Wieliczka: Salt mines. The Wieliczka salt mines are one of the most interesting sights in Poland.

On the advice of friends from Poland, we decided to go to a small town near Krakow, which is famous for its salt mines - Wieliczka. We had to drive about 200 km. from Slovakia, passing the picturesque Tatras in northern Slovakia and the green hills of Lesser Poland Voivodeship in Poland (all photos are clickable).

Slovakia…

We crossed the border in the town of Mnishek nad Poprad (“mnich” - a monk, “Poprad” - a river flowing in Slovakia and Poland). The road sometimes turned into almost one-lane, in some places in the mountains the roadside was destroyed by a landslide.

Having entered Poland, the navigator suddenly asks you to turn off main road and leads up the hills, past the cemetery and into some wilds. We were somewhat wary ... Apparently, he led us along the very short cut, which was not the fastest. But we enjoyed the pastoral landscapes of southern Poland to our heart's content. In contrast to Slovakia, where people settle in valleys between mountains and hills, Poles' houses are scattered both in the valley and on the hills themselves. An interesting difference...

Finally we arrived. Wieliczka is a small cozy town that attracts tourists from all over the region and beyond. The entrance to the dungeon starts in the Danilovich mine. There are two parking lots, restaurants, souvenir shops nearby.

Danilovich's shaft was cut in 1635-1640, when Nikolay Danilovich managed the mines. The barrel served for a long time to transport salt to the surface. Since the 19th century, workers and tourists have been transported along the trunk. In 1874, the wooden shaft structure was replaced by a stone one.

The rock salt deposit in the city of Velichka was developed from the 13th to the 20th century. The mine has been turned into a huge museum and reflects the development of salt mining methods and technologies over the course of seven centuries. It consists of corridors and galleries on seven underground levels at a depth of 57 m to 198 m with a total length of more than 200 km. The salt mine has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978.

For tourism purposes, the mine has also been used for almost several centuries, and here we must pay tribute to the Poles, everything has been done for the convenience of tourists: excursions are in several languages, convenient ticket offices and a waiting room, and credit cards are accepted in souvenir tents even at a depth of several tens of meters 🙂

Needless to say, the tickets are not cheap. If memory serves, then for five of us (2 adults and 3 children) everything cost about 2,500 rubles. But it's worth it.

Excursions in Russian do not go so often, so we did not wait and went with an English speaker. First, we had to go down the wooden stairs with our legs, and very deep, we walked for about 10 minutes.

Below are catacombs made of rock salt and wooden log cabins. As well as expositions describing the extraction of salt in different eras. Salt in the past was of considerable value and served as a kind of currency.

Along the way, there are various "comoros", i.e. halls dedicated to some people or events. One of them is the Comorian of one of the most famous Poles - Nicolaus Copernicus, who really visited here.

These are some messengers who came to some queen. “Give us salt!” they shout.
However, this is my free interpretation. (The wife says that it was the other way around that the miners brought salt to the queen. Well, it doesn’t matter ...)

And here it is shown how they used to fight with explosive gases that threatened the mine - the gases were simply burned out by special men with torches.

A special story is with horses. Previously, everything worked precisely on their traction. At the same time, as the guide explained, unlike coal mines, where horses lost their sight during the year of work, in salt mines, vision is not lost, but even improves. Indeed, these mines are still used for recreational purposes, especially for people suffering from respiratory diseases.

“If you are a horse,” the guide told us, “require a transfer from a coal mine to a salt mine, because of the significant better conditions labor!

“The historic Salt Coins in Wieliczka is the only mining facility in the world that has been operating without interruption from the Middle Ages to the present day. The original workings (drifts, descents, production chambers, lakes, mines, pits) with a total length of about 300 kilometers, located on 9 levels, running to a depth of 327 meters, show all stages of the development of mining technology in certain historical eras. This is a fragment of the substantiation of the record of the Wieliczka Salt Mine, made on September 9, 1978, in the I UNESCO List of 12 world cultural and natural heritage sites.

"Who are these people? the tour guide asked. - "They once lagged behind the guide a long time ago!"

Underground communications.

In general, the tour takes 2 hours, and a fairly quick walk, there is not much time left for the photo. It will take a couple of weeks to get around everything that is there, the guide assured us. Somewhere halfway there is a place where you can rest, benches, a toilet, a shop with drinks and light food. By the way, they later asked me if I licked the wall while I was walking there, because there is only salt everywhere. No, he didn't lick.

In the second part of the tour, we go to the real pearl of the underground - a church built right underground and made, of course, exclusively from rock salt. Chapel of Saint Kinga.

