Stunning Photographs Explore Deep Inside Iron Ore Mine Closed 57 Years Ago

An amateur photographer has shared a series of extraordinary images taken inside a long-abandoned iron ore mine.

It's a haunting glimpse of a place, once the base of operations for many thousands of workers, now frozen in time as a monument to an industry that was the lifeblood of the region.

The Chrustěnice iron mine in the Czech Republic once ranked among the largest mines in the region, spanning 84 floors, with its lowest floor reaching a depth of 426 meters, some 120 meters below sea level.

For over 100 years, the workers living in what was then Czechoslovakia worked tirelessly to extract the siderite, chamosite, hematite and magnetite minerals contained within the rock around them.

It was a period of significant change for the country which was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the turn of the 20th century before independence and then occupation by Nazi Germany. By the time the mine closed on June 23, 1965, it was serving as a satellite state for the Soviet Union.

However, exactly 30 years on and with Czechoslovakia having split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a small part of the mine was reopened to the public.

Revisiting the Chrustěnice iron mine offered a chance to gain some sense of the period and the people who dedicated themselves to the difficult but necessary work associated with life in the pits.

It was an opportunity that was too good for amateur photographer and self-confessed "cave explorer" Ted Moravec to resist.

Moravec told Newsweek there was something fascinating about being where so many had toiled for the good of loved ones for so long. "It was very hard work in the mines, but it provided for so many families for 100 years," he said.

There's a deeper significance to the work done here too. "This mine was a part of the 'industrial heart' of the Austrian empire in the 19th century," Moravec said. "You can imagine that a lot of the iron produced here would have gone into the weapons used during the First World War. Mining intensified from 1908 to around 1918 [when the conflict ended]."

Eager to share a glimpse of what he saw down there with others online, Moravec, who regularly posts his pictures to Instagram under the handle trilobite.photography, shared a few more snaps to Reddit, where the images quickly garnered a big reaction.

A post showing an entrance way lit by a single yellow light earned over 2,600 upvotes, with followers wowed at the haunting sense of history behind the snap.

Eager to offer further insight into the inner workings of the mine, Moravec has shared even more of his photographs with Newsweek in the hope others get a sense of the compelling curiosity he feels for spaces of this kind.

"There's something mysterious and yet so attractive about the underground," he said. "Perhaps there's something about the Earth itself. One realizes how tiny and vulnerable we are—standing in what's basically a huge chunk of rock."

There's something else to it too. A sense of the history and humanity left behind in these places. "Photos of abandoned things, like this mine, hint at so many untold stories," he said. "The people who worked there. The marvels of engineering."

An avid nature enthusiast who seeks a connection with the outdoors through his photography, Moravec said he isn't alone in seeking out opportunities to explore these often-forgotten corners of history and would encourage others to do so.

You can take a look at a few more of his spectacular photographs below.

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