Comănești (; hu, Kománfalva) is a town in

Bacău County Bacău County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in Western Moldavia, with its capital city at Bacău. It has one commune, Ghimeș-Făget, in Transylvania. Geography This county has a total area of . In the western part of the county ther ...

Western Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova), also called Western Moldavia or Romanian Moldavia, is the historic and geographical part of the former Principality of Moldavia situated in eastern and north-eastern Romania. Until its union with Wallachia in 1859, the Pr ...

, Romania, with a population of 19,568 as of 2011. It is situated on the river

Trotuș The Trotuș ( hu, Tatros) is a river in eastern Romania, a right tributary of the river Siret. It emerges from the Ciuc Mountains in the Eastern Carpathians and joins the Siret in Domnești-Sat near Adjud after passing through Comănești and One ...

, which flows between the Ciuc and the

Tarcău Tarcău is a commune in Neamț County, Western Moldavia, Romania. It is composed of six villages: Ardeluța, Brateș, Cazaci, Schitu Tarcău, Straja, and Tarcău. The commune is located in the southwestern part of the county, on the border with ...

mountains; of the course of the river pass through Comănești. The town administers two villages, Podei and Vermești.

History

The area of the town of Comănești has been inhabited since the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...

period - Neolithic remains were found in the Vermești area of the town. The name is derived from the

Cumans The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...

who once ruled the region. Its first written record dates from 1657, and its first presence on a map from the 1696 '' Sanson Map''. From the late 18th century onwards, the town was in the domain of the

Ghica family The Ghica family ( ro, Ghica; sq, Gjika; el, Γκίκας, ''Gikas'') was a noble family active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania, between the 17th and 19th centuries. The Ghica family produced many voivodes of Wallachia a ...

boyar A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, Russia, Wallachia and Moldavia, and later Romania, Lithuania and among Baltic Germans. Boyars were s ...

s, who remained an important presence in the area until the middle of the 20th century. The Ghica Palace (now housing the local museum), the park in front of the museum, and the railway stations are testimonies to their presence in the town. During the summers of 2004, 2005, and 2006, Comănești suffered severe flooding of the Trotuș. Some specialists have associated those floods with the deforestation in the area. In 2006 and 2008, Comănești was the site of large explosion-like sounds that were not identified.

Industry

As of 2003, it had an unemployment rate of 18.1%, much higher than the country's average, and the town was declared an underdeveloped region. The town is in the center of a large

coal field Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

and there are also smaller amounts of oil in the area. The coal mine, which in 1989 employed 5,000 people, was finally closed down in 2005, leaving the last group of miners (260 in all) unemployed. The other major industry of the town is

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. ...

, but the large lumberyard and factory were also closed; this area of enterprise is now dominated by small local businesses, but in the last few years some international investors started to appear in the city, especially in retail and commerce. There have been new initiatives in recent months to attract investment into the area in both the industrial and tourism sectors. Gara Comanesti

Train station

The Comănești train station was built in 1899, modeled on the

Lausanne Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...

and

Curtea de Argeș Curtea de Argeș () is a municipality in Romania on the left bank of the river Argeș, where it flows through a valley of the Southern Carpathians (the Făgăraș Mountains), on the railway from Pitești to the Turnu Roșu Pass. It is part of Ar ...

railway stations. The design was done by the Italian architect , while the construction was done by the engineer

Elie Radu Elie and Earlsferry is a coastal town and former royal burgh in Fife, and parish, Scotland, situated within the East Neuk beside Chapel Ness on the north coast of the Firth of Forth, eight miles east of Leven. The burgh comprised the linked v ...

References

External links

*
Official website
*
City Hall Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comanesti Populated places in Bacău County Localities in Western Moldavia Towns in Romania Monotowns in Romania Mining communities in Romania Ghica family

History

Industry

Train station

See also

References

External links