The Chapel of St. Kinga was created in 1896 by the efforts of the miner Józef Markowski. Saint Kinga, patroness of salt miners in Poland, was canonized by Pope John Paul II during one of his last visits to the country. The chapel is located at a depth of 101 meters, its dimensions are: length - 54 meters, width - 15-18 meters, height - 10-12 meters. The chapel is illuminated by a salt crystal chandelier. The chapel contains a salt sculpture of John Paul II. All salt sculptures and the presbytery of the chapel were created by the famous Polish sculptor Stanisław Anioł. The chapel is active.

Particularly impressive is the transition from narrow dungeons to open and illuminated (and consecrated too) space. All walls are in bas-reliefs. All of them are made by three self-taught craftsmen who used to work in this mine.

And sometimes there are unexpected characters.

There were also small lakes. Here is the grotto of Josef Pilsudski.

Samples of equipment are exhibited in places.

Thank God, the exit from the mine is carried out with the help of an elevator. Otherwise, it won't work. Here is such a huge grinding structure without lighting inside. Also a kind of attraction. The people in it squeal from time to time.

I think this is the perfect tourism - exercise stress, a lot of educational, fun, sometimes creepy, salubrious salt air. We left the mine with a feeling of deep satisfaction and intense hunger. Luckily the restaurant was literally opposite.

Once I started to publish photos from my trips abroad (see the previous series about Krakow: one and two), but for some reason everything died out. Today I will try to correct myself and show some photos of one of the attractions near Krakow - the salt mines in Wieliczka.

Velikie salt mines - rock salt deposit in Polish city Velichka, which was developed from the 13th to the 20th centuries. Already in the XV century. the first tourists began to be taken inside, and today Velichka has become a huge underground museum, in which, on the basis of old workings, a tourist route has been equipped for centuries (not only with exhibits, but also with various tourist chips such as cafes, souvenirs, etc.). In the workings, equipped for tourists, one can get acquainted with the methods and technologies of salt extraction, which have existed for seven centuries. In addition to the tourist route, there is also a huge part of the workings, which are either not shown to tourists at all, or shown individually. However, on the day when I was in Wieliczka, only a tourist route was in the plans, and there will be photos from there.

Brief historical background

The salt deposit in Velichka was formed about 15 million years ago. It is a strip 10 km long and 0.5-1.5 km wide, stretching from east to west along northern border Carpathians.

Since ancient times, salt in Poland had a special status and was the basis of the economy. In ancient times, in the Polish lands, it was used as a means of payment, replacing metal money. At the time of the birth of salt mining in Wieliczka, the extraction of salt and its underground transportation were carried out manually, and the lifting of salt from the mine was carried out using special shafts. In the XIV century. the shafts were replaced by a gate - a horizontal drum pushed in a circle by people, and then by horses. Even such a simple optimization of the process increased production volumes and at that time the deepening of workings began.

In 1772, Wieliczka came under the control of the Austrians, who significantly mechanized underground work: hand tools were replaced with pneumatic ones, a salt mill and a steam hoist were built. In 1912 a mechanized saltworks was built. During the Nazi occupation, there were attempts to build an underground plant for the production of military equipment on the basis of the mines.

Salt mining was stopped in the second half of the 20th century, when the development of new seams near the historical workings caused their destruction.

In the 15th century, salt mines began to be shown to privileged persons for educational purposes. Until the end of the 16th century, such tourism remained exclusively elite, it was possible to visit the mine workings only with the permission of the king. In the 18th century, a ladder compartment appeared in the shaft of the mine, which greatly simplified the conditions for inspecting the mines. At the end of the 18th century, several dozen people visited the workings every month, and at the beginning of the 19th century, the number of tourists reached several hundred. By the beginning of the XX century. there were certain conditions for the number of tourists received - no more than 100 people at a time. In the post-war years, the number of tourists continued to grow. In the mid-1950s, about 200 thousand people visited the mine annually, in the first half of the 1970s - 750 thousand people. During the second half of the XX century. workings and tourist chambers were repaired, centers for the sale of souvenirs and other museum paraphernalia were built. Now about 800 thousand tourists pass annually along the underground tourist route.

In 1978, the salt mines in Wieliczka were included in the list of objects world heritage UNESCO.

1. The beginning and end of the tourist route are located at the Danilovich mine shaft. The shaft was drilled in 1635-1640, when Nikolai Danilovich was the manager of the salt mines. The shaft connects the daylight surface with 6 levels of mines, the deepest of which is at a depth of 243 m. Initially, the shaft performed only a transport function and salt was extracted to the surface through it. Since the 19th century salt mine workers, as well as more and more tourists, began to be brought down through the shaft. The shaft structure was originally wooden with a horse-drawn lift. In 1874, a steam engine was installed in it and a stone building that exists to this day was built. After World War II, the lift was electrified.

Scheme of the tourist route from the site http://www.activeclub.com.ua:

2. Descent down occurs through the stair compartment of the trunk:

3. Inspection of old workings begins at level I of the near-shaft yard of the Danilovich mine, located at a depth of 64 m.

