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=Double Monarchy of Urk and Volendam=

The Double Monarchy of Urk and Volendam, often shortened to Urk and Volendam, was a short-lived monarchy that was centered around the Dutch villages of Urk and Volendam that existed from its establishment in 1955 until its collapse in early 1960. It was renowned for the high export of fish, especially cod and herring, and incestuous diseases, and it involvement in the Cold War, siding with the Warsaw Pact. Urk and Volendam was a monarchy in name only, in reality the country was led by a fish council, under command of Admiral-Generel-High-Chairman Jan Smit. Its collapse in May 1960 followed a drastic increase in incest, likely caused by a attack using nerve gas by the AIVD as a response to an increase in the price of cod.

Etymology
The Double Monarchy was named after the two towns it comprised. Urk was first mentioned as Urch in 966, the meaning of its name remains unclear, but it is possibly related to Old High German uruh, which is a onomatopoeic word meaning incest or bestiality. The second town, Volendam, was first mentioned as Voelendam in 1331. It is likely comprised of veulen, meaning foal, and the common toponymic element -dam.

Establishment
The establishment of Urk and Volendam followed shortly after the establishment of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Altough the detailed files were destroyed shortly after the Double Monarchy's collapse in 1960, it is widely theorised that the Soviet Union sent a large number of infiltrants and demagogues to put the Urker and Volendammer population up against the anti-incest policies of government of the Netherlands. Shortly afterwards, on the fifth of September 1955, the general population declared Jan Smit as the supreme leader, to lead the fundamentalist Christian communist fish council republic. Urk and Volendam was quickly accepted into the Warsaw Pact, in order to deter the Dutch government from taking further action. In later statements, the Dutch government explained that they never had plans to retake Urk and Volendam in the first place; then Prime Minister of the Netherlands Willem Drees said the following during a press conference: "We have no goals to retake [...] those inbred and utterly useless people into our country."

Failed invasion of Emmeloord
Operating from the communist thought, the Urker government deemed it necessary to invade the Dutch town of Emmeloord to spread the socialist thought. Immediately after the establishment of the state, plans were made and an army was gathered for an invasion of Emmeloord. After a few months, the government gathered about 3.000 men and women, armed with various weapons, including axes, braindead throwing babies and a few firearms. A few fishing boats were armed with sprouts cannons, but the plans for their involvement was quickly scrapped after the Urker military realized that Emmeloord was not close enough to any navigable water.

In the early morning of the 6th of December the first troops entered the Noordoostpolder from Urk. Initially, they faced little resistance, limited to farmers armed with pitchforks and tractors. Within a few hours, they reached the outskirts of Emmeloord. The Dutch army was quickly alerted and had already taken up positions in and around Emmeloord. The troops from Urk proved unable to overcome the Dutch military, and after a few skirmishes, retreated back to Urk. Around 60 Urker forces and 0 functioning brains were lost during the short campaign, whereas the Dutch forces only lost one soldier. No civilians were killed, altough some were believed to have been infected with incestuous diseases when they first came into contact with the native inhabitants of Urk. They were quickly treated in the hospital of Lelystad.

The Dutch government responded by increasing the border forces around Urk and Volendam, but did not bother taking Urk. Urk and Volendam did however have to pay back using fresh herring for the following two years.

"Urker Dark Ages"
The invasion was followed by two years of economic decline, striking mostly Urk, whereas the effects on Volendam were mostly limited. These years were later called the Urker Dark Ages by several scholars. The economic decline was caused mostly by the reparations of war. Since all the herring from Urk was shipped to the Netherlands, the government was unable to export large amounts of fish, the main means of production on Urk, which caused an enormous economic decline. During these years, the Urker population was impoverished and criminality and corruption were rampant. The Monarch Gradus Visser, the de-jure head of Urk, was deposed when failing to reorganize the crumbling economy, and replaced by Francis Muuren, the cousin-uncle of Commander of the Fishing Fleet Herman Muuren and close friend of Jan Smit.

The replacement of the Monarch proved ineffective, and the economy was unable to improve any further. This was caused mostly because the Monarch of Urk didn't hold any power, except as a permanent member of the Fish Council, where he acted mostly as a puppet of the Admiral-General-High-Chairman. Even though he wasn't able to restore the economy, Francis Muuren was able to calm the Urker population, because he was previously a locally famed champion for the cause of the fishermen, which formed the majority of the Urker population. Calming the Urker population would later prove crucial to ending the economic despair, as the population was quick to their social positions after the war reparations were payed off.

