The Trepça Mines (, ) is a large industrial complex in Kosovo, located northeast of Mitrovica. The mine is located on the southern slopes of the Kopaonik mountain, between the peaks of Crni Vrh () and Majdan , and it is Europe's largest lead-zinc and silver ore mine.
With up to 23,000 employees, Trepça was once one of the biggest companies in Yugoslavia. In the 1930s, the Selection Trust gained the rights to exploit the Stari Trg mine close to Mitrovica. After World War II, under socialist self-management of Yugoslavia, the company further expanded.
Overview
The enterprise known as Trepça was a conglomerate of 40 mines and factories, located mostly in Kosovo but also in locations in Montenegro. But the heart of its operations, and the source of most of its raw material, is the vast mining complex to the east of Mitrovica in the north of Kosovo, famous since Roman times."Trepça: Making Sense of the Labyrinth-ICG Balkans Report N° 82, 26 November 1999– Retrieved 2/24/2013"
However, with the closure of several mines and factories in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Trepça mining complex in Kosovo now comprises only seven lead and zinc mines, three concentrators, one smelter, and one zinc plant. Mines are categorized according to their geographic location: Northern Chain: Belo Brdo mine, Crnac mine and Žuta Prlina Middle Chain: Stari Trg mine Southern Chain: Hajvalia mine, Novo Brdo mine and Kišnica mineTrepça Kosovo under UNMIK Administration, 2005, Summary Description of the Lead Zinc Silver Resources and the Trepça Mines in Kosovo edited by E.T made in Prishtina
This is all that remains of the huge complex that during the 1980s employed 20,000 workers, and accounted for 70% of all Yugoslavia's mineral wealth.
The mines still have a reserve of 60.5 million tonnes of ore grading 4.96% lead, 3.3% zinc and 74.4 gr/tonne silver, which translates as three million tonnes of lead, two million tonnes of zinc and 4,500 tonnes of silver.http://www.spathfluor.com/_open/open_us/us_op_mines/us_trepca_kosovo_mine.htm "The Trepca Mine - by Jean Feraud - Retrieved 2/23/2013".
History Middle Ages Origin
Stari Trg is one of the rare mines which was operational from the Roman period. Many constructions back in the Roman Empire were constructed including fortresses, wells, drosses, etc. The main fortress was built for the Roman city Municipium Dardanorum which was the capital city of a Roman province in Dardani. With the collapse of the Roman Empire and Slavic migrations, mining activity decreased leading to closure until the late Medieval Era (1000–1492). The long history of the successive influxes of the Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian and Turkish people helps explain the cultural mixing and the legacies of old grievances which underlie the chaos of the 1990s.Dushi, Minir: Trepça. Botime të veçanta XLI. Seksioni i shkencave të natyrës. Libri 9. Prishtina: Akademia e Shkencave dhe e Arteve e Kosovës, 2002.- Retrieved 2/23/2013
Full development
During his reign (1243–76), King Uroš invited the Saxon miners to Serbia, in order to develop the state's mines. The Saxons (called Sasi by the Serbs) built settlements and churches around the mines and were granted with keeping their identity. Trepča mine probably originated in the second half of the 13th century, as it was mentioned for the first time in 1303 in one charter of the Pope Boniface VIII. As Stari Trg was one of the Europe's richest mines of lead, zinc, silver and gold, King Milutin set a coin mint there, which was operational for over a century. Emperor Dušan appointed a special knez to administer Trepča. The mine reached its pinnacle during the reign of Dušan's successor, Emperor Uroš. On 11 March 1363, Uroš awarded Vuk Branković with the title of "ruler of Drenica, Kosovo and Trepča". Trepča was governed by Branković until 1396 when he was captured by the Ottomans. Also known as a major trading town, Trepča had representatives from the rich, trading cities, like Split and Kotor on the Adriatic, while trading city of Dubrovnik appointed a consul. As with the others mines in the Medieval Serbia (Brskovo, Rudnik, Janjevo, Novo Brdo), a square town developed around Trepča.
The mining activity answered the needs of the successive lords and their suzerains, for it financed military activities, such as the construction of fortresses along the Ibar valley for protection against the Ottoman threats. On 15 June 1389, a dozen kilometers south from Trepča, the famous Battle of Kosovo occurred. In 1390/91 Serbia became an Ottoman vassal, but the mine continued to function normally. In 1455 the Ottomans, under the Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, captured Trepča.
Ottoman Register of the 16th century
Several neighborhoods in the area of Trepča according to the Ottoman defter of 1591 were Islamised and the other neighborhoods contained people with a mixture of Christian, Albanian and Slavic names. According to Selami Pulaha, Trepča in the 16th century had a significant Albanian population. 13 heads of families in the neighborhood of Trepz and 22 heads of families in the neighborhood Mekisha bore typical Albanian names.
Downfall
Under the Ottoman rule, Trepča, and all the other mines (like Novo Brdo) began to depopulate and deteriorate. During the Austro-Turkish War from 1683 to 1699, the town of Trepča and its mine were destroyed in 1685. Followed by the massive depopulation as a result of the 1690 Great Migration of the Serbs, the mining activity ceased completely.
