Miners' Stories

KARVINÁ – A mining working model with steel supports, cribs, piping, handing groove, chains and a half of the carriage full of coal was installed in the lobby of the Secondary Technical and Services School in Karviná, which is the only one school in the Czech Republic again preparing fitters and electricians for the OKD mines. Under the roof arches, Vladimír Švec, a local teacher also met with Teodor Molnár, a former student.... more

ORLOVÁ – Baseball is a game that is more popular overseas. However, it has its fans here as well. For example in Orlová, it has been played for twenty years. In 1993, even a baseball team was founded. In 2007 it was transformed into a civic association... more

OSTRAVA – With coal, it is similar as with the knowledge of its extracting, of the pits, of the major events and of the important personalities. Over the years, a lot of it has come to the surface but a great part is still hidden in the unexhausted coal supplies. Jaroslav Klát (77) from Poruba in Ostrava is one of the people who have ended his active careers in mining and continued in research and publication activities.... more

HAVÍŘOV – The OKD Spokesman went to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Prague to receive a Medal there. On the second Friday of April, Vladislav Sobol (37) from Havířov was not however there as a representative of the miners, but as a private person. Minister Miroslava Kopicová appreciated his many years lasting work for the benefit of children from children’s homes within the “Duha Zámeček” (“Little Chateau Rainbow”) organization.... more

DARKOV – When someone has worked for hours, days, weeks, months and years in a mining environment, they must learn how to relax and rest in order to protect both their physical and mental health.... more

Jan Kurial, a miner through all his body and soul, who is now retired and works as a writer, and who used to work as a miner, drifter and mine technician in the Ostrava-Karviná Coal District and Kladno Coal District mines for 46 years, is also the author of the exquisite book titled “ČSM Stonava Mine 1958-2008”, published on the occasion of the fifty-year history of the mine.... more