4. Camera Ursula. Hollowed into the top of a large block of green salt. Work was carried out here in 1649.

6. In the working, the above-pit device was reconstructed, which was used for vertical lifting of salt:

7. Camera of Nicolaus Copernicus. This chamber arose in 1785. In the first half of the 19th century. a horse-drawn drive with a vertical shaft (only traces remain) was installed here to transport salt from the lower levels to the first. It is believed that Nicolaus Copernicus was one of the first tourists to visit the mine, so this working was given his name. In 1973, in honor of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the astronomer, his monument was erected in the working, created from a block of salt:

8. Janowice chamber. Hollowed out in a block of green salt in the first half of the 17th century. Here, in 1967, salt figures were installed, illustrating the legend of the discovery of a salt deposit: a miner gives Princess Kinga the first salt stone with her wedding ring in it; at the same time, there are Polish and Hungarian knights, as well as two miners carrying out the mined salt. The legend says that the Hungarian princess Kinga, who was married to the Polish prince Boleslav Shy (what a name :)), before getting married, threw her wedding ring into a salt mine in Maramures. The princess's ring, along with the salt deposits, was suddenly transported to Wieliczka and was found in the first block of salt extracted from the Velichka land. Since then, Kinga has been considered the patroness of salt miners.

10. Burnt camera. Hollowed out in the 17th and 18th centuries. in reservoir. Both now and in ancient times, great danger methane accumulated in the workings was concealed in itself. To reduce the risk of an explosion, the gas was burned off by experienced miners, who were called "penitent sinners." Dressed in wet clothes, they crawled along the bottom of the formation, burning methane with torches, put on long poles.

12. Old support:

13. Camera Selets. Hollowed out in a fold of formation salt. The operation of the chamber began in 1646 and continued for 60 years. Here is a collection of original mechanisms by which salt was transported through the workings. Ancient miners used wooden carts called "Hungarian dogs", boxes and skids. Fine salt was packed into barrels, large lumps were simply rolled along the working.

14. From the XVI century. horses were used to transport salt.

15. Chamber of Casimir the Great. The development was completed in the first half of the 18th century. Since 1968, the chamber bears the name of the Polish king Casimir the Great, who in 1368 gave the mines a charter defining mining law, the procedure for employment in the mines, regulated the extraction and trade of salt (all this is no accident, because in the XIV century the salt mines in Wieliczka and Bochnia brought a third of the income to the treasury). There is a horse drive in the chamber, with the help of which it was possible to lift salt blocks weighing up to 2 tons.

16. Bust of Casimir the Great:

17. Longitudinal drift Kunegund:

18. In the niche of the longitudinal drift there is a model of a Neolithic village (5.5-3.5 thousand years BC). It is built on the basis of research carried out on the territory of Wieliczka. Even then, people were engaged in the production of salt from surface salt sources.

19. Camera Peskova rock. Hollowed out in a fold of formation salt. The salt in the chamber was mined in the 17th century; after the completion of salt mining, the chamber united the first and second levels of the mines (the height of the chamber is 35 m). Fragments of the original stairs carved in salt in the 17th century have been preserved in the chamber. All the stairs in the cell are lit with a bright yellow light - a very beautiful sight, I tell you.

20. In the central part of the chamber there is a Krzysztofory pit, in which there is a hand cross - an old wooden mechanism for the vertical transportation of salt.

24. The lower part of the chamber is located at a depth of 90 m.

25. Cross road Cunegund. Here you can see the original wooden gutters designed to drain groundwater. Water first fell into local reservoirs (as in the photo), and then drained into the main reservoir located at the mine shaft, from where it was extracted to the surface.

26. Chapel of St. Cross. The chapel was built in gratitude for saving the mines from catastrophic flooding. groundwater in the second half of the 19th century.

27. Somewhere nearby at a depth of 101 m is the chapel of St.. Kingi. Perhaps it is she who can most often be found in photographs associated with Wieliczka. The architectural decor of the chapel began to be created more than 100 years ago and continues to be updated today.

28. Sculptural work, decorating the walls of the chapel, illustrate scenes from the New Testament. Closest to the stairs, on the right side, are the bas-reliefs of Herod's Sentence and the Massacre of the Innocents, above - the scenes of the puppet Christmas mystery in Bethlehem.

30. Main altar:

31. To the left of the altar is a bas-relief representing the Last Supper. Near the Last Supper is the chapel of the Resurrection of the Lord.

32. All the bas-reliefs and sculptures in the chapel are made of salt.

34. Chamber of Erasmus Baronch. It contains an underground brine lake with a depth of about 9 meters. The camera was developed in the 19th century. in a block of green salt and was named after the manager of the salt mines in 1917-1918.

