Ghost Towns: The Silent Depopulation of Eastern Europe

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim

My editor was rushed due to a variety of factors when making this video, please ignore the few spelling mistakes in the title headers.

00:00 Introduction, Disappearing Towns
01:05 The Demographic Impact of Sudden Impoverishment: Employment, Housing, Children and Poverty
07:56 Employment and The Reserve Army
10:09 Migration, Aging and Depopulation
12:25 Political Consequences and Conclusion

[YaBoiHakim]

Twitter: @YaBoiHakim
The illegal and anti-democratic dissolution of Socialism in Eastern Europe was the single greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the past century.
My editor was rushed due to a variety of factors when making this video, please ignore the few spelling mistakes in the title headers.

*Sources:*
Depopulated and Abandoned Areas in Serbia in the 21st Century—From a Local to a National Problem
THE DEMOGRAPHIC IMPACT OF SUDDEN IMPOVERISHMENT: EASTERN EUROPE DURING THE 1989-94 TRANSITION

[radu-andreinitu]

As a Romanian it is depressing to see my nation lose more and more people. Romania's population has dropped from 23million to under 19 million. If you go and travel through the countryside you will see old people or abandoned buildings. The village that my grandparents live in has nearly no young people in it, as there are no jobs from which young people to be able to make a living from. Nearly all villages through the nation are like this. Despite all of these villages having great sceanery, plenty of cheap land and decent infrastructures, there are no jobs so only retired people live there.

[cvetomirgeorgiev]

As a Bulgarian, I can say that this is an obvious issue here. Not only is our population falling rapidly, what is left is getting concentrated in the cities, with much of the countryside being a handful of older people, with their kids/grandkids either in the cities, or out of the country completely. I can't lie, I'm very worried

[podemosurss]

This also happens in some Western European regions. In Spain we have an area that is known as "España vaciada" (Emptied Spain), which is a mostly rural area that has lost most of their population, as they migrated both to the main cities and to other countries like France, Germany or the UK. This process began in the late 1950s with the restoration of international relations between Spain and those countries (after WW2). By the way, there is an excellent comedy film from 1971 parodying those migrations called "Vente a Alemania, Pepe" (Come to Germany, Pepe), in which a young rural man called José [Pepe is a Spanish way of calling Josés too] decides to try his luck working in Germany to earn money as the wages there are higher. He ends up being worked to the bone in three jobs (one main job and two part-time jobs).

[BalkanOdyssey_]

Glad to see you also talking about this very very important issue. Thank you for spreading awareness and explaining the actual fundamental causes of this tragic phenomenon. Top tier content comrade.

[matokan]

As an Eastern European I am very grateful for your covering of this depressing topic. Keep up the good work!

[adamkovacs]

As a Hungarian from Budapest - but with strong ties to the countryside - I can state that the real problem is that the differences between cities and rural areas increased in an unbelievable rate. Of course, this trend started in the '80s but rapidly accelerated in the last 10 years or so.

[Filip-dylm]

When I was in my final year of high-school a few years ago here in post Yugoslavia, we had all the different university faculties come to our schools, and every single one of them used "once you finish your degree, we will help you find a job in the EU", i.e study hard now you you can abandon your countire's economy later and work in Germany for a slightly better wage. Brain drain is a very big part of modern imperialism.

[odysseus]

I am very happy to see that people have begun to notice the tragedy that is Eastern Europe. Even here in Greece, which was not in the "Eastern Bloc", the degradation you describe has been happening for a while. They privatized trains, they decayed, two of them crashed killing some 60 youths a month ago. During the pandemic our hospitals were severely underequipped and understaffed, resulting in thousands of deaths. About two weeks ago some tourist resort owners from Mykonos hired thugs to beat up an archaeologist who pointed out that their businesses were violating regulations regarding the ancient site there. On the streets you see delivery drivers that should be in retirement, driving in the rain. Our power company daily cuts power to hundreds of households to bully people in advance before the due date of their bill. Liberalization, privatization, EU "integration" has destroyed us. Our elderly see our brightest working in places like NASA, and are proud instead of asking why they are not working here. Our young glamorize pointless violence over sports and worship cars, shoes, and the "grind", thinking that they are somehow "rebelling" against the system. And then we wonder why nobody wants to have children here. We have been here since time immemorial, only to be wiped out by the unelected European central bank, and if we dare protest every liberal publication will say "um sorry sweetie, Greece can't afford its lifestyle". We need to stop thinking that we will somehow make it into the club of big Western powers, and realize that we and our Eastern neighbors need to stand together and overcome the tide of destruction.

[ranting.russian]

It's not just population. First, East-European countries gave up most of their industrial base - all those hardware factories and plants that were built in Soviet time. Now they don't have much by way of jobs outside the services sector, and people are fleeing for better life opportunities.

[sundorgo]

As someone from Eastern Europe ( specifically Romania), this video really got to me, and made me reflect on a phenomenon that is so hard to ignore but nonetheless myself & many others try to not think about it as it brings so much sadness to us. I remember in my early childhood, many villages were still mostly populated, and even though this was during the late 90's & early 2000's, I still felt that there still was something left of a community in them. As I got older, I noticed a trend that was becoming impossible to just ignore, literally year after year w/o exception the amount of people living in those villages became significantly smaller.

