A young woman from China was impressed when she went to Salina Turda, describing it in a video posted on social media on Monday (January 19) as an “underground city”.
“It’s not an alien planet, it’s TurdaRomania”, streamed this on TikTok. Valentina reported that she traveled 10 hours by train to Salina Turda, which she described as a “true underground city”.
Valentina is a teacher at the Confucius Institute in Bucharest, inaugurated on November 22, 2013, following the Cooperation Agreement signed between the University of Bucharest and Hanban – the Headquarters of Confucius Institutes.
Salina Turda is included in the list of historical monuments in Cluj county, developed by the Romanian Ministry of Culture in 2015.
The exploitation of salt from Salina Turda was definitively stopped in 1932 due to primitive technical equipment, low yield and competition from other salt mines.
The salt mine reopened in 1992 for tourism and treatments, being visitable all year round, and in 2017 the Iosif, Rudolf, Ghizela and Terezia mines were accessible, with well-preserved medieval machinery, the Altar carved in salt and the Staircase of the Rich made of filigree wood.
With the support of the European Union, between 2009 and 2010, renovation works worth 6 million euros were carried out, including treatment rooms, amphitheater, gyms and a panoramic wheel.
Between 2012 and 2014, a 50 m connecting tunnel was built between the Terezia mine and the Iosif mine for its inclusion in the tourist circuit.
According to the saltworks administration website, over 680 thousand tourists visit the Turda Saltworks annually.
