Václavice-Bogatynia, 2021
Turów: thirty meters below the sea level
Surface mining of lignite, the lowest quality brown coal, has a long tradition in the Zittau Basin. This is evidenced by the flooded mines on both the Czech and German sides, which are popular among tourists today. Since the 1970s, a recreational area around Lake Kristýna near Hrádek nad Nisou has been in operation. In Germany, the popular “artificial” lakes Olbersdorfer See near Zittau and Berzdorfer See near Görlitz were created in the second millennium. All of them are located in places where lignite mining started two hundred years ago.
The owners of the local estate mined directly on the site of the present-day Turów Mine as early as the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, a power plant was opened here in Hirschfelde, Germany. As part of the post-war settlement, this part of land has been given to Poland. Mining in Bohemia and Germany gradually ceased, and the area is now used for recreational purposes. However, the Polish side decided to exploit its ‘new’ outcrop. The first unit of today’s Turów power plant complex was opened in 1962. During its expansion, it absorbed more than a dozen villages. Rybarzowice (Reibersdorf), which was culturally important, was destroyed including its castle and church. The expansion of the mine may well be stopped only by the border line with the Czech Republic. Its current area is roughly the size of Liberec, a city of 100,000 inhabitants. Its depth exceeds a hardly imaginable three hundred meters. If we were to put the Eiffel Tower at the bottom of the open pit, not even the tip of it would stick out of it. Its bottom is already thirty meters below sea level.