Golden age of Urk and Volendam (1958-1960)
After the reparations were paid off by December 1957, the Urker economy was able to recover when the new fishing season started next spring. Even though the country had major problems only a few months before, the wealth on Volendam was able to increase and exceed the wealth of neighbouring Edam in April 1958, with Urk following soon after. This marked the beginning of the Golden age of Urk and Volendam, which lasted for a little over two years.

Trade
On the 12th of June 1958, Urk and Volendam and the Netherlands signed a mutual trading agreement, with the Netherlands allowing Urker and Volendammer ships to sail through any of the various sluices in the Afsluitdijk and the Houtribdijk. Furthermore, both countries agreed to reopening the roads between the Double Monarchy and the Netherlands and allowing for a free export of fish and inbreds to the Netherlands, many of whom settled in Tollebeek. This allowed Urk and Volendam to experience vast economic growth and started new imports of cheese and various grains.

Throughout the years, Volendam was usually more wealthy than Urk, mainly because they were less effected by the herring-based war reparations, and therefore still able to export to Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Slavery and controversy
The economic growth of Urk and Volendam is usually associated with a high amount of slavery. Slaves were either made from people who didn't follow the town's main religion, or they were imported from Drenthe. Slaves lived under terrible conditions, being herring-boarded every week on average and having to do dangerous and hard labour. These included working on fishing boats, carrying heavy goods by hand and having to raise inbred children. Modern estimates estimate that around 5,000 slaves died, either of disease, hard labour or being executed for refusing labour.

When slaves were sentenced to death in a sham trial, about 20% of them would be tied to an anchor or a boulder and thrown into the North Sea. The weight would then drag them down until they drowned. This method was used in the early years, but later its popularity dropped due to the lack of boulders and the cost of anchors. The other 80% were instead exposed to Urker women with their eyes forced open until they died of disgust. This method become more popular because it was basically free.

The use and bad treatment of slaves sparked controversy in the more civilized world. It caused many nations in the western world to impose sanctions on the country. These nations included, but were not limited to West Germany, Portugal and Canada. The sanctions, however, were unable to stop the slavery and didn't have much effect on the Urker economy.

Slavery was genereally more prevelant on Urk than on Volendam, as Urk had a smaller population and a less developed economy, and therefore needed cheap labour more. Nonetheless, more than 3,000 slaves worked in Volendam.

Economic collapse
The succes of Urk and Volendam, however, eventually led to their demise. As the bussinessmen of Urk and Volendam studied the question-supply-line of cod, they came to the conclusion that the elasticity of their prices would mean that they could increase the price without losing much customers. So they decided to increase the prices by 100,000%. It did however not strike their, if any, brains they had, if any, that this objectively outrageous increase would lead to buyers leaving and instead buying lower quality fish from Scotland. The AIVD then decided that it was time to put an end to the failed state, and released high amounts of nerve gas over the towns of Urk and Volendam. This caused the few braincells that were present in the brains of its inhabitants to start commiting incest, resulting in brains with various incestuous problems. This eventually led to all government officials of Urk and Volendam coming together to disband the state.

Disestablishment
The disestablishment of Urk and Volendam followed shortly after, on the 10th of May, 1960. The Dutch government was not so eager to retake Urk and Volendam, of which's presence they were before liberated, but after being insisted by the local governments of Tiel and Tilburg, who didn't want to share the dishonor of being the worst two towns in the Netherlands, and instead leave that title to Urk and... a little more Urk. The disestablishment was instantly finalized on the very same day by now Dutch folk hero Marco Kroon.

Government
Urk and Volendam was officially lead by a double monarchy, one reigning over Urk while the other one reigned over Volendam. These monarchs, however didn't hold any power. They were instead used by Jan Smit to make handling the popular population better, who were often not fond of the singer. Instead the country was in practice a republic ruled by a fundamentalist Christian communist fish council. Scholars still don't really know how this mess could ever work out, but it did they guess.