35. A wooden gallery under the roof of the chamber is designed to monitor the condition of the salt walls.

36. Workings near the camera:

39. Fellow travelers :)

40. Even lower at a depth of 110 m is the Drozdowice chamber. The development remained after the development in the XVII-XVIII centuries. vertically lying block of green salt. At the beginning of the XX century. the camera was additionally strengthened incl. and with the help of a two-tier wooden structure, with platforms and galleries. Currently, exhibitions, concerts and banquets are often held here.

41. In one of the supports there are tablets with the texts of ancient miners' songs:

42. Camera Weimar. It arose at the beginning of the 20th century after the completion of the development of a block of green salt by a mechanized method. In the 60s, the lower part of the chamber was flooded with brine and a small lake was formed. Shoot in " tourist mode"The camera is very difficult - there is a constant light and music performance and the illumination of both the entire chamber and individual objects is constantly changing.

43. As the route progresses, tourists gradually descend 71 m down.

44. Camera Jozef Pilsudski. The chamber is formed from two adjacent salt workings; the lower level is located at a depth of 130 m.

45. When in the 30s of the XIX century. a route for tourists was organized, two workings were connected by a 10-meter tunnel, wooden stairs and platforms were built, and the lower part of the chamber was filled with brine.

46. ​​A special attraction for visitors was rafting through the tunnel, which was accompanied by fireworks displays and the music of the salt mine brass band.

47. Crossroads of the longitudinal road Kazanow and the cross road Poniatowski. In the XVIII century. the development of workings was systematized in accordance with the location of the salt layers. The workings that went from east to west (along the deposit) were called longitudinal drifts, from north to south - transverse.

48. More modern mining equipment is demonstrated at the intersection: on the left - a modern electric locomotive Ldag 05, on the right - a battery electric locomotive of the "dwarf" type of the 50s of the XX century.

49. Stanisław Staszic's camera. The chamber is named after an outstanding Polish geologist who visited the mines at the end of the 18th century. Salt in the chamber was mined at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is the highest output available for inspection by tourists. The initial height of the chamber was 50 m, after filling the lower part - 36 m. In 1944, the Nazis tried to open a shop for assembling aircraft parts here.

51. Skarbnik (Keeper of treasures). In the place formed after the expansion of the Poniatowski transverse drift, in 1968 a Treasure Keeper ("treasury") was placed. Miners for centuries believed in the good spirit of the mines, which warned them against danger: fire, collapse or explosion. The sculptural composition shows the lord of the Wieliczka dungeons, blocking the entrance to the collapsing drift.

52. Several of the last workings are very often filled with tables and chairs of restaurants, so there was no interest in photographing them.

53. From a depth of 135 m, tourists are taken to the top in a four-level lift (9 people can fit on each level) of the Danilovich shaft. The lift moves at a speed of 4 m/s.

P.S. The description of the workings is taken from the sites http://kopalnia.pl and http://wieliczka.krakow.ru.

Address: Poland, Wieliczka
Developed: from the 13th to the 20th century
Maximum depth: 198 m
Length: over 200 km
Coordinates: 49°59"00.0"N 20°03"04.2"E

A 30-minute drive from Krakow is a small town called Wieliczka. Every year, 1.2 million people come here to see the ancient salt mines (mines), recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Mine entrance. The building above the Danilovich mine shaft

The uniqueness of the Veliky mines lies in the fact that salt was mined here continuously, starting from the 13th and up to the middle of the 20th century. For 700 years, miners dug underground a 9-story city with a system of corridors and chambers with a total length of 300 km. Only 3.5 km are open for tourists, but even this section gives a comprehensive picture of how salt mining and processing technologies developed in Europe.

History of the salt mines in Wieliczka

In medieval Poland, salt was worth its weight in gold, despite the fact that the earth is full of deposits of sodium chloride.

Long mine corridor

Salt was evaporated from salt lakes and sea ​​water, and only 100 years ago, with the development of industry and transport, the development of underground deposits became cheap.

The mine in Wieliczka arose naturally - from a salt spring that formed millions of years ago. In the Middle Ages, brine was scooped out of a well and boiled in clay pots, and when the source dried up, the first miners went down the tunnel to underground resources. Already in the second half of the XIV century, King Casimir the Great issued a decree regulating the extraction and trade of salt.

Erasmus Baroncz's chamber

In the next century, reserves mined from mines began to be raised to the surface using the simplest mechanism - the gate. It was a drum reinforced with a shaft. Horizontal wheels were attached to the shaft. Pushing the wheels in a circle, the workers set in motion a drum, on which, during rotation, a rope was wound, pulling up the extracted salt. In the 17th century, the gate was replaced by a horse-drawn drive that lifted salt blocks from the lower levels to the upper ones.

Income from the Veliky mines increased so much that Casimir III the Great was able to rebuild the Wawel Castle in the Gothic style at the expense of salt profits.

