What Life After Coal Looks Like

Coal mines were once a bloodstream for Romania, a source of economic vitality in the days of Communist rule. Ribbons of exhaust from smokestacks were a signature of a modern, 20th-century state, and the rich mines of Romania’s Jiu Valley employed tens of thousands, generating vibrant cities.

The mines, and the cities and the jobs, have faded.

Thriving communities were built around the mines during coal’s heyday. Residents recall that the theater in Lupeni was packed during Romania’s Communist era. Many mine complexes had their own libraries and clubs.

One miner’s job generated many others in the Jiu Valley: schoolteachers, shopkeepers, doctors and nurses. And toward the end of the 20th century, miners were represented by an aggressive labor union. It was a well-paying job; many miners made double the average salary for the area.

The mines had been subsidized by the Romanian government. But those payments have largely ended, sometimes as a requirement for World Trade Organization loans, which forced many to shut down. The European Union’s clean air mandates prompted more closures.

In the next few years, only two mines are expected to remain. And while coal now provides nearly a third of Romania’s energy needs, that share is expected to slip in the years ahead, as power plants shift to natural gas. In 1996, Romania produced 7.2 million tons of coal; now, it is less than two million tons.

The collapse of coal has cast a pall across cities in the Jiu Valley, cradled in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. Like other postindustrial regions around the world, it is increasingly being left behind. By 1989, almost 200,000 called the region home; now, only half that number do.

When the closings and layoffs began, household incomes and spending collapsed. Housing complexes emptied as families moved elsewhere for jobs, and local tax revenues sank.

The closing of mines “would have a domino effect in terms of jobs in the Jiu Valley, a domino that could only stop with the total collapse and depopulation of the region,” three Romanian researchers, Florin Faur, Diana Marchis and Catalin Marian Nistor, wrote in 2017.

Gavrila Vaduva has worked for over 30 years in the Livezeni mine in Petrosani, one of the few still operating, the third generation in his family to work in coal.

“We gave them our time, sweat, hard work and even our health,” he said, “and in return we want nothing more than a paycheck and a pension.”

Some residents of the Jiu Valley have fought against the razing of their surroundings. They argue that these abandoned coal mining complexes provide a collective memory and identity to the community. More than that, they point to the industrial heritage of the structures, now symbols of a different time.