summers
Environmental Overview
Gandvik's natural environment is characterized by what is often a striking measure of beauty, with its deep, dark forests, sunny, flower-flecked grasslands, and meandering rivers. Industrial development, however, has brought about a substantial degree of degradation in recent decades, as anti-pollution codes are lax or non-existent and can usually be circumvented through bribery. Oil shale extraction on Gandvik's northern coastline is a major single source of pollutants, and efforts aimed at cleaning-up that particular industry have so far never advanced beyond their planning stages. Coastal waters are heavily polluted, while significant areas of natural habitat were flooded during the 1960s as part of a dam-building drive. In spite of this, large areas of Gandvik remain essentially undisturbed, while Lake Pikhva, Europe's fifth-largest lake and relatively untouched by industrial runoff, remains an exceedingly popular destination for Gandvian vacationers.
Military
Overview
Gandvik maintains one of the largest and most lavishly-funded militaries currently in existence, one which combines significant capabilities in conventional warfare and a powerful nuclear deterrent to yield a force of global consequence. The Armed Forces as a collective body constitute what is arguably Gandvik's preeminent state institution, and its influence over both the legitimate and informal political processes is immense. At no time in the nation’s history has effective civilian control ever been exercised over a military establishment which both is perceived and perceives itself as a fundamental pillar of Gandvian statehood, and it can be remarkably difficult to determine where exactly the respective spheres of authority, civil as opposed to military, stop. Affairs pertaining to geopolitical strategy and national security are, at least on paper, managed by an aptly-named National Security Council, a subset of the Council of State, whose membership, while it includes nominally civilian office-holders such as the State Chancellor and Foreign Minister, is otherwise composed of uniformed personnel, namely the Interior Minister and Security Police Director, both of whom are Generals of police, inspectors-general of the combined services and civil defense, individual service chiefs-of-staff, Home Guard commander, and commander of the Military Intelligence Service or STO. This arrangement, a result of particular historical developments in national politics, means that the Armed Forces are effectively self-governing and self-regulated, while their politicization has encouraged senior officers to cultivate substantial patronage networks within and outside the armed forces structure. In spite of its status as a virtual state within the Gandvian state, however, the military has seldom managed to exercise unchallenged or even necessarily coherent control over government administration, and such senior officers as have served in the past and present as heads of state, have only done so with the support and cooperation of civilian notables on a large scale. As with almost all large bureaucracies, after all, the Gandvian military is riven by innumerable internal conflicts and antagonisms both large and small, and can seldom be relied-upon to present a united front on any substantive issue pertinent to either domestic or international politics.
As, in the main, a terrestrial rather than a maritime power, Gandvik has always tended to prioritize its land army at the expense of its navy and, to a lesser extent, its air force, and as a rule the most senior posts in the joint armed forces structure are occupied by Army officers.
Manpower Fit for Service: male citizens ages 15-49:
Manpower Serving: 805,561 959,513 active; 1,621,703 reservists; 5,405,712 territorials
Expressed as a Percentage of Total Population: Active Forces: 0.71%, Reserve: 1.2%, Territorial Force: 5%
Dispersion of Personnel by Branch: Army: 525,183 (930,255 reservists)
Air Force: 181,057 (347,144 reservists)
Navy: 53,208 (157,054 reservists)
Internal Security Forces (incl. Civil Guard, Border Guard): 200,065 (187,250 reservists)
Military Expenditures: 5.7% of GDP; 182.4 billion (pound-equivalent)
Note: Personnel belonging to the Gendarmerie and Border Guard operate under the Interior Minister's authority in peacetime, and are partially funded through Interior Ministry allocations.