20th-century revival Selection Trust
After World War I ended, the newly formed Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (future Yugoslavia), instigated the geological surveys of the medieval ore mines in order to ease the payments of the war credits. Prime minister Nikola Pašić, who became the concessionary of the Stari Trg ore deposits, hired Fran Tućan to do the explorations. Tućan reported about the massive ore findings.
In 1925 a big exploration program was carried out by the British company, Selection Trust, which assessed the huge potential of the ore deposit and acquired the concession in 1926. The concession was obtained by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, American-born British industrialist who founded the Selection Trust, nicknamed "King of copper", from Rade Pašić, son of Nikola Pašić. Beatty became the first owner and a head of the modern Trepča mines. On 9 September 1927 he launched the Trepča Mines Limited subsidiary in London and the mines were operational under that name until the end of World War II, so the founding act of the later company said: "Founded on 9 December 1927, Broad and son, 1 Great Winchester Street, London ECZ".
Exploitation of the ore began in 1930 ("First tunnel" in Stari Trg). On 14 August 1930, the flotation in Zvečan (Stan Trg), was opened in the same place as the ancient medieval pit. The name Stan Trg is a misprint by the British administration of the mine, derived from the toponym Stari Trg which in Serbian means old place, or old market. Amazingly, the obvious misprint was not corrected in any later document nor mine plan. The flotation in Zvečan was operational until 31 March 1941. In that period it processed 6 million tons of ore. The ore was transported to the floatation first on the bullock carts, until a long industrial cable car transportation was built. A lead smeltery and refinery became operational in Zvečan in 1939.
During the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II, Stari Trg, the centerpiece mine, supplied 40 percent of lead used in the Nazi war industry."The Trepča Mining Complex- Paul Stuart, 28 June 2002– Retrieved 2/23/2013" After the German-lead Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, most of what is today Kosovo was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy but the area around Trepča was part of the German-installed Serbian state. The mines were under the direct German administration, allowing the continued flow of minerals for the production of ammunition and submarine batteries. Output of these products was continued in the period after 1945, in the new, Communist Yugoslavia.
Post-WW2 expansion
Since 1939 the complex was expanded and reconstructed on several occasions. After the World War II, Tito's SFR Yugoslavia nationalized the enterprise. Marking the 40th anniversary, on 9 December 1967 a new lead smelter was opened (at the time, the 4th largest in the world), so as the zinc electrolysis plant and an automotive battery plant. New flotation in Zvečan was built in 1985, in the First tunnel, closer to Stari Trg. The landmark of the Zvečan complex is a industrial chimney.
From 1930 to 1985, 131 million tons of lead and zinc ore was processed. Until the production ceased in 2000, historical total output included: 3,3 million tons of refined lead, 4,100 tons of refined silver and 3,300 tons of bismuth. Calculated in 2017 parity, production of the complex was $360 million in 1975 and $340 million in 1987.
In 1985, Trepča was Europe's 1st and world's 5th largest raw lead smelting facility and one of the largest for processing zinc. Production capacity included: 3.5 million tons of ore, 165,000 tons of raw lead, 110,000 tons of refined lead, 40,000 tons of electrolytic zinc, 100 tons of fine silver, 100 tons of refined bismuth, 72 tons of cadmium, 200 kg of gold, 20,000 tons of lead batteries, 280,000 tons of sulfuric acid, 100,000 tons of sulfur-phosphate and 150,000 tons of composite fertilizers. It produced over 80% of refined lead and over 50% of refined zinc in Yugoslavia.
The 1989 miners' strike
The 1989 Kosovo miners' strike was a hunger strike initiated by some workers of the Trepča Mines on 20 February 1989 against the abolition of the autonomy of the Province of Kosovo by the Socialist Republic of Serbia. The strike quickly gained support in Slovenia and Croatia, while in Belgrade protests were held against the Slovenian, Albanian and Croatian demands for decentralization. The strike council articulated ten requirements, which included obeying the 1974 constitution, stopping the alleged chauvinist and hegemonistic politics of the time, amnesty for the strike leaders, etc. The strike lasted eight days, being known as the longest underground strike to have been held. It eventually ended after the hospitalization of 180 miners and the resignation of the heads of the pro-Milošević leaders Rahman Morina, Ali Šukrija and Husamedin Azemi.
Collapse
This complex progressively collapsed during the last fifteen years, for reasons such as outdated installations; neglect and lack of maintenance, repair, and reinvestment; absence of control over production; robbery of equipment and workshops, and "Milosevic apparatchik" mine manager Novak Bjelic. Privatization attempts remained without great follow-up. The downgrade increased from 1990 with the reduction of Kosovo's autonomy by Belgrade, the increasing ethno-political tension and the resignation of most Albanian workers.
At the time, an estimated 25,000 tons per year of sulphur dioxide pollution were discharged by the smokestack, and lead levels in the air rose to more than 100 times the acceptable levels in the EU.
On 18 September 1999, the mineralogical museum of the mine, where guarded treasures had been accumulated since 1966, was plundered by thieves benefiting from the confusion. It was reported that the most invaluable vivianite specimen of the museum, more than 1,500 of the crystals collected inside the mine since 1927, and 150 specimens which had been given by 30 countries from all over the world had disappeared.
UNMIK inherited a large problem through its trusteeship of the assets, and in February 2002, Bjelic suffered from criminal court proceedings brought by the UNMIK-installed management board.
Kosovo War and after Shutting down