Timisoara, City of flowers

Timișoara has been recorded since 1173, but it has no medieval monuments. The town has been planned twice. In 1716, when the Austrians entered the country and liberated the town from under the Turkish tenure of 164 years old, they demolished the whole town, they brought engineers who projected and built a new town, the present old town. At the beginning of the 20th century the engineers restarted the work and made the plan of the modern Timișoara, which was respected in the first decades of Socialism as well.

The fortress survived 9 assaults, it has never been conquered in battles because it has been built on the marshland, and the two flows, Bega and Timiș, which at the present has its course at a distance of 10km, formed a real system of defense. The name of the town in Hungarian reflects this state, Temesvar, that is the fortress situated on Temes; that is Timiș. The only persons who could approach the fortress were those who knew all the passes. The marshland also provoked a lot of trouble to the town`s concillors. The majority of the constructions from the 18-19th centuries were built on wooden pillars, which were quite resistant until the phreatic bed was up but the problems appeared with the development of the town. The phreatic level dropped and the pillars started to putrefy. The draining of the marsh was initiated by the Austrians in the 18th century, the same time when the Bega channel, navigable a long time, was dug. The Timiș and the Bega were connected through canals and weirs, thus the water surplus could be bailed out, and in draught period it could be pumped in or from the Timiș. Thus, Bega was, for a long time, until the Tito era, navigable, when the dams were closed and lattices mounted on the rivers.

In the 18th century industrialization emerged in the most beautiful and cleanest town of Europe as well. The first factory, that is the beer factory was followed by that of the silk and cigarette, but let`s take a look at the things the town is proud of, in chronological order:

1718 - the certification of the oldest beer factory from Romania

1718 - the inauguration of the first elementary school from the fortress, the first in Romania

1728 - the beginning of the Bega's sewerage, the first navigable channel from Romania

1745 - the first communal hospital from Romania (24 years before Vienna and 34 before Budapest)

- the first town of the monarchy with the streets lighted up by lamps

1819 - for the first time in Central Europe the anti-smallpox vaccination is administered

1823 - In Timișoara, Bolyai Janos announces the discovery of the first uneuclidian geometry in the World

1847 - in the beer factory's yard takes place the first concert of Johann Strauss Jr. outside Vienna

1855 - the first town of the Habsburg monarchy with the streets lighted up with gas

1884 - the first town on the European continent with the streets lighted up electrically, with 731 Lamps

1886 - the first ambulance station from Hungary and Romania

1895 - the first blacktopped street in Romania