Visit Patria’s capital city – where Delta and Omicron are streets!

 COVID-19 travel restrictions got you down? Do you want to visit someplace where you don’t have to wear masks indoors, don’t have to be tested or quarantined on arrival, and don’t have to produce a vaccine passport along with your regular passport? Someplace where bars, restaurants and other indoor gathering places are not subject to capacity limits and other restrictions? Consider a visit to Patria! The following visitor’s guide to Castoropolis is based on one of Patria’s old long-defunct Geocities web pages dating from the Clinton administration.

 Patria's capital city and its largest city, Castoropolis -- known in Sanskrit as Kashipura -- contains features of other capital cities planned and built from scratch in the modern era, such as Washington, Brasilia, Canberra, and New Delhi - particularly in its radial street layout in which the Capitol is the central hub, wide boulevards and diagonal connecting streets, and central green space or "Common". It is centered on the Island of Castoropolis, a nearly round island in the St. Joseph River - which has since been officially renamed Naya Ganga or New Ganges.  In the years following the Dharmic Revolution of 1989-90 many Anglo-sounding names of places and streets in Patria have been Sanskritized. But just as in India, where English street names in New Delhi and Bombay have been replaced by Hindi or Sanskrit names and even the name of Bombay has been changed to Mumbai, the new names have generally failed to catch on despite the best efforts of the government. In the text that follows, all official Sanskrit re-namings are indicated in [square brackets].

 Orientation:

Castoropolis was established as Patria's permanent capital city by act of the First Congressus Patriaë in 1818, only a few months after Independence, while Congress met in the temporary capital of Hammond, Caesarea. In the 1820s the new city was planned and built with obvious inspiration from the plan of Washington, DC designed by Pierre L'Enfant.  The Federal District of Castoropolis, whose boundaries are co-extensive with the city itself, is entirely surrounded by several cities, towns, and suburban sprawl in the Precinct of Caesarea.  The original area of the Federal District of Castoropolis consisted only of the Island of Castoropolis.  By the turn of the 20th century the city's built-up areas had expanded beyond the limits of the island and so in 1917 an act of the 25th Congress incorporated into the Federal District several towns and villages in the Precinct of Caesarea on the east side of the Naya Ganga. One town, Crozier Heights, fought the annexation and remains part of Caesarea. Crozier Heights is an upper-class enclave, like Toronto's Forest Hill or Montreal's Westmount, home to much of Patria's Jewish community.

The Capitol building, which houses the Congressus Patriaë, is the central focus of Castoropolis. Located only a few metres east of the geographic centre of the Island of Castoropolis, its dome and rotunda are very similar in appearance to the United States Capitol.  Extending west from the Capitol is Castoropolis Common [Bhavani Bagh], a large central park. In fact, Castoropolis Common is not unlike New York City's Central Park, offering a large open field for concerts, numerous recreational facilities, wooded areas, and secluded spots for doing yoga. In the 1970s and 80s the Common served as a hangout for drug dealers, muggers, rapists, homeless bums and other assorted sleaze, and travelers were advised to visit during daylight hours only, but it has since been cleaned up, thanks in part to the Federal District government that was led by the law-and-order National Union in the 1990s and early 2000s. A gridiron pattern of residential streets is superimposed on the radial/diagonal plan.  Streets running east and west are numbered (beginning with First Street, one block north and south of the Capitol and the baseline streets: Crozier St. East [Shankaracharya Marg] and Justice St [Dasharath Marg]), while streets running north and south - with the exception of four major arteries - have Greek letters (beginning with Alpha Street one block east and west of the Capitol and the baseline street: Schaefer St [Shakti Marg]), continuing until Omega Street. The island is divided into four quadrants, relative to the Capitol: North West, North East, South West and South East, similar to Washington, DC. Thus there may be as many as four intersections of , for example, Sixth and Gamma Streets:  NW, NE, SW,  and SE.

Downtown area

The map above details the central business district at the western end of the Common. St. Joseph [Radha-Krishna] Station handles mainly local commuter trains; most inter-city rail traffic runs out of Union [Mahasabha] Station, a neo-Gothic rockpile (à la Bombay's Victoria Terminus) located at 4th and Vermont [Vaikuntha Marg] NW.  Hector [Hanuman] St. was once the capital's truly slimy side, in the last century teemng with hookers, pimps and drug dealers.  The Hector Hotel, at Hector and 4th St. SW, used to be a notorious whore-house before it was renovated and became a guest house for visiting swamis, swaminis, sadhus and sadhvis (Hindu holy men and women). If you find a couple of churches but don't see any Hindu temples marked on this map, there's a reason for it: this map dates from 1976, long before the Dharmic Revolution.