After the 2nd partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, Wieliczka came under the rule of the Austrians. Austrian craftsmen not only automated the mining process by introducing steam engines and electric drives, but also turned the mine into tourist attraction. Visitors were led through illuminated underground corridors lined with salt statues.

Excursions to the salt mines in Wieliczka

The book of honored guests of Velichka includes the Russian Tsar Alexander I, the virtuoso pianist Frederic Chopin, the scientist Dmitry Mendeleev, the poet Johann Goethe and other prominent figures. Today, any tourist can visit the mine workings under the guidance of a guide, including a Russian-speaking one.

You can go down to the 1st level of the mine to a depth of 64 meters both on the elevator and on the stairs, consisting of 380 steps. Once underground, tourists inspect 20 ancient chambers dug in salt rocks for 2 hours. The tour ends with a visit to the Krakow Salt Mines Museum, next to which is a relatively inexpensive underground restaurant.

In addition, guests can send a postcard to relatives or friends directly from the dungeon. For adventure seekers, a special excursion program"Secrets of the Veliky mines", in which every tourist will play the role of a miner.

All participants, dressed in work overalls, with miners' lamps in their hands, descend into the dungeon. It is cool all year round in the Wieliczka mines (+14 °C), so even in summer season do not forget about warm clothes.

Attractions of the salt mines in Wieliczka

The main pride of Wieliczka are chapels, sculptures made of salt and underground lakes- containers of salt concentrate. Children visit the mine with particular delight, as there are statues in the form of gnomes everywhere. According to legend, these gnomes protected the miners from flooding and other dangers. In one of the chambers there is a salt monument to the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who, as a student at Krakow University, visited the salt mines.

Chapel of Saint Kinga

The miners built many underground churches where they performed daily prayers. The oldest of the underground chapels, dedicated to St. Anthony, was carved from a salt block at the end of the 17th century. The altar and sculptures of Saints Francis, Dominic, Peter and Paul are also carved out of salt.

The largest and most luxurious chapel was created in honor of Saint Kinga. Its interiors are furnished with bas-reliefs on religious themes. Among the salt statues you can see the figure of Pope John Paul II, who canonized Kingu as a saint. The floor of the chapel is made of whole piece salt, and a chandelier of salt crystals is suspended from the ceiling. Banquets, conferences and wedding ceremonies are held in the underground halls of Wieliczka.

Pit of Krzysztofory

Treatment in Wieliczka

Velichka is also famous for its medicinal properties. The underground air of the mine, saturated with salts of sodium chloride, calcium and magnesium, is useful for people suffering from broncho-pulmonary and allergic diseases. Since 1958, an underground sanatorium named after Professor Mechislav Skulimovsky has been operating in Wieliczka.

In the immediate vicinity of Krakow (within 10-15 km) is a small town called Wieliczka. Its main attraction is one of the most interesting salt mines in Europe, so interesting that an English geography textbook of the late 19th century detailed description Wieliczki put a small postscript that Krakow is located not far from the salt mines - ancient city coronations of Polish kings.

The phrase "underground mine" somehow does not strongly reflect the scale and grandeur of this attraction. Mine in Wieliczka is a whole underground city Ische, located on nine levels with a depth of 64 to 327 meters. There are 300 km of drifts underground, almost 3,000 chambers with a total volume of approximately 7,500,000 cubic meters. In general, being nearby, we could not help but explore this attraction.

The upper part of the mines looks very modest - a small house. You don’t even suspect that this is the microscopic tip of a huge underground iceberg of large rooms, huge halls and many kilometers of passages.

The salt mines can only be accessed as part of a guided tour. Excursions are in different languages, including Russian, only you need to wait for your language group for quite a long time. However, we took the advice from the guide, which we did not regret at all: tourists, not organized into groups, gather at the entrance, and once an hour a guide comes out to them and leads them to inspect the mines. The guide speaks Polish, but excellent guidebooks are sold at the entrance, including very high-quality translations into Russian. So you can go down into the mine together with a spontaneously arisen group, and then either linger, or, conversely, run ahead and roam the underground Velichka on your own. Which is what we did.

Another advantage of a spontaneous excursion group, according to the guide, was that we were taken on our own. long route. For example, we descended into the mine on our own, and not by elevator. The descent took place along such a staircase, which ended at -50 (fiftieth !!!) level (floor):

This attraction was formed because in the Middle Ages huge deposits of edible salt were discovered here. And already in 1044, this salt began to be mined, however, at first not underground, but from the surface. TO XII century surface reserves were depleted, and salt diggers had to climb underground. In many underground rooms, which were created just as a result of salt mining in these places (they are called “camera” in Russian or “komora” in Polish), the history of Velichskaya salt mining is clearly represented. The lion's share of the time during which salt was mined in Wieliczka, it was mined manually, using a primitive hand tool such as a "pick"

Salt was picked out from huge layers / stones, the resulting pieces were processed / with a file / and they were given the appearance of cylindrical barrels, and from the underground chambers where this salt was mined, along vertical mines (which are also called "trunk" in Russian or "szyb" in Polish) salt rose to the surface.

