Sindi, Estonia

Sindi (German: Zintenhof) is a town in Pärnu County, Estonia, with a population of 4,076 in 2013. It is located 14 kilometers from the county capital Pärnu, on the left coast of the Pärnu River.

History

In the area of Sindi was the Mesolithic settlement of Pulli, dating from around 8500 BC - the oldest known settlement in Estonia. It was discovered by geologists in 1965. The settlement probably existed for a short period, as the area was later covered by water. As a swampy region, the area remained unpopulated until the 16th century.

The town's name is derived from Clauss Zindt, a mayor of Pärnu in 1565, who founded a manor (Zintenhof) where the town is now. The settlement was formed in 1833 around a textile factory owned by the manor. It officially became a borough in 1921 and a town in 1938.

Important to the town's development was the founding of a railway station 1928. The railway operated until 1970.

Geography

Sindi is located on the left bank of Pärnu River, between the river and the wetland of Lanksaare.

Estonia

Estonia (ⁱ/ɛˈstoʊniə/;Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsti]), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km² (17,505 sq mi) of land, and is influenced by a humid continental climate.

Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties, with its capital and largest city being Tallinn. With a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the OECD and the Schengen Area. Ethnic Estonians are Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is a Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish and the Sami languages, and distantly to Hungarian.

MS Estonia

MS Estonia, previously Viking Sally (1980–1990), Silja Star (−1991), and Wasa King (−1993), was a cruise ferry built in 1979/80 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg. The ship sank in 1994 in the Baltic Sea in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. It is the deadliest European shipwreck disaster to have occurred in peacetime, costing 852 lives.

Coordinates: 59°23′0″N 21°40′0″E / 59.38333°N 21.66667°E / 59.38333; 21.66667

Construction

The ship was originally ordered from Meyer Werft by a Norwegian shipping company led by Parley Augustsen with intended traffic between Norway and Germany. At the last moment, the company withdrew their order and the contract went to Rederi Ab Sally, one of the partners in the Viking Line consortium (SF Line, another partner in Viking Line, had also been interested in the ship).

Originally the ship was conceived as a sister ship to Diana II, built in 1979 by the same shipyard for Rederi AB Slite, the third partner in Viking Line. However, when Sally took over the construction contract, the ship was lengthened from the original length of approximately 137 metres (449 ft) to approximately 155 metres (509 ft) and the superstructure of the ship was largely redesigned.

This Strange Engine

This Strange Engine is the ninth studio album by British rock band Marillion, released in 1997.

Release

It is the first of three albums in three consecutive years that Marillion released on a contract with Castle Communications, after being dropped by EMI Records following the relative lack of commercial success of Afraid of Sunlight in 1995; peaking at No. 16, Afraid of Sunlight had been the band's first studio album not to reach the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. Without the promotional efforts of a major label, This Strange Engine continued Marillion's decline in mainstream success; it reached No. 27 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for two weeks. The album sold significantly better in the Netherlands, home of one of the band's most loyal audiences, reaching #10.

Music

Most of the tracks are soft rock styled but relatively lengthy compositions.

The first single released from the album was "Man of a Thousand Faces". A music video was also released of this track. The second single from the album was "Eighty Days". Neither single received any mainstream radio airplay. For the first time, no singles from a Marillion album entered the UK Singles Chart.