Central/midtown area

The map above details the eastern end of the Common and the many government buildings surrounding the Capitol at the centre of the Island of Castoropolis.  Many of the government buildings, such as the Treasury Dept., Post Office Department and Library of Congress, are massive monuments of Art Deco kitsch, built in the 1930s as make-work projects during the  Depression. Both the U.S. and Russian Embassies are conveniently located a few blocks east of the Capitol. The Canadian Embassy is at 200 Theta St. NW.  Crozier St. East [Poorva Shankaracharya Marg], a wide boulevard extending east from the Capitol to the former Executive Mansion (now Shanti Mandir, a Hindu temple) on the eastern end of the Island, is the main ceremonial parade route for Inaugural parades, Rathyatra (the annual Parade of Chariots) and other Hindu ceremonial processions.

Public Transit

Castoropolis Metro (Subway) 
The capital's first subway line was opened in 1918 as a special project to mark Patria's centennial year. The system has grown over the past 100-plus years to four lines and over 150 stations.

Castoropolis and Caesarea Railways
Castoropolis and Caesarea Railways (CCR) provide suburban commuter rail service throughout the greater Castoropolis region, between downtown Castoropolis and Hammond (the capital of Caesarea) and even into the neighboring Precinct of Antioch, using EMU and DMU trainsets, as well as bi-level electric locomotive-hauled trains.

Castoropolis Transit (CT) buses serve all areas of the Federal District and the surrounding cities in Caesarea. Most CT bus routes provide direct connections with the subway. Above, a Canadian-built General Motors "New Look" bus, #5708, lays over at the end of Route 1, Adelphi-Philidor in 2002. The New Looks (also known as "Fishbowls") have since been retired.

Local print and broadcast media (Don’t forget to bring your radio!)

 AM Radio stations: On Nov. 23, 1978 AM radio stations in Patria, as in many other countries of the world (except in the Americas) shifted from 10 kHz to 9 kHz spacing. The old 10 kHz frequency is indicated in square brackets.

PCRC, 531 kHz (ethnic, variety) [530]
PCGE, 595 kHz (Hindu) [590]
POKX, 648 kHz (right-wing talk) [650] (formerly Patria's major top 40 rocker)
PHTN, 792 kHz (Ramrajyavani-II) [790]
PMC, 846 kHz (news, talk, information) [850]
PRCC, 918 kHz (Ramrajyavani-I) [920]
PTE, 1017 kHz (Hindu) [1020]
PTCN, 1071 kHz (Ramrajyavani-III) [1070]
PMBC, 1152 kHz (all sports) [1150]
PHN, 1251 kHz (liberal-left talk) [1250]
PVOG, 1350 kHz (Christian, brokered ethnic) [1350]
PKBY, 1404 kHz (Nostalgia/MoYL) [1400]
PECR, 1512 kHz (business news) [1520]
PGBS, 1557 kHz (ethnic) [1560]

FM Radio stations:
PHUP, 88.1 MHz (educational/public, Hindu University of Patria)
PNIT, 88.9 MHz (educational/public, Patrienish National Institute of Technology)
PUC, 89.7 MHz (educational/public, University of Castoropolis)
PCCC, 90.5 MHz (educational/public, City College of Castoropolis)
PGBS-FM, 91.3 MHz (adult contemporary)
PMC-FM, 92.5 MHz (classical, jazz)
PREM, 94.9 MHz (new age)
POKQ, 96.1 MHz (hot hits)
PRCC-FM, 99.1 MHz (Ramrajyavani-IV)
PPIX, 103.7 MHz (rap, dance, hip hop)
PMBC-FM, 104.9 MHz (C&W)
PCGE-FM, 106.7 MHz (classic rock)
PRKO, 107.9 MHz (oldies)

Ramrajyavani-I : popular music, news, information, documentaries, English/Patrienish; Ramrajyavani-II: Hindu devotional music, Sanskrit; Ramrajyavani-III: all-news; Ramrajyavani-IV: classical music, drama, poetry, arts.

Television stations (analog, over-the-air):

PRCT, channel 2 (Doordarshan-I); PMC-TV, channel 5; PGBS-TV, channel 12; PLIS, channel 15; PCET, channel 46 (public broadacsting); PQAL, channel 57 (Doordarshan-II).

Doordarshan I: news, sports, entertainment.  Doordarshan-II: Hindu devotional channel.  U.S. cable channels such as CNN and MTV are widely available in Patria.

Daily newspapers: The Akashic Record, (pro-Hindu), Castoropolis Chronicles (left-wing paper of record, cf. New York Times or Washington Post), The Spectrum (right-wing tabloid, cf. Toronto Sun or New York Post), Ramrajya Dharmika Patrika (Sanskrit), Novítæ Dínaë (Patrienish).