After a while, whenever I'd go to a village to visit relatives or friends, instead of feeling a sense of happiness that I am finally away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, I was greeted with a sense of melancholy, most certainly due to the fact that most of these once thriving villages are now nothing but a shell of their former selves. I can say without a shred of doubt that these same villages I'd often visit now have at most 15% of the population that they once had from the time of my childhood. These villages are situated in some of the most picturesque landscapes I have had the privilege of laying my eyes on, with rustic homes in traditional styles, but now they lie often in disrepair, invoking a sense of emptiness in people like myself. The situation has gotten so bad that I no longer find any pleasure in even visiting those villages, as it simply brings way too much sadness whenever I do.

Thank you so much for shedding light on this often overlooked issue Hakim, it really means a lot for those of us from here. 11/10 amazing video as always Habibi <3

[alihashim]

Me again. did you know that Lenin didn't like shooting stars? he liked shooting tzars.

Edit: thank you everyone for the likes, if you want more of my...no OUR memes wait for another comrade Hakim video.

[teodorasavoiu]

Honestly, although the way socialism was implemented in Romania was fucked up, there was a significant effort made to develop the entire country, urban and rural areas, not just the big urban centers. That's the most significant thing. We had libraries, cinemas, industry (so jobs), medical facilities and schools that are now gone. Not only villages are dying but small towns have also been decimated by capitalism.

It's honestly infuriating to see so many "compatriots " even in this comment section still drinking the koolaid and being good little slaves for western capital like it's going to benefit them. We've been so thoroughly brainwashed.

Oh my god, we barely even have public kindergartens today and that's in the big cities.

[vadimk]

Dude from Latvia here. Our periphery is basically an empty space. There's a lot of life in the capital and some life in a handful of medium towns. Anywhere between those places, however, the population numbers are laughable. Of course, official state propaganda is still blaming "Soviet Occupation" for everything, including obvious demographic problems.
The parts about "brain drain" and labor power extraction are spot on as well - we've been heavily de-industrialized since the LSSR, however our educational system still can produce laborers who are not that much less qualified than our western colleagues, but will work for significantly less money. I see ads online about "welders wanted for oil rig in Sweden" regularly, not to mention that our entire IT sector is outsourced by foreign companies because we're relatively cheap and relatively qualified. Thank God we don't have oil, otherwise we'd probably get democratized to bits. We do, however, have a huge hydropower plant left from the inhumane commies, and the funny thing about it is that while it generates enough electricity to power ~70% of the country (I might be mistaken about the number, please feel free to correct me), our electrical bills are insane, cuz all of the generated power gets sold to an electricity stock exchange, and then we buy it back from them at a much higher price. I love the smell of free market in the morning.
The worst part is, though, that people around here don't see that the root cause of all this insanity is capitalism, at least not yet. They'll blame whatever from their neighbors to supernatural forces, but never capitalism as a system.

[bigboyman]

As a Lithuanian who lives in the capital city, which is actually growing; seeing towns and villages outside dying and seeing more old people than young people feels depressing, especially knowing that these places used to thrive during Soviet times. The whole privatization and the transition to capitalism lead to a closure or selling of the factories, leading to unemployement and less opportunities. I doubt that the future will be better, as it keeps declining.

[KekusMagnus]

This video really struck a nerve with the reactionaries, so many comments full of cope

[andreamarino]

I have a personal experience on this. Being an italian my country """accepted""" at least 1 million albanians and romanians that were both praised (from escaping EVIL COMMUNIST REGIMES when they came after their socialist governments fell) and discriminated (you know we are westerners and they are not.... so they are inferior, dirty, thieves etc). My ex-gf was romanian and her parents lived under socialism, but when it fell they needed to find jobs once again. Her mother came here and stayed for a long time and sent money back, while her father worked in the military. Despite being that they still almost froze every winter and all other shit. When i went with them in Romania for a vacation i found a monument in Bucharest for the "victims of communism". Kinda ironic...

I could add other stories, for example the sheer amount of abandoned industries around the roads is just mind blowing. Also railways left to rot. When i asked a local if the trains passed a lot of times in the station (because my hotel was near the train station) he said "before 1991 yes, now not so much" and it was a city of 100thousand people (Piatra Neamț). Also public transport being defunded so lines of trolley bus left alone replaced with enviromentally friendly diesel buses (bought with EU funds). Food prices at supermarkets were the same as in Italy but their salaries are 1/4 of what you get here. Usual capitalust masterpiece

[mikey_gc]

Such a diverse community you have cultivated here Hakim. Much love to all comrades from within the belly of the beast!

[anasain]

As a Lithuanian I still remember the stories of my parents living in the USSR. It wasnt perfect but we had so much more back then. We were a functional and connected society which was able to stand on its own, and that being something I have never had the privelege of experiencing, it makes me sad. What makes me even more sad is what we could of had as my grandparents lived under stalin prior to soviet revisionism and before they died would often talk about how the future awaited them but it was robbed. Good video!

[EduardVasile]

I live in Romania, and it makes me despair when I see people worship the system that has taken so much from us and brought so much hate. I can not hope that things get better, only that they get worse slower, I can see no way out, and it pains me. I see people hunger, live in the cold, and the ones that don't envy and want to take, the same way they were taken from.