Salt had to be dragged to the places of rises

It was also necessary to lift pieces of salt with the help of manual labor.

In general, those were still working conditions

Confirmation of the terrible working conditions was the story of the Burnt Chamber (Komora Spalona). Its name is associated with a fire that happened many centuries ago in this part of the mines and destroyed all the protective and supporting structures that were made of wood, as a result of which numerous collapses occurred. Figures of miners, who were called "repentant sinners", were made of salt in the chamber. I'll tell you briefly what fires and "repentant sinners" have to do with it. When extracting salt from rocks methane gas was produced in the chambers. It is lighter than air, therefore it was concentrated in the upper part of the chambers, under the arches. Mixing with air, at a certain concentration, it turned into an explosive mixture that exploded on contact with fire. That's why fires happened. To prevent this, methane was burned out. This was done by special miners, who, covered with wet rags and holding torches on long poles, crawled along the lower parts of the salt mine. For this they were called "repentant sinners."

Where salt production had been going on for a long time, more free space was formed. And then horses came to the aid of people

The use of horse traction in the mine began in the 16th century, and the last horse named Baska left the underground labyrinth in 2002.

In addition to salt and methane, we also had to bathe with constantly appearing groundwater. This water also had to be collected and transported to the surface so that it would not interfere with the extraction of salt.

By the way, several underground lakes are still preserved in the underground Wieliczka. It's a shame we couldn't take pictures of them.

In general, a lot of salt was mined here - already in the 14th century, the profit from its extraction amounted to more than 30% of all income of the state treasury. And they did this for a very long time - several centuries, until this activity led to an imbalance in the rocks. In 1992, there was a catastrophic water leakage into the mine workings, the industrial salt production was closed and Wieliczka began to function only as a tourist site.

Let's walk through the corridors of this underground city:

Some of them are reinforced with wooden beams:

There are corridors with "natural" walls made of rock salt:

Rock, unprocessed salt comes in different colors. Dark...

And light:

In fact, a lot of things here are made of salt. Starting from the walls and vaults-ceilings ...

And ending with figures. And as small animals...

And rather big sculptures of people:

Here, for example, is one of the most unfortunate angles of the sculpture of Nicolaus Copernicus in the chamber-chamber of the same name :) Copernicus himself is not visible, you can see his hand holding something globe-shaped:

And in the photo below - sculptural composition from the Janowice chamber, which illustrates the legend of the discovery of rock salt deposits in Poland. Once upon a time there lived in the XIII century the daughter of the king of Hungary, who was supposed to marry the ruler of Poland, Boleslav V, and her name was Kunigunda, in short - Kinga. The father gave Kinga as a dowry one of the mines in the Carpathians, and the daughter, not wanting to get married, threw her wedding ring there. She still had to get married, so the ring magically moved from the salt mine in the Carpathians to Velichka, and Kinga knew exactly where to look for it from somewhere, and ordered the miners to dig in the place indicated by her. The sculptures in Wieliczka just illustrate the handing over of a newly acquired wedding ring to its owner:

The miracles, however, did not end there. Kinga had to get married, but she didn’t really like it. Therefore, she decided to forever refrain from performing marital duties, while remaining the wife of a Polish prince. The religious beliefs of the prince did not allow him to have mistresses, therefore: a) they did not have children, b) the prince was given the nickname "Boleslav the Shameful", and under this name he is now known, c) for failure to fulfill his marital duty, King was declared pious and even made saint, having been canonized in 1999, and for the fact that salt deposits were found with the help of her ring, she was made the patroness of miners.

Next is a salt sculpture of one of the most revered kings of Poland - Casimir the Great, installed in a chamber also named after him. It seems like he did a lot of good for the country, for which he was nicknamed the Great. His affairs are also related to the Wieliczka mines: at his behest, the Charter of the Krakow mines was adopted, and all activities related to the extraction and production of salt, after the adoption of this legislative act was ordered.

The chambers along which the tourist route passes are amazing in their size

The vaults of many chambers are reinforced with supports - structures made of healthy wooden beams.

Most of all, you feel the scope and scale of these chambers in the chamber of St. Kinga (the same patroness of the mines, who did not like to fulfill her conjugal duty), in which there is a functioning chapel

The Last Supper Made from Salt

The salt cross with J. Christ:

Chapel of St. Kinga is considered the largest active underground temple. Length - more than 50 meters, width - 15-18 m, height 10-12 m.

