Although it would be easy to think of Asmara, the Eritrean capital, solely as an Italian built colonial city, its origins actually reach back some 700 years. The Tigringa and Tigre people live around there. Originally, it is said, there were four clans living in the Asmara area on the Kebessa Plateau: the Gheza Gurtom, the Gheza Shelele, the Gheza Serenser and Gheza Asmae. These towns fought each other until the women of each clan decided that to preserve peace the four clans must unite. The men accepted, hence the name Arbate Asmera. Arbaete Asmara literally means, in the Tigrinya language, "the four made them united." Eventually Arbaete was dropped and it has been called Asmara which means "they[feminine, thus referring to the women] made them united", though there is still a zone called Arbaete Asmara. It is now called the Italianized version of the word Asmara. The westernized version of the name is used by a majority of non-Eritreans, while the multilingual inhabitants of Eritrea and neighboring peoples remain loyal to the original pronunciation, Asmera. Another legend tells that in this region the Queen of Sheba gave birth to the son of Solomon, Menelik I. The missionary Remedius Prutky passed through Asmara in 1751, and described in his memoirs that a church built there by Jesuit priests 130 years before was still intact.[2] Asmara, which was part of the semi independent kingdom of Medri Bahri, would briefly come under the occupation of the British backed and supported Egyptians. Later Emperor Yohannes IV gave his trusted Ras Alula the title of governor of Medri Bahri. Alula moved the capital of the province to Asmara, which then had about 150 inhabitants. Within four years, the town's population numbered more than three thousand, and its commercial importance, with increased trade with Massawa, grew considerably. Asmara acquired importance as a result of Alula's choice for the capital of his province, and when it was occupied by Italy in 1889 and was made the capital city of Eritrea in preference to Massawa by Governor Martini in 1897. In the early 20th century, a railway line was built to the coast, passing through the town of Ghinda, under the direction of Carlo Cavanna. In both 1913 and 1915 the city suffered only slight damage in large earthquakes.[3] In the late 1930s the Italians changed the face of the town, with a new structure and new buildings: Asmara was called Piccola Roma (Little Rome).[4] Cinema Impero, built in 1937 "Italian Art Deco" While Eritrea was under Italiian colonial rule, architecturally conservative early-20th-century Europeans used Asmara "to experiment with radical new designs."[5] Nowadays the major part of buildings are of Italian origin, and shops still have Italian names (e.g., Bar Vittoria, Pasticceria moderna, Casa del formaggio, and Ferramenta). Asmara was populated by a numerous Italian community and consequently the city acquired an Italian architectural look. The city of Asmara had a population of 98,000, of which 53,000 were Italian according to the Italian census of 1939. This fact made Asmara the main "Italian town" of the Italian empire in Africa. In all Eritrea the Italians were 75,000 in that year.[6] Many industrial investments were made by Italy in Asmara, but the beginning of World War II stopped the blossoming industrialization of the area. Italy was defeated in 1941, and the British administered the city from 1941 to 1952. In 1952, the United Nations resolved to federate the former colony under Ethiopian rule. In 1961, emperor Haile Selassie I ended the "federal" arrangement and declared the territory to be the 14th province of the Ethiopian Empire.[7] The city was home to the US Army's Kagnew Station installation from 1943 until 1977. In Asmara, the main language is Tigrinya. English, Arabic and Italian are also widely spoken and understood.

Comments

1. thx
2. Divinely.....Beautiful