Steel Industry and Underground Coal Mines
All underground coal mines were closed down shortly after the Velvet revolution in 1989, due to unfavourable geological and political conditions which caused mining to become uneconomical in the post-communist system, and also because of ex-mayor Evžen Tošenovský's drive to modernize the city's industries. The last minecart with coal was retrieved from new Odra Mine (formerly František Mine) on 30 June 1994.
Some of the largest industrial companies lie in the city of Ostrava. The Vitkovice steel works, located in the suburb of the same name near the city center, concentrates on metallurgy and machine engineering. It was established in 1828 and now it is undergoing a major transformation. The Vítkovice complex Dolní oblast is set to undergo extensive reconstruction. The giant gas container for blast furnace gas (around 70 m wide and 33 m high) will be modified into a concert hall for 1,500 visitors, a gallery, café, etc., based on design by leading Czech architect, Josef Pleskot. Blast Furnace no 1 will become the start of a tour route, and the sixth energy central office will become an industrial museum (project authored by Václav and Helena Zemánkovi). The expected date for completion of reconstruction is set for 2013.
Michal Mine whose history goes back to 1843, is an extremely valuable authentic industrial site in terms of construction and technical equipment. the museum provides visitors with the chance to look over all of the above ground work areas that a miner would have to go through to get to his shift. The tour includes, the dressing rooms, washrooms, registry, dispatching, and most importantly, the machine room, with its original and unique equipment that had worked until 1993, when the mine was permanently closed. The scene, intentionally left intact, without any artificial arrangements being made, gives the impression as if work there has just ended. Some of the rooms in the Museum house also other kinds of temporary exhibitions, often displaying works by foreign artists.
Located on the former Anselm Mine (one of the first to be established at the end of the 18th century in what is today the Petřkovice District of Ostrava), the Mining Museum was opened in the early 1990s. A unique exhibition of the Mining Museum highlights the evolution of coal mining in the Ostrava-Karvina region, as well as mining technology, and rescue services. In fact, it is the largest exhibition of its kind in the world. With the collection of miner’s lights and hand tools, visitors get a real taste of the hard work and dedication the men of the mines had. The tour includes a view of mining in the original seams with wooden braces, mining machines and belt conveyors.
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Famous quotes containing the words steel, industry, underground, coal and/or mines:
“The complaint ... about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernes, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
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“It is in our interests to let the police and their employers go on believing that the Underground is a conspiracy, because it increases their paranoia and their inability to deal with what is really happening. As long as they look for ringleaders and documents they will miss their mark, which is that proportion of every personality which belongs in the Underground.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“In those days, the blag slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the side of our hill. Not enough to mar the countryside nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers between the green.”
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“The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)