The Republic has not been kind to Medan.

Sprawling shrubbery and vermicular vines encased the remnants of opulent palaces and monuments to bygone grandeur. What was once the epicenter of a prosperous polity laden with spices and tobacco, a gilded menagerie of Sumatra's unique delights, had been reduced to a shell-shocked ruin, the symbols of royal power now serving as prescient warnings of the ephemeral nature of glory.

That was the Medan of 1945. Enduring its baptism of artillery fire, the crumbling royal capital has been reborn as a city of commerce and development. Replacing the buildings serving as testaments to the royals, both Sumatran and Dutch, were the new offices of mining firms and credit brokers. A new energy had revitalized Medan, a continuous stream of life emanating from the batches of eager immigrants arriving from Java, their hands empty and their eyes filled with the glow of opportunity. The old sultan had stayed, watching the heritage of his ancestors be transformed into something unrecognizable, something unfamiliar yet oddly exciting. He didn't know what to fully make of it, residing in perpetual stupor within the bounds of the Istana Maimun, a symbol of a lost era representative of not just Medan, but Indonesia in its entirety.

From the ashes of an eroding legacy, a new dawn rises for the city in transit, from one age to the next.