Via TransilvanicaCacica
The salt that brought the first Poles here, and the sanctuary they come back to every year.
The salt that brought the first Poles here, and the sanctuary they come back to every year.
In 1792 the Austrians opened a salt mine here and brought in miners from Bochnia and Wieliczka, because nobody knew salt better. The Bochnia mine served the Austrian engineers as the model for this one. So arose the first Polish settlement in Bukovina, half a century before the Highlander villages.
The people who came were not chance settlers. They were craftsmen of salt. It is the only place in Bukovina where the Polish presence began with a particular trade rather than with a search for land.
The descent begins on the Fir Stairs, a wooden structure raised in 1806 by Polish workers and mineralised by brine for two centuries. At twenty-seven metres lies the chapel of Saint Barbara, its altar and pulpit cut into salt. Mass is still said there; the acoustics do their part.
Lower down are the ballroom with balconies, a salt lake dug by hand, and a sports court at forty-four metres.
Above ground stands the basilica of the Assumption. Inside is a copy of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, brought here in 1809. The present church, neo-Gothic, of dressed stone and red brick, was built between 1903 and 1904 to a design from Poland, and was consecrated on 16 October 1904 by the Lviv archbishops Józef Bilczewski and Józef Weber.
The patronal feast was fixed then for 15 August. Since then, at the Assumption, thousands of pilgrims come, many of them from Poland.
Cacica is 50 kilometres from our gate, about an hour's drive. Some accounts mention a smell of diesel in the galleries, so with the smallest children it is worth bearing in mind. In summer the brine pools next door are open, filled with brine from the mine: a cheap and effective bath for the joints.
The 2002 figures cover the whole commune of Cacica, Solonețu Nou included, hence the jump in the chart.
A multinational village from the start: Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians and Germans side by side. The 2002 and 2011 figures cover the whole commune, with Solonețu Nou.
The mine has worked since 1791 and is still in operation. You go down wooden stairs from 1806, past the chapel cut into salt. The visit takes one to one and a half hours.
Neo-Gothic, 1903–1904, to a Polish design. Inside, a copy of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, brought in 1809. The patronal feast is on 15 August, with pilgrimages from the 13th to the 15th.
Open-air pools filled with brine from the mine, „the sea in the mountains”. A cheap and effective bath for the joints, right beside the mine.
Hours and prices change from season to season; these come from the last two years' listings. Call or write to us and we will check before you set off.
The figures: Tiberiu-Constantin Ambrosie, „Considerații asupra evoluției istorice și demografice a etnicilor polonezi din partea sudică a Bucovinei”, Yearbook of the National Museum of Bukovina, and the censuses cited there.
Czytaj dalej
Your base
Câmpulung Moldovenesc is an hour from the Polish villages and an hour from the painted monasteries. The whole house, seven beds, parking in the yard.