Slănic Salt Mine (Unirea Mine)

Slănic Salt Mine is in the town of Slănic, Prahova County, and is run by the National Salt Company (Salrom). Salt mining began after 1685, when the spatharios Mihai Cantacuzino bought the Slănic estate: the first pit opened in 1688 on Valea Verde, and in 1713 the estate and its mines were donated to the Colțea Monastery in Bucharest. Later came the Sistematica mine (1860), the Carol I mine (1867) and the Mihai mine (1912), the first salt mine in Romania with electric lighting. The Unirea mine, the one open to visitors today, was started in February 1938 by the Belgian engineer Maurice Bodart, below the older workings. Salt was extracted here between 1943 and 1970. The mine has 14 chambers with a trapezoidal profile, 10 m wide at the ceiling and 32 m at the base, 54 m high, with walls inclined at 60 degrees. It lies 208 m below the surface, the excavated volume is 2.9 million m³, and the floor area is about 80,000 m². Above it lies the Mihai mine, used for model aircraft competitions. The Unirea mine has been open to tourists since 1970. The temperature is 12-13°C all year round and the relative humidity 50-60%. The mine has sports grounds, playgrounds, table tennis, a rest area with loungers for visitors with respiratory conditions, and salt sculptures, including busts of Decebalus and Trajan. In autumn 1994, water infiltration flooded the mine; after consolidation work it reopened on 31 July 1998. Since the lift accident of 9 August 2014, visitors go down by minibus through an access gallery. The ticket office is on Strada Salinei, in the north of the town. The Salt Museum, on Strada 23 August, is housed in the Casa Cămărășiei (the former salt mine office) from the early nineteenth century, a listed historic monument (PH-II-m-A-16707).