Fountain from Onești

A beautiful fountain from Onești, my hometown(link to my Youtube short video in green)

Fountain from Onești

The Silence of Cathedral Square

         THE SILENCE OF CATHEDRAL SQUARE

 

         by Sebastian Onciu

        As the day turns into night

        And the darkness start to reign

        City becomes full of light

        Banishing the gloom and pain.

       As I'm walking through the square

       In the early evening hour

       I can feel the chilly air

       Blowing in my face with power.

       Hardly a soul to see

       Even in the heart of town

       Everyone appears to flee

       As if it were still lockdown.

       Lonely it is how I feel

       In this cool and stunning place

       Lack of people seems unreal

       Some would call it a disgrace.

      So much silence may seem strange

      Seen from below or above

      Yet there's nothing I would change

      I'm still in the city I love!

 

    

Sunday Morning Chillout in the Park of My Town, Onești

Do I Live in a Ghost Town?

 

A few days ago, in an effort to improve and expand my general knowledge, I decided to take a look at a list of cities and towns from my country ordered by population; I was simply curious to see what the rank of my hometown, Onești was on such a list, so I googled it and the first site I opened in order to check it out was World Population Review, which I considered to be a reliable source, but when I opened that list and looked for Onești, I had an unpleasant surprise: it wasn’t anywhere on the list!

Every town in Romania, no matter how small, was present in that table, except for Onești, which may not be a metropolis, but it isn’t a little town either; even with a dramatic decrease in population in the last a couple of decades caused by the bankruptcy or the severe reduction of activity of the factories which were part of a huge industrial platform, once the heart of the town, and the consequent migration of many people to greener pastures, in search for work, Onești still has, at least according to official numbers, a population of almost 40,000 inhabitants, but according to World Population Review, those people simply do not exist!

After such a bewildering find, I couldn’t stop wondering: Do I live in a ghost town? Is Onești a real site or is it an illusion, a deserted place which can’t be found on maps or on Google Earth? Or maybe the guys from World Population Review still aren’t aware of the fact that 30 years ago the town of Onești regained its original name, which had been first mentioned several centuries ago, after being named Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej during the communist period? That maybe a possible explanation, but still they have no excuse for this omission.

Fortunately, there are other sources as well, and when I looked for the list of Romanian towns and cities on Wikipedia I had a sigh of relief: my hometown is included on the list, with a population of 39,172 inhabitants which makes it the 49^th town in Romania by the population at the moment. It isn’t a desolate place populated by elves, zombies, White Walkers or other mythical or fantastic creatures, but a real town whose inhabitants breath, talk, work and struggle for a decent living, so luckily I don’t live in a ghost town yet!

Anyway, I’m curious to find out if there are any other towns from around the globe which are not included on the list made by World Population Review, because if there isn’t any other one in such a position, that would make Onești a truly unique place in the entire world!