In addition to religious objects (there are several chapels in the underground Wieliczka), there is a widely developed tourism infrastructure. Underground restaurants, post office, even a conference hall - everything for tourists:

The chamber in which the conference room is arranged is one of the last on the way of the tourist route. During the tour, we walked about 2 km, starting from the first underground level (depth - 64 m) and ending with the third. At the end of the route, you can have a bite to eat in an underground restaurant, visit several underground souvenir shops and even take a souvenir photo that will become

Wieliczka is perhaps the most famous salt mine in the world. small town Wieliczka, located ten kilometers from the Polish Krakow, and annually receives more than 800 thousand tourists from all over the world.

The salt deposit, at this place, was formed 15 million years ago, and it began to be mined by decree of the Polish king Casimir the First in 1044.

In those days, salt was an essential item, it was used to preserve meat, fish, butter, it was also used for tanning leather and making gunpowder.

The king monopolized the extraction and sale of salt, so in the Polish lands salt was used as a means of payment, replacing metal money.

Drilling machine.

At first, salt was mined manually, and it was raised to the surface with the help of special shafts, and already in the 15th century, the shafts were replaced by the so-called gate - a horizontal wheel that was driven by people, and later by horses.

Such modernization significantly increased production volumes, thereby increasing the profits of salt miners, as well as the development of new mines and the deepening of existing mines.

Another miner's mechanism.

With the coming to power of the Austrians in 1772, the royal monopoly on salt mining came to an end.

The Austrian masters of mining significantly mechanized the process of salt extraction, replacing hand drills with pneumatic ones. They also built a salt mill, installed a steam hoist, and in 1912, a mechanized saltworks was built, which to this day, with minor modifications, produces boiled salt.

During the Nazi occupation, attempts were made to build an underground city in the mine, in which it was planned to organize the production of military equipment.

But, as you know, the plans of the Nazis were not destined to come true, and the salt mine remained - a salt mine.

While waiting for your turn to descend into the mine, you can stroll through the picturesque surroundings.

At the end of the 50s of the last century, when part of the underground chambers fell into disrepair, the extraction of salt in the mine was practically stopped, and work began to ensure the safety of the mines.

Checkout. The cost of the entrance ticket per person is PLN 55 ($14) with a tour in Polish, and PLN 84 ($22) for a tour in Polish. foreign language to choose from (English, German, French, Dutch, Russian, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Japanese, Ukrainian).

Descent into the mine is possible only with a guide and a group.

It is noteworthy that visitors were allowed into the mine as early as the 15th century. Mostly they were nobles and members of the royal family who wanted to get acquainted with the mine as an enterprise for the extraction of such a valuable product, but, over time, Wieliczka began to attract guests with its underground labyrinth of corridors and chambers, which aroused admiration for its charm and mystery.

Thanks to the proximity of Wieliczka to Krakow, many famous people visited the mine: Nicholas Copernicus, Tsar Alexander the First, Johann Wolfang Goethe, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, Fryderyk Chopin, Emperor Francis the First and many others.

By the 80s of the last century, about 800 thousand people visited the mine annually. By this time, all mines and tourist chambers were put in order and repaired, and several centers for the sale of souvenirs were also built.

In 1989 world organization UNESCO, which lists the Wieliczka Mine, has moved it to the list of endangered objects due to the detrimental effect of humidity on the condition of the mine. Fortunately, successful work to reduce the level of moisture, and the preservation of salt sculptures, made it possible to exclude Velichka from this list.

A staircase of 380 steps descends into the salt mine, to the first level, 64 meters deep.

The descent is carried out along the Danilovich shaft, named after the mine manager Nikolai Danilovich, at the time when this shaft was cut.

There are two corridors in the shaft: a staircase (for descending) and an elevator (for ascending to the surface).

Phone for emergency communications with surface.

A constant temperature of +14 degrees Celsius is kept below, therefore, when visiting the mine in the summer, it is worth taking warm clothes with you.

The mine has a ban on smoking or the use of open flames, as well as the use of electric lamps.

The route includes a tour of 20 ancient chambers connected by 2-kilometer passages. The tour lasts about two hours.

Just imagine: general complex mines of the Velichka deposit, consists of 9 levels, the depth of which in some places reaches 327 meters, about 3000 chambers, and the total length of the corridors is more than 300 kilometers.

Of course, only a small part of the corridors is open on the tourist route, with the main, most famous chamber-halls.

Salt "grows" here literally on the walls. For skeptical tourists, the guide allows, as they say, to taste, make sure of the quality of the product.

It is also worth noting medicinal properties salt, which were noticed by scientists as early as the 16th century.
Empirically, they proved that salt mixed with other components treats snake bites, acne, ulcers, tonsillitis, gout and many other diseases.

Such a direction in medicine as balneology (treatment mineral waters), is inextricably linked with Wieliczka, where treatment with salt baths has been carried out since 1826.

