A lecture by Petr Kubinský on the deepest mine in the OKR region.

This year marks the end of nearly 250 years of deep coal mining in the Czech Republic. On this occasion, we will revisit one of Ostrava’s most significant mines—the Petr Bezruč Mine in Slezská Ostrava. It was precisely in its later mining area that the first precisely located discovery of coal in the Ostrava-Karviná mining district was recorded on December 2, 1763.

The mine gradually reached extraordinary depths: it was the first in the history of the Ostrava-Karviná mining district to surpass the 1,000-meter mark below the surface of the Adriatic Sea, and it housed the deepest mining worksite in the entire district. Its winding tower towered over the city and, together with the Ema slag heap, was one of the most distinctive landmarks of the Silesian-Ostrava landscape.

How did the mine change over the course of its history? What was operations like deep beneath Ostrava, and what remains of them today?

Petr Kubinský will guide us through the history of a place that stood at the very beginnings of mining in Ostrava and whose closure in 1992 also heralded the gradual end of a pivotal chapter in the city’s history. The lecture will be accompanied by historical photographs and other materials—and you’ll also have the opportunity to see the original commemorative key used to symbolically lock the Petr Bezruč Mine on June 30, 1992.