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G U E L D E R S
GELRE
GELDERLAND
Gelre is not a province.
It's an amalgamation of three very distinct mini-countries and a metropolitan area of half a million people in the center of it.
We present to you:
De Veluwe
"The Old Pale"
On Map: Dark Green
The Veluwe is roughly divided up in three parts. To the east there are forests, no one lives there except sheep herders and other sex addicts. To the west there's the Gelderse Vallei (Gueldric Valley) which is known for having megachurches and other protestant bullshit, but generally you can still have an intelligible conversation with people here. This all goes away up north, where 'Grefoland' begins and people think gays are criminals, abortion should be punishable by death and if you even go so far as to make a sound on Sunday they will call for the full eradication of your bloodline as Sunday is the day of the Lord. There is no Lord though. The Veluwe used to be one of the old quarters of Guelders with Arnhem as its capital, but nowadays the capital really is just Apeldoorn in practice, although culturally the most significant city is Ede as it is sort of the educational center of the religious community in the Netherlands. Just south of it is Wageningen (dubbed Dwazedingen (means 'Follies' )) which has an agricultural Uni and is left wing as shit. You literally have two cities about 3 km apart where one of them is a bastion of religious conservatism and the other is all about green shit and animal welfare. Welcome to the Netherlands.
De Graafschap
"The Shire"
On Map: Light Green
It's not like fucking hobbits live here, but the name is apt still. De Graafschap or De Achterhoek ('Back Corner') is known for just being rural as shit. And it is. There's literally nothing interesting to say here. It's just fields with farms and some villages and people speaking a language I can just about understand if I really focus. The only parts that are interesting to me are the towns along the rivers, especially those along the IJssel as they used to be Hanseatic and fairly rich. People in De Graafschap are generally known for being extremely no-nonsense and pragmatic, if a bit conservative and old-fashioned. Old capital was always Zutphen, but the de facto capital nowadays is Doetinchem.
De Betuwe
"Batavia"
On Map: Blue
When people think of the quintessential Dutch landscape they either think rectangular fields with tulips and shit or they think rivers and dykes. The latter is what the Betuwe specializes in. As the Rhine enters the Neds it splits into Lek, Waal and IJssel. The first two run through the Betuwe along with a minor branch called the Linge. Then there's also the Meuse running through it. It's basically just all rivers here. The land that still exists is known for being basically just one gigantic orchard. This makes perfect sense as with all the rivers and shit running here the land is so fertile you get pregnant from just walking around. Culturally there is no real common denominator here as the Dutch Bible Belt runs through it, but other parts are Catholic strongholds and it's basically just a mess. Old capital was Nijmegen, nowadays the most significant town is Tiel, but Tiel is too much of a shithole for me to call it a capital. Honestly, they don't need one, their lives are decided by the flow of the rivers anyway.
Arnhem-Nijmegen Metro
On Map: Red
Two cities sitting on hills 20 km apart looking at each other with three major rivers between them at the place where the Rhine and Meuse meet, this is the most strategic location in all of Western Europe. These lands have seen plenty of war and destruction, but also fantastic wealth. Roman ruins lie underneath the fertile soils, but also the ruins of old Germanic temples. This was the border of the Roman Empire, with Nijmegen being Roman and Arnhem Germanic. This is still the border of the Catholic lands, with Nijmegen being Catholic and Arnhem being wtf religion is bad for sperm count go talk to a spoon.
Nijmegen
Nijmegen is famous for being the most left wing city in the Netherlands, used to be dubbed 'Havana-Upon-Waal' and is generally known for being the staging ground of many left wing political ideas. Fuck Nijmegen though. Fucking posers. Throughout history Nijmegen has always seen itself as special. It is a University city which hosted the only Catholic Uni in the country. It is the oldest city in the Netherlands, being the westernmost major stronghold the Romans had on the Limes. It is the city that had a craft beer brewery in the city center before even the Americans thought of being cool like that. It is the city my mother was born in. It is the city my grandmother was in when the allies bombed it as she watched children burn to death in the streets perhaps feeling sad, perhaps feeling lucky, but probably feeling absolutely nothing at all. Honestly the only thing special about Nijmegen is that one spot at Uni campus where back in the late 00s for some reason cell phone coverage didn't work because of interference patterns. Nijmegen isn't special. It's just a city with ups and downs. People from Arnhem are taught to hate Nijmegen. I'm from Arnhem. I don't hate it. It's no Amsterdam.
Arnhem
Arnhem is known for being just plain weird. It is the actual most left wing city of the Netherlands, but it never had the reputation as it is surrounded by right wing suburban towns. These extremes are everywhere. It's a city of entrepreneurs with illusions of grandeur, a city of actors and artists who live in the fantastical rather than the real, a city of laborers who live in either the ruins of marxist dreamscapes or neoliberal wonderlands. Arnhem is a broken city. It will never be as beautiful as others, it will never win and when we do it's called a fluke and played down. It is a city planner doing a study on Belgian defeatism and actually building it using Dutch regulations. This meticulous failure has to rule over a province that is not a province. Even the farmers can't agree on anything, with fruit to the south, chickens to the west and cows to the east. No one in Guelders even likes Arnhem. We hate it, we love it, it gives us warmth but leaves us cold nonetheless. This is West-Berlin, this is Freetown Christiania, this is DUMBO before DUMBO was DUMBO. It is all the anomalies in one place trying to not be an anomaly. This is where I live. In Little Ankara, near the edge of the city, looking out on a windmill, a McDonalds and the houses of some gypsies while one neighbour is trying to strip a washing machine of copper, mediterranean looking kids play football while talking Dutch and a magpie fights a pigeon for control over the the little meadow where no one walks their dog because there are larger meadows if you go in the opposite direction. None of this makes sense. None of this fits normalcy. Arnhem is the fake made real. Yet, if I were 30 meters tall I could see the ancestral lands of my mothers family and those of my fathers family. I have always lived here, for centuries at least. This is where I belong.
I stood on the bridge, watched the sun set and pissed into the river. This city is mine. This province is mine.
I am Uto.
I represent Gelre.
| Edition | Player | Artist | Song | Semi | Final |
| 158 | Uto | ... | ... | ... | ... |
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