The underground sanatorium, founded in Wieliczka by Dr. Mieczysław Skulimowski in 1958, still successfully copes with bronchial asthma, bronchial inflammation and allergic rhinitis.

So, all tourists visiting Wieliczka are advised to take a deep breath of salty underground air.

Since at present the Wieliczka salt mines generate income exclusively from tourists, the tourist route here has been created to be as interesting and informative as possible.

The guide tells about all sorts of facts from the history of Wieliczka and salt mining in general, and various expositions with figures of people clearly tell about the hard work of salt miners.

The chamber of Nicolaus Copernicus, named after the famous scientist who once visited these underground corridors.

This chamber appeared in 1785 as a result of the development of a block of green salt.

On the 500th anniversary of the birth of the great Polish astronomer, the sculptor Władysław Hapek in 1973 carved this monument out of a lump of salt.

In the next room, also made of salt, there is a bust of Casimir the Great - the Polish king who issued a code of laws (charter), which completely streamlined and regulated the extraction of salt.

On the walls there are often tablets depicting the Guardian, an underground wizard, pointing the way to the chamber with the dwarves with his hand.

For the youngest tourists, a special, fabulous route has been laid here, which is associated with good underground gnomes guarding salt treasures and helping miners in their hard work.

Figurines of gnomes in the 60s of the 20th century were carved by the miner Stefan Kozik. The little bearded men are reminiscent of ancient miners: crushers, porters, drivers and carpenters.

Janowice chamber.

In this chamber, salt figures convey the legend of the discovery of a rock salt deposit - a miner gives Princess Kinga the first salt stone with her engagement ring in it.

Legend has it that the daughter of the Hungarian king Bela the Fourth - Kinga, before getting married, threw her wedding ring into a salt mine in those days of the Hungarian city of Maramures. After some time, the miners, gouging a mine in the place indicated by the princess, in the Velichka region, found salt. And in the very first salt stone that was mined was the princess's engagement ring, miraculously moving for many kilometers.

Since then, Kinga has been considered the patroness of salt miners. In 1690, Kinga was declared blessed (beatified), and in 1999, Pope John Paul II, during his visit, declared her a saint.

During the extraction of salt from rocks, the dangerous gas methane is often released. When mixed with air, it forms an explosive substance. Since the miners illuminated the mine dungeons with burning torches, this often led to explosions and, accordingly, to their death. Since in those days they had not yet learned how to weather methane from mines, it was removed by burning.

This was done by the most experienced miners, who were called "repentant sinners." Dressed in wet clothes, they crawled along the bottom of the working and burned out the methane with torches on long wooden poles.

In this hall, those same “repentant sinners” are just depicted.

For many centuries, salt was transported exclusively by the miners themselves. Large lumps of salt "blanks" - they rolled by hand, and barrels filled with fine salt, and smaller pieces - were dragged with the help of a sled called "shlafami".

Significantly facilitated the delivery to the pits laid in the 80s of the 17th century, wooden haulage skids (wide beech boards laid in pairs). Wooden boxes or carts, called "dogs", filled with salt, were rolled along such runners. "Dogs" were used to transport ingots, barrels and large blocks of salt, in addition, fine salt was also transported in boxes.

From the beginning of the 17th century, in salt mines, horses were used to transport salt horizontally.

Also, with their help, huge wooden gate wheels were set in motion.

Neolithic model.

Archaeologists have established that the beginning of salt mining dates back to the Neolithic era. Its production was carried out by the tribes of the Lendzel culture, as far back as 3.5 thousand years BC, using salt springs located in the vicinity of Wieliczka.

The process of salt production looked something like this: rectangular brine sumps were hollowed out in the ground, large earthenware vessels were filled with this brine. Then the brine was heated on fire, and the evaporated viscous mass was poured into small bowls in which the salt crystallized.

Not a "tourist" corridor.

An underground lake with a depth of about nine meters.

In this chamber, under the very ceiling, along the entire perimeter there is a wooden gallery that serves to control technical condition slopes and roofs.

The salt concentration in this water is about 320 grams of salt per liter of water, which is the brine that is currently used to produce table salt.

In addition to edible salt, Wieliczka also produces bath salts, salt for the pharmacological industry, not a large number of rock salt is used to make souvenirs.

Chapel of the Holy Cross.

Since mining work is not easy and dangerous, not a single work shift could do without prayers to God.

Chapel of St. Kinga is the most incredible building in the Wieliczka mine.

It arose in 1896, in a chamber hollowed out in a block of green salt. Its dimensions are simply amazing: length - 54 meters, width - 15-18 meters, height - 10-12 meters, and it itself is located at a depth of 101 meters.

The main architectural and sculptural works in the chapel are the work of the miner Józef Markowski.

The chandeliers of delightful beauty, which are also made of salt crystals, are suspended in the chapel.

Famous biblical scenes are carved on the salt walls.

Salt copy of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.