The Industrial Complexes at Ostrava

During the last weekend of Summer holidays 2021, I finally managed to visit all the nominated industrial monuments of Ostrava, which were included to the tentative list some 20 years ago. It seems that the nomination is in a dormant state, and no further action of the state party of Czechia is foreseen... Even though I really enjoyed my visit, and the Ostrava agglomeration was the biggest and the most important hub of the coal mining and iron production of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire as well as socialistic Czechoslovakia, it has no chance to be inscribe in my opinion. If you look at the list, there are already plenty of coal and iron relate sites, and do we really need more industrial Art Deco brick buildings, mining towers, and mining sites in general to be on the list? Even the story about a little village which turned into an industrial Magalopolis because of very rich deposits of coal is not very innovative. It does not mean that the site is bad, it is really great and the industrial heritage became the important "selling point" of Ostrava in 21th Century even without the WHS status. The coal mining stopped some 30 years ago. Nowadays, it is cheaper to buy iron and coal from China than produce it in situ. Thus, there was a danger of rapid decline of Ostrava. Fortunately, it did not happened and Ostrava is now green city with culture life which even Prague can only dream about.

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