Poarta Albă (literally in ) is a commune in

Constanța County Constanța () is a Counties of Romania, county (județ) of Romania on the Bulgaria–Romania border, border with Bulgaria, in the Dobruja region. Its capital city is also named Constanța. Demographics In 2021, it had a population of 655,997 ...

Northern Dobruja Northern Dobruja ( or simply ; , ''Severna Dobrudzha'') is the part of Dobruja within the borders of Romania. It lies between the lower Danube, Danube River and the Black Sea, bordered in the south by Southern Dobruja, which is a part of Bulgaria. ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. The commune is a port on the

Danube–Black Sea Canal The Danube–Black Sea Canal () is a navigable canal in Romania, which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube river, via two branches, to Constanța and Năvodari on the Black Sea. Administered from Agigea, it is an important part of the waterway li ...

Villages

The following villages are included in the Poarta Albă commune: * Poarta Albă (historical name: ''Alakap'', ) * Nazarcea (historical name: ''Galeșu'' between 1930 and 1964, )

History

In the early 1950s, a prison camp operated at Poarta Albă, part of a chain of forced

labour camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

set up along the length of the Canal by the communist authorities. Some 12,000 prisoners were held at the Poarta Albă camp. Many perished due to the harsh working conditions. According to a study done by the International Centre for Studies into Communism, 12.7% of all political prisoners in

Communist Romania The Socialist Republic of Romania (, RSR) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist One-party state, one-party socialist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to 1989 (see Revolutions of 1989). From 1947 to 1965, the state was ...

did some time at Poarta Albă. Among the political prisoners who did time at the Poarta Albă labor camp were Alexandru Claudian, Vladimir Constantinescu, Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu,

Gherman Pântea Gherman Vasile Pântea (; surname also spelled Pîntea; ; ; May 13, 1894 – February 1, 1968) was a Bessarabian-born soldier, civil servant and political figure, active in the Russian Empire and Romania. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army ...

, and Ovidiu Papadima.

Demographics

At the 2011 census, Poarta Albă had a population of 5,208, of which 4,792 were ethnic Romanians (96.69%), 4

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an Ethnicity, ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common Culture of Hungary, culture, Hungarian language, language and History of Hungary, history. They also have a notable presence in former pa ...

(0.08%), 35 Roma (0.71%), 53 Turks (1.07%), 55

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

(1.11%), 5

Lipovans The Lipovans or Lippovans are ethnic Russians, Russian Old Believers living in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria who settled in the Principality of Moldavia, in the east of the Principality of Wallachia (Muntenia), and in the regions of D ...

(0.10%), 5 others (0.10%), and 7 with undeclared ethnicity (0.14%).

Transportation

The Poarta Albă train station serves the CFR Line 800, which connects

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Constanța Constanța (, , ) is a city in the Dobruja Historical regions of Romania, historical region of Romania. A port city, it is the capital of Constanța County and the country's Cities in Romania, fourth largest city and principal port on the Black ...

and

Mangalia Mangalia (, ), ancient Callatis (; other historical names: Pangalia, Panglicara, Tomisovara), is a city and a port on the coast of the Black Sea in the south-east of Constanța County, Northern Dobruja, Romania. The municipality of Mangalia als ...

on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

coast.

Natives

* Murat Iusuf

References

External links

''Sub semnul gulagului''
by Aurel Popa. Communes in Constanța County Localities in Northern Dobruja {{Constanţa-geo-stub