This fish council was lead by Admiral-General-High-Chairman Jan Smit and consisted of the 20 greatest fish catchers of Urk and Volendam. They decided on practically everything that happened in the country, from making laws to organizing the economy. The title held by the leader of this council, thus Jan Smit, was Admiral-General-High-Chairman, according to doubtful translations of the not yet completely decifered Urkers dialect. This would mean that he both was in command of the whole defensive force of Urk and Volendam, as they didn't have an airforce, and the country itself.

Not much else is known about the government of Urk and Volendam, as previously mentioned the Urker and Volendams dialects were impossible to decipher, thus many knowledge, as far as one could go to say that there would be a form of knowledge on Urk, of Urk and Volendam has been lost to time.

Administrative divisions
Urk and Volendam obviously was devided in the two villages, both ruled by a powerless monarch. The internal relations between the two would often be quite hard, but in the end the country was held together by the interest of the two peoples, Urkers and Volendammers, to not inbreed themselves and instead marry someone who was less likely to be family.

As seen in the maps, Urk and Volendam were located on the opposite sides of the former Zuiderzee. The strip of water and the dike between the two towns were still ruled by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the very much free passage for the inhabitants of Urk and Volendam, allowing for the necessary materials to enter Urk, which didn't have enough farmland for its own demands.

Diplomatic relations
While Urk and Volendam's relations with countries in NATO and other pro-USA states were rather difficult, those with the USSR were much better. The main factor in Urk and Volendam's rough relations with western countries were it's socialist outlooks. A secondary factor was the fact that people from Urk weren't intelligible, even after being studied by a variety of linguists and anthropologists from all over the world. The Soviet Union was able to overcome the language barrier by having a goose talk back, so that both sides couldn't understand a thing and agreements were thus smoothened to the level of an Urker brain, which is, on the smoothness scale, slightly smoother, but less round, than a bowling ball.

The relations of Urk and Volendam with the Netherlands were particularily complicated. Being the former owner of the land, with barely any goal of reconquering it, the Netherlands had a very disinterested stance towards the country. Urk and Volendam suffered from the lack of interest and the lack of agreements that were caused by this, including the failure of both governments to come to an agreement over the prices of cod, or sign any real truce after the decleration of independence, which allowed the failed invasion of Emmeloord to happen.

Population
Urk and Volendam had a relatively small population, with a total 15.000 inhabitants and 3 fuctioning brains, all three from seagulls. Of these 15.000 people 10.000 lived in Volendam and the other 5.000 in Urk.

Culture
Urker and Volendammer culture are rather strange. Not yet has anyone been able to find the meaning behind the rituals that take place every Sunday on Urk, when young men go out on the streets dressed in uniforms of the Wehrmacht or the SS and proceed to burn down local instances their religion doesn't agree with. Another weird ritual is called '𐩣𐩲𐩹𐩨', a word not understood, which usually involves two members of the same family seclude themselves in a room and do.... God knows what they're doing in there, they never let the researchers in.

Volendammer rituality and culture is clearer. From reports made by the Uzbekistan National Library Association, UNLA, men, women and children from Volendam gather on the shore of their town every second saturday of the month to start loudly singing, imitating the legendary Sirens to attract people to come to their town. They than proceed to call these people '𐩺𐩯𐩯𐩬' - JSSN - jassen, wishing them a warm welcome, because jassen, jackets, are made to keep people warm. Around once a year the people from Volendam venture out of their town in a month-long ritual named 'vakantie', usually somewhere during summer.

The very different cultures rarely clashed, as the two towns didn't have much contact with each other. When this did happen, though, it was often necessary for the small police of the state to interfere and calm the masses.

Religion
One of the countries main hardships was the clash between the predominantly Catholic Volendammers and the Protestant Urkers. Both peoples were known for their zealotry, causing conflict between the two. Because of the difference in faith, Volendammers often shunned Urkers and saw them as a stupid, inferior and Pagan folk, while Urkers thought the same of Volendammers. This was known as one of the few instances where both peoples agreed and were actually even both correct.

The clashes caused a bad economy, as fishermen refused to work on other days of the week, and a religious debate was almost certain whenever they would stumble upon each other in the middle of the sea. Sometimes the conflict grew even worse, leading to fights on ships. Occasionaly, death fishermen would be found with evidence of battery in the skull and chest area. The general thought is that damage to the chest would be more dangerous, as their heads didn't have much filling other than fish oil anyway.