Volkoregrod

Volkoregrod is a Ryzani city located in Eastern Ryzan in the Volzengrod Freehold on the border of Andorn to the west. It is the former capital of the Empire of Ryzan and Tsardom of Westreach and has been historically a city that always had been the centerpiece Syltor.

Foundation
Volkore was founded in late November 2020 by Bronvic Sigrun (Theburger3) Thinker Sigrun (Thinker) and Athos I Sigrun (Athos). Although the city was founded on the orders of CanadianToss with the purpose of colonizing the northern territories, Athos still had dreams of a great Volkorean Empire no longer bound to Ryzan. Soon after Volkore's establishment, the Golem known as Russischebanana joined, who helped sculpt many of the cities natural wonders - the grove, the mountains, Shiny Cave, and the crystal mines - that still stand to this day. Within days of Volkore's founding, tensions rose significantly with Erebor, whose people were soon removed from their land in Ryzan's first ethnic cleansing event.

Volkore Crisis and the Wessreich
During this period Volkore created close ties to Bardonia as the city was trying to distance itself from the (at the time) weak Confederacy of Ryzan. The city took up arms alongside the Trillium Alliance in the Coalition War while also supplying them with much-needed recourses. With future plans of annexing Volkore into Bardonia, the Bardonians made Volkore into Ryzan's defacto leader. However, the city's luck didn't last forever, and the worst happened - Thinker and Burger disappeared. The next in line for the Volkorean throne was his son Athos I Sigrun. Athos was hot headed and very hostile towards the Confederation of Ryzan, quickly declaring war on neighboring Nebskoslavia. Volkore's justification for the war was the fact that Nebskoslavia had settled land that Volkore had purchased recently and refused to move out. This frustrated Athos immensely, who had decide to settle the feud with a duel. After the duel Athos emerged victorious, who exiled the Nebsk people in what came to be known as Ryzan's second ethnic cleansing event. Athos then announced the Volkore-Wessreich. At long last the empire was independent, but region events gave the new country a very short fuse. The Wessreich quickly claimed massive swaths of Ryzani, Balreskan, Remtalese and Bjorynskullan lands expecting Bardonian support - which never came. Without the Bardonians' backing, Ryzan swiftly thwarted all of Athos's attempts at taking over the nation. With no players left and Athos in voluntary exile, the city was declared "dead", left empty and in a state of major disrepair.

Revival
After Athos' exile, Athos I died and Anastasia Athos II Sigrun; daughter of Athos I came to Volkore. CanadianToss and Anastasia teamed up and together they returned to Ryzan, declaring the Second Tsardom of Ryzan, allowing the city to be reclaimed by Anastasia and reintegrated into the new government. Anastasia had spent a good amount of time alone in her city during the start of Tsardom as it hadn't given much traffic to the nation, partially due to the fact that neither Canadian or Athos were popular at the time. Only after the collapse of Canadian's reign and the establishment of the Republic did Volkore see a massive population burst to quickly become the most active city in the entire nation. Now with around 20 active members building the city, the city grew in importance. It was renamed to Volkoregrod, with new houses constantly popping up, military storage facilities and a small brewing industry were established. The palace of Volkoregrod was completed and the Ryzani government considered making Volkoregrod the new capital of the Republic until crisis emerged within the city.

Crisis in Volkoregrod
With Ryzan and Bardonia always having been at odds with eachother, tensions where already high despite a non aggression pact between the two countries preventing war. However starting in mid May 2021, Volkoregrod was subject to many raids by the mercenary group known as The Hands due to pre-existing grudges between Athos and members of The Hands. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear and materials where lost during the raids. This angered the Ryzani government and especially the people living in Volkoregrod due to many high ranking Bardonian officials being members of The Hands and some Bardonians even taking part in the raids on the city. Although Bardonia was openly breaking the NAP, Ryzan was powerless to stand up to the might of the Bardonian Empire. During this period, several citizens who where very important to the development of the city left for Eldham to start a small trading company known as Barbossa which dealt another heavy blow to the already suffering city. However the worst was yet to come as Chancellor Unic0rnb0i returned to Bardonia and declared war on Ryzan as soon as the NAP expired. After Ryzan was defeated during the West March War, Athos threatened to demolish the city due to his sheer hatred of Bardonia and refusal to let Bardonia have control of the city. The then Ryzani General and active citizen of Volkoregrod Kino (K1N0), was heavily against the idea and decided to collaborate with the new Bardonian government in order to cease control of the city from Athos to save it and use the Bardonian resources and population to build the city more. On June 30th 2021, Kino with the help of Jacob Owl, The Mobius, and Chancellor Unic0rnb0i, finally took land ownership of Volkoregrod thus marking a new era for the city under the Tsardom of Westreach and under Kino Azurov.

The Golden Era of Volkoregrod
Ryzan now having been officially fully annexed by the Third Empire of Bardonia, renamed to the Tsardom of Westreach, and put under the rule of Jacob Azurov and Kino Azurov suffered lots of division among the citizens with some deciding to stay and work with Bardonia and many deciding to leave and plan a rebellion against the Bardonian occupation. Volkoregrod lost a few big contributing citizens to the city but retained most citizens due to Kino becoming the new Duke of Volkore and promising to keep Ryzani ideals and culture present within the city while rapidly expanding and populating the city. Kino now having been recognized as a member of House Azurov began to quickly expand his wealth and resource count in order to fund new projects and builds in the city, and also to match the extreme wealth of his father Jacob Owl and brother 1Icey. Due to Bardonia now standing out as the largest country on the Rathnir map and combined with the release of Stoney's video about the Great Golden War, Bardonia saw a massive boost in new citizens. Jacob and Kino recognized the potential to skyrocket the population of Westreach and specifically Volkoregrod due to it being underpopulated relative to its size and beauty, as well as the city being put as the capital of Westreach. Kino launched a massive advertisement campaign to all Bardonian citizens new and old to move to Volkoregrod "The Jewel of the North". In just a few weeks, Volkoregrod went from just 20 members to 62 therefore making it the largest city by population and landmass in the North of Rathnir. The ruling Azurov's used their wealth to fund many builders and entrepreneurs to expand the city financially and physically. The Medici family which was a fairly wealthy family of business people, moved to Volkoregrod and aided in the construction of the Volkoregrod Arena, the terraforming of the North side, and also helped bring in even more new citizens to the city. Many Bardonian nobles and officials also moved to the city making Volkoregrod the unofficial capital of Bardonia with it being the most populated, active, richest, and largest city in the entire Empire. At this rate nothing would stop Volkoregrod from achieving the title of Capital of the World due to the rate at which it was expanding and prospering. However on July 26th, Volkoregrod faced the largest crisis it would ever see.

The Decline of Volkoregrod
On July 26th, effectively every single world power in Rathnir declared war on Bardonia marking the start of the Allium-Coalition War. After the Battle of New Dorasterrock, Volkoregrod became the last safe haven for Bardonians after New Dorasterrock was left in disarray and occupied by the coalition. After the defeat of Bardonia, the Bardonian population plummeted which meant that almost all of Volkoregrod's primary citizens left. Kino and Jacob Azurov joined the newly independent Ryzani government in order to try and get Ryzan going again after the wars. However the attempted union between Ryzan and post-war Bardonia known as the Brothian Union/Great Northern Confederacy, the entire Syltor population was still in ruin.

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