Senje coal mine

Senjski Rudnik, established in 1853, is Serbia’s oldest active brown coal mine and the oldest preserved industrial heritage site. Located in eastern Serbia, 150 km southeast of Belgrade, this small town is surrounded by the most southern slopes of Carpathian mountains and deep forest. This picturesque landscape comprises also famous medieval monasteries, beautiful caves, waterfalls, thermal spas and mountain gorges.

Senjski Rudnik is a fabulous place for interpretation of social history and industrial culture. Coal mine complex is interesting mixture of living history and still existing contemporary mining. Historically the most important part of the complex consists of Aleksandar’s Shaft (1853) and associated buildings: administration building (1860), workshop (1922) and warehouse (1930), used as the Mining Museum from 1980.

The Mining museum is unique technical museum of coal mining in Serbia, but it also presents assets and social history of Senjski Rudnik. The most attractive part of the museum is still working steam-machinery and elevator, dated from 1874.In June 2009 the project of rehabilitation of the site and transformation of the Museum to modern national industrial heritage centre has been started, supported by the EU and Council of Europe.